Arksen 85, the Aluminum Explorer That Crosses Oceans on 3 Gallons an Hour

An adventure company that happens to build yachts

The Arksen 85 is not the product of a traditional yard. Arksen was founded by tech entrepreneur Jasper Smith, and its website sells technical clothing, custom Land Rovers and expeditions alongside boats. The 85 is the flagship that the whole brand grew from. Motor Boat and Yachting describes it as inspired by Steve and Linda Dashew's aluminum FPB passagemakers, but reimagined by Arksen and redesigned by Humphreys Yacht Design as a more luxurious transocean motor yacht.

Arksen revealed the 85 alongside smaller models in 2021, when the first hull, Project Ocean, was in build at the Wight Shipyard in East Cowes with a starting price of £5.95 million ex VAT. In the end the first 85 to splash was Project Pelagos, launched in May 2023 for a private owner who planned Mediterranean family cruising with the option to go much farther. Project Ocean, the diesel-electric boat started on spec, followed. Searches for arksen 85 price or arksen yachts for sale usually lead to this short list of real boats plus Arksen's co-ownership scheme.

Built like a fast ferry, left bare on purpose

Wight Shipyard's core business is fast aluminum ferries and workboats, and the 85 shows it. MBY reports plating of 20 mm on the keel, 12 mm below the waterline and 8 mm above, using highly recycled aluminum. The superstructure windows are 25 mm thick to survive a direct wave strike without deadlights, exterior doors clamp shut with multiple lugs, and the lower deck is divided into three watertight compartments. Arksen claims 180 degrees of stability and enough strength to work through ice floes.

The hull is left as bare, unfaired aluminum with visible welds as standard, and the surface oxidizes into a protective layer. Owners can choose fairing and paint in navy, black, white or dune, but the bare finish is the point: no teak decks, no painted topsides to scratch and no stainless to polish. MBY tested the boat under Intersleek silicone foul-release coating rather than biocide antifouling.

Redundancy runs through every system. Four bunker tanks and two day tanks hold 17,500 liters of fuel, every drop passes three filtration stages that are duplicated so one can be cleaned while the other runs, and fuel transfer works through two electric pumps and a manual one. A sewage treatment plant discharges clean water, and the rudders can be steered with a hand tiller if all else fails.

Why the Humphreys hull sips fuel

Rob and Tom Humphreys are best known for fast, slippery sailboats, and their brief here was a hull that could beat the roughly 11-knot ceiling of a heavy full displacement trawler. The result is a low displacement-to-length, fast-displacement form with a fine entry, gently curved bilges, broad buoyant stern sections and a shallow transom, refined through CFD and two separate tank-test programs. MBY noted that the boat barely leaves a furrow behind it.

The numbers are startling. On MBY's sea trial in Greece, the Scania boat burned 12 liters per hour across both engines at 6.4 knots and 800 rpm, about 3.2 gph, and 5 liters per nautical mile at 11.7 knots and 1,400 rpm. Allowing a 20 percent reserve, MBY calculated 7,446 nautical miles at 6.4 knots and 3,500 at 11 knots. Power and Motoryacht reports about 5,500 nautical miles at 9 knots for the first boat, and Arksen quotes 7,000 nautical miles. Top speed was 13.9 knots on the first boat's sea trials and 13.6 knots on MBY's test.

It is also remarkably quiet. MBY measured 51 dB(A) at 6 knots and only 53 dB(A) flat out at 1,800 rpm, and its tester said he had never experienced a quieter motor yacht in 20 years of testing.

Scania simplicity or diesel-electric silence

The two first hulls look identical but are very different underneath. Project Pelagos uses twin 350 hp Scania DI09 070M diesels on V-drives, heavy-duty 9.3-liter five-cylinder engines designed for continuous low-speed running. Project Ocean has a Praxis diesel-electric system from Norway with three 200 kW generators, two 246 kW electric motors turning the shafts and 160 kWh of lithium iron phosphate batteries, plus solar panels, for near-silent running underway and at anchor.

Stabilization comes from Humphree electric fins and interceptors, with manually deployed flopper-stopper outriggers as a backup and gyros as an option. MBY found the fins dealt easily with beam seas, but noted a slight corkscrew in quartering swell, an autopilot that struggled with the surfing effect, a small electronic wheel with little feedback, and a hull that leans out of turns until the fins catch up. None of these are flaws so much as reminders that this is a long, slender, slow-turning ship.

Life aboard an expedition basecamp

The standard layout, as described by Power and Motoryacht, has three lower-deck cabins: a master amidships with a study opposite, an en suite double to starboard and a twin to port. Options include a main-deck master forward and one or two crew cabins in the bow. The boat MBY tested had been rearranged with a separate captain's cabin beside the owner's suite, two double guest cabins with sliding beds that convert to twins, and two bunk cabins forward, each with its own head.

The main deck is one open space with a commercial-grade galley, an amidships dinette placed to minimize pitching and a folding auxiliary helm under the forward windows for night watches. Entry from the cockpit is through an airlock of two doors, with a day head and heated locker for wet gear. Upstairs, the wheelhouse has the main helm, a navigation desk, wing-station doors and an elevated dinette and coffee bar, so guests and crew mix. Interiors by Design Unlimited come in Nordic or Boutique themes and use recycled and natural materials rather than marble and gloss.

Tenders come aboard by a simple winch and rope system; the MBY boat carried a 5.5-meter Highfield. The aft deck takes drones, sea scooters and other gear, and Arksen encourages owners to pledge sea time to ocean research.

Price, running costs and resale

Pricing has climbed with each step from concept to delivered boat, from £5.95 million ex VAT in 2021 to a list price from £9,950,000 on Arksen's site in 2026; Power and Motoryacht quoted from $12.24 million. Fuel is the cheap part of ownership. Even at 11.7 knots the boat burns about 15.5 gph, so a 3,000-mile crossing costs a fraction of what a planing yacht of this size would spend. The real budget lines are a professional captain and crew, insurance for a unique aluminum yacht, maintenance on the systems redundancy, and yard periods. Expect roughly $600,000 to $1.1 million a year for a crewed program.

There is no meaningful resale history yet. Buyers who want an 85 without commissioning one can ask Arksen about co-ownership or long-term charter in its fleet, or wait for one of the first hulls to change hands.