HOKULANI Review: Nicole Kidman’s Golden Yacht, a Two-Floor Master Suite and the Best-Value 45m in Greece

Built for Nicole Kidman: the name, the gold and the suite

HOKULANI was commissioned by Nicole Kidman and delivered by Palmer Johnson in 2007. Kidman worked on the design specification herself and on the finish of the interior, which is why the materials run richer than a standard PJ150. The name is hers: Hokulani is the Hawaiian name her parents gave her at birth, and she gave it to the yacht.

Two things on board come straight from that. The champagne-gold paint, which no other PJ150 wears, and the master suite on two floors, built for one person who wanted a cinema, an office and a bedroom nobody else could walk into. She has since changed hands and been refitted, in 2021, and she has chartered in Greece from Athens since. The gold and the suite are still exactly as she had them.

The master suite: through a cinema, past an office, down into a retreat

No other yacht at this length gives the owner’s suite two floors. On HOKULANI you step off the main deck forward into a private cinema, a room of white cushions and a big screen with the door closed behind you.

Past it is an office with a desk and a porthole. Then a staircase takes you down into the cabin itself, with the bed under a row of portholes, a walk-in wardrobe, and a bathroom in cream marble and gold with a jacuzzi bath.

The stairs are the point and the price: nobody wanders in, and nobody who struggles with stairs should take this cabin.

For a couple it is a retreat inside the yacht. For a family it is where the parents disappear to.

Golden, sleek, star quality: a Nuvolari Lenard speedboat at 46 metres

Nuvolari Lenard drew the PJ150 as a speedboat scaled up, long and low with a plunging bow, and HOKULANI wears it in champagne gold.

On the dock at Nafplio she was the one people pointed at.

Inside she is pale wood, cream and gold, mirrors and soft light, dreamy rather than modern, and finished to a standard that tells you she was built to Kidman’s own taste and kept that way through the 2021 refit.

John put it on camera at the show: she suits anyone who is into design and wants something a little different.

Twenty knots: the Cyclades in a week, not in a fortnight

Most 45-metre yachts in Greece cruise at 12 or 13 knots. HOKULANI cruises at 20 and tops out at 26, and that changes which islands make the list.

In a comfortable three-hour hop, which is how we build a Greek day, she covers about 60 nautical miles where a 12-knot yacht covers 36. Santorini and Milos from a Cyclades base stop being a day underway and become a morning.

She is set up for it: fin stabilisers running and a gyro at anchor, and a 1.9-metre draft that gets her into bays the deeper boats skip.

The price is fuel, about 900 litres an hour at 20 knots and half that at 15, so tell the captain how far you want to go and he will plan the legs.

The sundeck: walls at the sides, open to the stern, a bar and a barbecue

Her sundeck is a private room with the roof off.

Tall glass down both sides keeps the wind out, which matters in the Cyclades in July, and the deck opens aft to a bar and a big barbecue with sunpads forward of it. Mo photographed the table set for dinner here and it is the kind of detail her crew do well.

Below it the flybridge lounge sits under the hardtop with sofas round a low table, and the aft deck has the dining table under the overhang.

The other four cabins: two doubles, two twins

Two double cabins and two twins sit on the lower deck, each with its own bathroom, each in the same pale wood and cream as the master.

The twins carry a pullman berth each, which is how she sleeps twelve. Read that as ten adults and two children; twelve adults is a squeeze, and the brochure’s “12 guests” should not be the plan.

Who she is for

• A couple who want the master as a private retreat, with the rest of the yacht for guests.
• A family of ten, with the parents in the duplex and the children in the twins.
• Design-led clients who want something different from a white boat.
• A group who wants to cover the Cyclades fast and sleep steady at anchor.

What she is for, and what she is not

Privacy and quiet first, then the design and the statement she makes at the dock, then covering distance.

She is not a party boat: no deck jacuzzi, the jacuzzi is the bath in the master. She is not for twelve adults. She is a 2007 hull, refitted in 2021, not a new build.

And the master is reached by stairs, which is the whole idea of it and the reason to give it to the right guest.

Booking HOKULANI for Greece: rate, VAT, base and what to ask

The published rate is 120,000 EUR per week, 149,000 EUR in high season, plus expenses: APA and Greek charter VAT at the rate that applies to your itinerary, on MYBA terms.

For the money you get 46 metres, eight crew, a suite no other yacht this size has, 20 knots and stabilisers both ways. Older classics at this length undercut her; nothing built this century does, and of the three 45-metres we compare in Greece she is the least expensive.

She is based in Athens, works the Cyclades until mid-July and the Ionian after.

Ask which cabin the children take, for the twins to be made up as twins or a double, and for the captain’s three-hour-hop plan for the Cyclades.

We have walked her and we put her forward as the one for covering ground in our guide to what 150,000 a week gets you in Greece, and she is the fast example in our piece on 9 knots versus 16 knots on a Greek charter.

HOKULANI and three more yachts in her class

HOKULANI and three other yachts in her class in Greece I would look at next if her dates are gone.

Klara Braga Jakobsen is Yacht Reviewer at DMA Yachting. She walks the charter fleet at the Mediterranean and Caribbean shows every year and photographs every yacht she reviews.