Al Khalilah

Al Khalilah ('friend' for Arabic)

When working along the riviera one gets to see various yachts that ply the milk run year after year, I've spotted Al Khalilah on various occasions, here she's off Portofino in 2023, I've also spotted her wintering in Toulon back in 2018 if memory serves me right. Most of the modern yachts are the typical wedding cake fashioned gin palaces without much character, others the old classics and then we got the futuristic looking ones. Here Khalilah is probably the one that I like the best if I would have to choose in terms of design, personally I would probably not take her out in bad weather or over an ocean, but for the riviera run I think she fits the bill for the glitzy A listers. With her LOA of 50m I think she's better off shipped on the yacht transports than going on her own bottom, saves in wear and tear and running hours.

Al Khalilah

Khalilah has actually been around for some time, she was built in 2014 by Timur Mohamed's Palmer Johnson shipyard and despite having a carbonfiber hull I think she has survived the tooth of time quite well. It appears she was upgraded in 2020 with a wider stern platform and new stabilisers and had the main engines refitted in 2023 which is a good achievement for anything that is not made out of steel. For propulsion she has 2 thirsty MTU's and with a top speed of 24kts, and with a cruising speed of 15kts she's fast enough to city hop along the coast and makes passage planning quite easy if the guests prefers multiple locations far apart.

Al Khalilah

As per the Boat International article by Cecile Gauert in 2022 she is assembled and outfitted in the United States but for the hull construction they contracted the expertise of a Norwegian outfit, Brødrene Aa, specialising in plastic carbon composites. Hull and machinery was built in Norway and classed by DNV and then shipped to the US. It was the first carbon composite hull of this size ever built. The delivery skipper that with top speed her con's are 1000ltrs/h whereas it goes down to 159ltrs/h enabling her to cross the Atlantic with a tankage of 41cu.m. of diesel. She also seems to have been listed for sale now in the beginning of 2025 for 20mil so she definitely is still not cheap and cheerful. 

Even the Khalilah tenders are shaped like the mothership

Specifications of Khalilah as per Fraser yachts (click brochure top right for more pictures of her interior and exterior features). 

Classification & Flag State
Class: Registro Italiano Navale (RINA)
Flag: Marshall Islands

IMO no: 9744348

Construction & Design
Built: 2014, hull no PJ48#1
Builder: Palmer Johnson
Hull Material: Carbon fiber
Model: SuperSport series
Exterior Designer: Berkeley March, Palmer Johnson

Interior Designer: Palmer Johnson

Dimensions & Volume
Length 49.5m (162'5")
Beam 10.8m (35'5")
Draft 1.9m (6'3")
Gross Tonnage 490 GT

Performance & Engines
Cruising speed: 15 Knots
Max speed: 24 Knots
Cruise range: 2,280 nm
Range: 3,400 nm
Engines: 2 x MTU16V MTU diesel M94 (2600 hp)

Generators: 2 x Kohler (80kW)

Fuel capacity: 41600litres

Features
Stabilizers: Zero speed & dynamic

Accommodation
Guests 11 (cruising & sleeping)
Staterooms: 5
Cabins: Double (4) Twin (1) Triple (1)
Crew: 9

Al Khalilah General arrangement

Credit: Fraser yachts