Evrima

Overview

Evrima is the first ship of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection — the venture that carried one of the world's strongest hotel brands to sea, and the project that opened the modern era of hotel-branded "yacht" cruising. She is a small ship by cruise standards: a vessel of roughly 190 m built for fewer than 300 guests in all-suite accommodation, deliberately positioned between a superyacht and a luxury cruise ship. Her biography is dominated by her birth. Begun in Spain as the planned Azora, she was delayed by her builder's collapse, by the pandemic, by supply chains and by a strike she was not part of, and finally entered service in October 2022 — more than three years behind her original schedule, completed at a different shipyard from the one that laid her keel. The dataset row for this hull records her tonnage and capacity but no IMO, dimensions or builder, so the remaining figures in the text are drawn from the operator's material and the ship's published particulars.

Key specifications

The dataset records Evrima at 25,381 GT and 298 passengers; published particulars add a length of 190 m (624 ft), 149 suites — each with a private balcony — and a crew of 246. Her suites were described at launch as ranging from 300 to 1,091 square feet, including twelve two-storey loft suites. The low guest count against a full-size ship's company is the specification that defines her: a passenger-to-space and passenger-to-crew relationship closer to a private yacht than to any conventional cruise ship, which is precisely the product the brand was created to sell.

Design and construction

The collection was announced in 2017, with a plan to build three yachts at the Hijos de J. Barreras shipyard in Vigo, Spain. The first ship's keel was laid in January 2018 and she was launched about ten months later. Barreras then fell into financial difficulty; in 2020 control of the unfinished ship passed to an entity affiliated with her owners, and in March 2021 the hull was moved to the Astander shipyard at Santander (El Astillero), also in Spain, for completion. During construction she was renamed from the originally planned Azora to Evrima, a name derived from the Greek for "discovery". The design that emerged is a yacht in profile — long, low, with a marina platform at the stern for water sports — wrapped around a hotel's interior programme.

Naming, launch and maiden voyage

There was no single launch moment; there were eight postponements. Originally scheduled to debut in February 2020, she was delayed twice in 2020 by the Barreras yard's problems (about fourteen months), four more times through 2021 and early 2022 during the pandemic (about sixteen more months), a seventh time in June 2022 when a metalworkers' strike in Cantabria blocked access to the Astander yard although its own workers were not striking, and an eighth time in August 2022 for supply-chain reasons — some 138 planned voyages were cancelled across the delay period. She finally entered service on 15 October 2022, with a seven-night Mediterranean maiden voyage from Barcelona to Nice (Villefranche-sur-Mer).

Career by operator

As a ship, her career table is one line — planned names Azora and the working designation "Ritz-Carlton Yacht 1" never carried passengers. The dataset's fate note captures the essential history in one sentence: first vessel of the line, completed at the Astander yard in Santander more than three years behind schedule after the original builder's collapse.

Onboard character

Evrima's character is the hotel brand made naval: a main lounge styled as a "living room," an observation lounge, a marina at the stern for swimming and water sports when at anchor, and dining split among a main restaurant, a sushi venue, a specialty restaurant — S.E.A., created with Sven Elverfeld, head chef of the three-Michelin-starred Aqua at The Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg — and a wine-tasting room. Ritz Kids programming for children aged four to twelve marked a deliberate difference from adult-only luxury rivals. The era-defining point is conceptual: she demonstrated that a hospitality brand with no maritime history could enter cruising at the very top of the market by treating the ship as a floating resort property — an example since followed by other hotel groups whose first yachts were ordered in her wake.

Major refits and incidents

Her "incidents" are the construction saga itself, detailed above: a builder's collapse, a change of completion yard mid-build, eight announced delays and roughly thirty-three months of slippage, plus successful sea trials in 2022 interrupted by protests outside a yard she was not striking against. No casualty, fire or grounding involving the completed ship was found in the sources consulted, and none is claimed. As a 2022 delivery she has had no major refit; her significance under this heading is preventive — the delays were the refit, carried out before she ever carried a passenger.

Sister ships and class

Evrima has no true sisters. The original Barreras programme envisaged three near-identical yachts; only she was built to that design. The collection instead ordered its next two ships, Ilma (2024) and Luminara (2025), from Chantiers de l'Atlantique in France — LNG-powered ships of 46,750 GT, approaching twice her size, with 224 suites for 448 guests (Ilma) and 226 suites for 452 guests (Luminara). She therefore stands as a one-off prototype: the ship that proved the concept, built by a yard that did not survive her, to a design the brand itself superseded before she entered service.

Fate and where she is now

The dataset lists her status as active and her fate as "Operating," and the researched record agrees: she is in service for The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, the first and smallest ship of a fleet that has since grown around her. No sale or retirement is contemplated in any source consulted. Her long-term interest is historical as much as operational — she is the founding hull of the hotel-yacht segment.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ritz-Carlton_Yacht_Collection, https://www.ritzcarltonyachtcollection.com/yachts/evrima, https://maritime-executive.com/article/after-three-year-delay-ritz-carlton-launches-luxury-yacht-cruises, https://www.cruisemapper.com/news/10717-ritz-carlton-delays-evrima-cruise-ship-maiden-voyage, https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/ship-operations/spain-strike-delays-ritz-carlton-s-evrima-debut-to-aug-31