There is so much that goes into the making of a superyacht, much like the making of a movie. The difference is that cinematic masterpieces are polished in editing rooms, while luxury vessels like Steven Spielberg’s Seven Seas are refined in vast superyacht spas such as La Ciotat in France. Worth around $250 million, the 357-foot Oceanco-built Seven Seas is longer than two Olympic-size swimming pools placed end to end.
When a yacht of that scale arrives for refit, it is no ordinary service call. It becomes a real-world stress test for the shipyard infrastructure itself. That is precisely why a 109-metre superyacht became the debut vessel for Atlas, La Ciotat’s new megayacht platform dedicated to servicing yachts over 80 metres.
The Oceanco giant with seven guest suites was the debutante that tested Atlas, La Ciotat’s new megayacht platform. It is built around seven workstations (six run by MB92 La Ciotat and one public slot) and a shiplift engineered to haul up to 4,300 tonnes. For a sense of the scale, Seven Seas is a diesel-powered 4,444 GT heavyweight, kitted out with two swimming pools, a movie theater, and a helicopter landing area at the bow. That is a lot of yacht, but Atlas was built for exactly this moment.
After 30 months of construction and a reported $91 million price tag, the platform’s headline feature is a 100-meter-long lift capable of raising more than 3,500 tonnes in one go. Like Spielberg himself, Atlas makes the biggest productions look effortless.
It runs on 20 chain-jack units, ten on each side of the pit, each with two closed-loop chains for 100 percent redundancy per jack, far more robust than a conventional wire-rope lift. Suddenly, watching Seven Seas rise out of the water looks almost effortless. Like a hulk in action, the yard lifted Seven Seas like a dainty damsel and transferred her inland for heavier repairs and maintenance. After the October 2024 haul-out, the Atlas shiplift and transfer system was formally validated by Lloyd’s Register at a 3,500-tonne certified working load, following an audited, near-limit proof operation.
It should be known that a Lloyd’s Register working-load certificate is one of the more conservative benchmarks. It is achieved after reviewing design calculations and drawings for the lift and transfer system, checking materials, welding, and fabrication against class rules. They also verify redundancy in the load path and conduct a full-scale proof operation close to the intended working load, then check actual loads, deflections, synchronization, alarms, and emergency stops.
Atlas is one of the largest superyacht shiplifts in Europe, and the largest in France, and it has carried some very famous superyachts like Jeff Bezos’ $500 million Koru and $75 million Abeona, the $450 million Dragonfly owned by Sergey Brin, the $300 million Launchpad yacht of Mark Zuckerberg, and Eric Schmidt’s Whisper superyacht, among others.
