Green Yachting Chismillionaire style

From Australian superyacht designer Scott Blee comes the Sabdes 50M, an impressive follow-up to his 230-foot Sabdes 70M. The artful vessel is a "mere" 164 feet of floating luxury, but it carries within its modest dimensions a surprising degree of earth-friendliness.

Rest assured there's no shortage of big-money opulence on board, including acres of wood veneer and glass, but this one hits the waves with a hybrid propulsion system that employs electric motors and a diesel-powered generator to charge a bank of batteries.

The system promises to be vastly cleaner and more fuel-efficient than traditional marine powerplants, and Sabdes says the 50M will have a higher cruising speed than comparably sized vessels. With retractable battery-powered electric thrusters fore and aft, the big boat has the ability to maneuver silently in port or through more sensitive marine environments.

Other elements ease the superyacht's eco-impact in subtler ways.

The eco-friendliness includes a bow design that reduces wave slap and wake, making life a little easier on aquatic animals and the shoreline. Inside, LED lighting preserves battery power, as does a greater reliance on natural cooling to supplement the climate control system.The steel hull's slender, aquadynamic shape gives the vessel a cruising range of 3,000 nautical miles (almost 3,500 statute miles, or roughly the distance from New York to London) and contributes to its relatively fast cruising speed of 25 knots (about 29 mph).

So - how much? If you have to ask...

More photos, courtesy of Sabdes.