Silverlining was commissioned by Canadian food and beverage entrepreneur, Chris Lenz and the exterior and engineering works were designed by the world-famous Sparkman & Stephens. In 2006 Chris Lenz started making plans to build a luxury yacht and sail around the world with his family. Chris was very hands-on throughout the whole construction process and was an integral part of the level of success of the project.
Chris chose to build his 31.4 metre yacht in Chebilang, Satun in Thailand. Many in the yachting world thought that the required superyacht standard couldn’t be built here, but they were proven wrong. When completed in 2011 Chris was quoted as saying “This is the first-ever yacht built in Thailand to achieve the American Bureau of Shipping Maltese Cross, the highest standard they have.” (ABS Approved). He also said that building his sailing yacht in Satun saved him millions of US Dollars in production costs.
The initial idea was to build a 30 metre catamaran, but Chris instead decided on building a luxury sailing yacht and found an unfinished aluminium hull in China whilst searching the Internet. He then began to look for a suitable shipyard in South East Asia including Southern China, Taiwan and ultimately, Thailand.
When Chris first visited the Chebilang shipyard they had a canvas roofed shelter to house their yacht building projects. They were working on a similar size yacht to Silverlining at the time, which is one of the main reasons he chose this shipyard for the project. He struck up a deal with the shipyard owners and he paid for a new building to be constructed. At the end of the project, he signed over the ownership of the building and in exchange, they built Silverlining with minimal charges incurred.
Any superyacht is not complete without world-class fairing and painting. For this prestigious project, Scott Taylor and his superyacht painting team were employed. Chris was very impressed by the finished yacht and his most ambitious project to date was launched on 20th January 2011.
Silverlining arrived in Phuket in March 2011 and final preparations were made for a 2-year round world voyage, which was a dream come true for Chis Lenz and his family and crew.
