▶ Watch: Building Dilbar — Lürssen's construction film of the 156-metre yacht (official Lürssen manufacture film) — https://cdn.lurssen.com/videos/new-build/manufacture/02_1080q23.mp4
Nobody welds a 156-metre yacht together one plate at a time. At Lürssen, the German yard that delivered Dilbar in 2016, a yacht is built in sections — block construction. Entire multideck segments of hull and superstructure are built as separate units and outfitted as they go — piping run, cables pulled, systems preinstalled — then brought together at the building dock for final assembly.
Dilbar is the extreme case of that method, and Lürssen filmed it. The construction film on the yard's manufacturing page is explicitly a film of this yacht: cranes and trades at work on the 156-metre, 15,917-tonne hull that would become, by gross tonnage, the largest motor yacht in the world. Volume is the harder record — a longer yacht can be a slimmer yacht. Dilbar's title rests on what is inside the hull: 3,800 square metres of living space, on the yard's delivery figures.
The workforce is the other half of the story: hundreds of specialists — welders, electrical engineers, woodworkers, painters and finishers — coordinated across a multiyear programme. Dilbar's contract time was 52 months, and the yard's delivery release put numbers to the labour: more than 1,100 kilometres of cabling fitted, 10,000 square metres of surface faired and painted. Lürssen called her one of the most complex yachts it had ever built, and the trade press reporting her June 2016 delivery repeated the judgement.
What the process was in service of is visible in the finished yacht. Espen Øino International drew the exterior — a classic profile, a light ivory hull with bronze accents — and Winch Design created the interior. Her 25-metre pool holds 180 cubic metres of water and remains, on Lürssen's figures, the largest pool ever installed on a yacht. Her diesel-electric plant was quoted at delivery at 30,000 kilowatts, good for 22.5 knots cruising.
Previously's Take
The finished photographs make Dilbar look inevitable, as if yachts this size arrive. The construction film tells the truth: she arrived in pieces, each one already carrying its wiring and pipework, lifted into place by people who had planned the lift the way sailors plan a passage. Block construction is how you keep quality alive at a scale where a mistake cannot be walked back — finish the small thing properly, then join it to the next one.
The numbers
Sources · 4 sources
- Lürssen — "Bespoke luxury yacht manufacture" (block construction; the page's film is identified on the page as showing the 156-metre Dilbar) and "World's largest-ever bespoke superyacht Dilbar" (15,917 tonnes; 25 m / 180 m³ pool; Øino exterior; Winch interior)
- SuperyachtNews, 24 June 2016 — "Lürssen confirms the delivery of 156m Dilbar" (15,917 GT; most complex build judgement)
- BOAT International — Dilbar profile and "Dilbar: 10 facts" (15,917 GT; 3,800 m² of living space; delivered 2016)
- Lürssen delivery release, republished by The World of Yachts, 2016 (52-month contract time; 1,100 km of cabling; 10,000 m² faired and painted)
Photographs: Lürssen · Lürssen · Lürssen
