She may measure 220 metres end to end, but don’t mistake the Orient Express Corinthian for an ordinary yacht. Even after walking her for the better part of a rainy morning in the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire – the stairwells not yet dressed in marble and her corridors still echoing with the clang of fit-out – the game-changing intent is unmistakable.

Due to welcome her first paying passengers this June, she is truly one of a kind: wind-powered yet driven by advanced nautical engineering; vast by yachting standards, yet suffused with intimate design touches and idiosyncrasies. Neither classic cruise ship nor superyacht, she is more a floating architectural district, engineered to naval prototype standards and dressed with the theatrical confidence of a brand that has, since 1883, made an art form of travel.
Master artisan Etienne Rayssac puts the finishing touches to the bas-reliefs at La Table de l’Orient Express restaurant (Photo:Masha Kontchakova)

“When you have a vessel, that’s only one part of the story,” says Vianney Vautier, former naval architect at Chantiers de l’Atlantique, coinventor of Corinthian’s SolidSail system and now chief operating officer of Orient Express Sailing Yachts. “We may have the most beautiful vessel in the world, but if it has nowhere to go, if there’s nothing to experience on board, it’s not a product.”

Orient Express has never been about simply moving from point A to B. It is about orchestrating the journey, from long lunches to framed landscapes and the theatre of arrival. That philosophy now extends beyond rails and into hotels and, with Corinthian – and her sister yacht Orient Express Olympian, due in 2027 – onto the sea.
Dining on the deck of the ship’s sun-flooded La Terrasse restaurant (Photo © Martin Darzacq and Maxime d‘Angeac)

With three 69m carbon masts, Corinthian is high-tech, her rigid sails capable of delivering wind propulsion at unprecedented scale. Yet the interiors anchor her firmly in the Orient Express lineage. Walking the decks, Orient Express’s artistic director Maxime d’Angeac pulls back protective sheeting to reveal intricately carved oak columns and glass panels, marble floors laid in backgammon-board patterns, and lush carpets saturated in colour. “It’s a factory for producing beautiful things,” he says. “There are no insignificant rooms.”

Conceived from the structural stage in collaboration with Chantiers de l’Atlantique, d’Angeac’s design reshaped the vessel’s proportions. Across seven decks – five above the waterline – 54 suites accommodate a maximum of 110 guests, attended by a crew-to-guest ratio of roughly 1.6:1. Suite Panoramique rooms begin at 47 square metres, while signature residences – such as the one named after Agatha Christie – approach villa scale. Panoramic glazing keeps guests close to sea and sky, while advanced stabilisation ensures she sails flat, an early benchmark being that a pour of champagne should never slop over the lip of the glass.
The Corinthian’s 16m lap lane beneath one of its towering masts (Photo © Martin Darzacq and Maxime d‘Angeac)

“Over three days, you can really construct a journey,” d’Angeac says. “You’re not in the same venues; you don’t see the same bars, the same views, the same decor. Each space tells a different story. We’ve created breathing points. The idea is never to feel blocked or confined.”

The palette is deliberately warm: maroons, deep browns, smoked woods and copper-toned metals calibrated against the blues outside. Mahogany sits alongside onyx and marble; Tai Ping carpets are bespoke; fabrics hail from luxury houses such as Dedar; French artisanship is everywhere.

The stern forms the social heart: eight bars and salons as well as two private dining rooms across multiple levels, supported by kitchens double the standard size. At its centre is La Table de l’Orient Express by Yannick Alléno, a refined room flanked by high panels of dark, “moonlit” glass – glossy and subtly crumpled – framing the chef’s contemporary French cuisine.
L’Encre, the ship’s elegant seafood bar (Photo © Martin Darzacq and Maxime d‘Angeac)

Other restaurant and bar experiences range from countertop dining at L’Encre, where the design is as glistening-fresh as its oysters and flutes of champagne, to Le Speakeasy, with its blood-red bartop in veined marble and 1920s-inspired decor.

Beyond food and drink, amenities include a theatre, cinema, library, fitness space, games room, professional recording studio, tailoring service, children’s club, beauty salon and barber. Wellness takes top priority in Le Spa by Guerlain, incorporating two saunas, a hammam, an ice fountain, treatment rooms and outdoor loungers. Two pools punctuate the decks, while off the stern, La Marina is a technical marvel, unfolding as a sea-level platform for watersports at anchor.
Inside one of the ship’s spacious penthouse suites (Photo © Martin Darzacq and Maxime d‘Angeac)

By the time we step back onto the blustery Brittany quay, the spell of bespoke rooms, quiet rituals and technological prowess is complete. When it launches this summer, Corinthian will offer more than a cruise: it will be a sea journey, from start to finish, like no other.

Orient Express Corinthian sails the Mediterranean and Caribbean from June 2026; sister yacht Orient Express Olympian expands routes to Northern Europe in 2027.
(Photo © Martin Darzacq and Maxime d‘Angeac)