On the morning of 29 April 2026, at the Joubert graving dock in Saint-Nazaire, a French Orthodox archbishop blessed a 220-metre vessel, the Marseillaise was played, and the Balthazar of champagne broke against the hull as it was intended to break. The Orient Express Corinthian — the world’s largest sailing yacht — had been formally named. Three days later, she departed Saint-Nazaire for the French Riviera and her inaugural Mediterranean season.
The Corinthian is several things at once: a $400-million ship, the most ambitious wind-propulsion project in modern shipbuilding, a return of the Orient Express brand to maritime travel 140 years after its first trains, and the linchpin of the Accor-LVMH strategic partnership that began in 2024. The combination is unusual, and the resulting vessel does not resemble anything else at sea.
The proposition
Where Four Seasons Yachts and Ritz-Carlton have built motor yachts that resemble residential hotels at scale, Orient Express has chosen the harder problem. The Corinthian is a sailing yacht — a true sailing yacht, designed by Chantiers de l’Atlantique to harness wind power for up to 100 percent of propulsion in favourable conditions. Three masts, each 320 feet tall and rotating through 360 degrees, carry rigid SolidSail panels totalling 16,145 square feet. The masts cant to 70 degrees to clear the world’s great bridges. Sea trials in February 2026 confirmed that the vessel made 12 knots under sail alone in 20 knots of wind.
When wind is not available, a hybrid system powered by liquefied natural gas takes over. Hydrogen propulsion is engineered as a future option. An AI-driven detection system minimises the risk of marine mammal collisions. Dynamic positioning eliminates anchoring over delicate seabeds.
This is, in other words, the only ship in the hotel-branded yacht category that proposes the trip itself as the experience. Where the Four Seasons silhouette echoes the Christina O, the Corinthian’s silhouette echoes nothing. There is no precedent for a luxury sailing vessel at this scale.
The interiors
If the rigging is futurist, the interiors are unapologetically nostalgic. Maxime d’Angeac, Orient Express’s artistic director, has built a 220-metre homage to the Art Deco heritage of the original Orient Express — a tradition that traces to 1883, when the first train ran from Paris to Constantinople. The historic-themed cabin uses luggage racks and vintage lights sourced from the original train. The carpet in the 20-seat cinema draws on Suzanne Lalique’s flower bouquet glass panels. Materials are sourced from European artisans: Jean Brieuc’s wood embroidery, Franck Benito’s engraved crystal lights, French sculptor Etienne Rayssac’s sculpture en plâtre panels in the main lobby.
There are 54 suites for 110 guests — ranging from 484 to 2,475 square feet — across four decks, each with panoramic views, dedicated butler service, and a fully inclusive package. Five Michelin-level restaurants are overseen by executive chef Yannick Alléno, with the signature dining venue, La Table de l’Orient Express, occupying the only double-height space on board. Late-night life happens in a velvet-lined wagon bar with cabaret aesthetics and DJ decks. Guerlain operates the spa — its first at sea — with a hammam, sauna, tepidarium, and movement studio.
The itineraries
From May through October 2026, the Corinthian sails the Mediterranean and Adriatic. Itineraries run from one to four nights, designed to combine into longer voyages without repeat stops. The brand’s stated ambition is “to follow the wind” — the ship goes where the wind goes, with the schedule built around prevailing conditions rather than fixed deadlines. Ports include Monaco, Portofino, Saint-Tropez, the Amalfi Coast, and Venice during the Biennale and Mostra.
In autumn the ship crosses the Atlantic for a Caribbean winter season. In 2027, when the second SolidSail vessel — the Orient Express Olympian, floated out on 17 April 2026 — joins the fleet, itineraries will extend to the eastern Mediterranean and Northern Europe.
What the project signals
There is something philosophically interesting about Accor’s choice here. The other hotel-brand yachts are essentially floating apartments. The Corinthian is a sailing vessel, with all the romantic baggage and operational unpredictability that implies. Philippe Brault, the company’s yacht president, has acknowledged frankly: “The only thing where we are not as good as a yacht is the flexibility.”
But flexibility may not be what the Corinthian’s audience wants. The proposition is the journey itself — the SolidSail engineering, the wind-driven schedule, the Maxime d’Angeac interiors that reach back to the most romantic chapter in European travel. Accor and LVMH have bet that the experience of arriving in Portofino under three carbon-fibre masts is materially different from arriving in Portofino on a motor yacht, and that the difference is worth the premium.
The Corinthian is currently somewhere in the Mediterranean, following the wind. She will be there until October.
Explore the inaugural voyages on the official Orient Express Sailing Yachts website.
Source of the image: Orient Express
