Axopar Tells the Untold Story Behind its Hull Design at the Cannes Yachting Festival

In just over a decade, Axopar has grown from a bold idea into a global force in boating, with more than 7,600 boats sold worldwide and international awards across its range. More significantly, Axopar has helped move the entire industry forward by creating the adventure boating category, combining drivability, efficiency, modularity and everyday usability without compromising performance. Behind this transformation is one defining principle: a boat always starts with the hull.

At the Cannes Yachting Festival, Axopar is telling that story in full for the first time through the Hull of Fame, an interactive and educational centerpiece on the Axopar stand. Created to reveal the hull-first thinking that reshaped modern powerboating and established an entirely new boating category, the display brings Axopar’s major breakthroughs, innovations, and new technologies to life, giving every visitor the opportunity to discover something new about the brand.

For Axopar, drivability has always been at the center of the design process. Every Axopar starts with the hull, and every element of the boat must earn its place without compromising balance, performance or the unmistakable Axopar driving sensation at the helm. The result is a boat built for real boaters — not for showrooms.

The driver’s boat, built from the hull up

Axopar’s hull-first discipline was born from a clear ambition: to build better boats and improve the experience for everyone onboard. Since the launch of the first Axopar 28 in 2014, this thinking has shaped a multi-award-winning range of premium motorboats and helped create a new type of boating, without losing the performance, confidence and driving sensation that define the brand.

Inside the Hull of Fame

The Hull of Fame tells a story Axopar has never fully told before. Created as a dedicated display at the Cannes Yachting Festival, it makes the innovation beneath every Axopar visible for everyone to see, bringing the brand’s foundation into the spotlight: the award-winning twin-stepped, sharp-entry hulls that are shaped by purpose and proven at sea, turning engineering into trust and performance into freedom.

Visitors can study the hull forms themselves through scale models that show how the sharp-entry bow, the exaggerated forward chine, the second chine and the twin steps work together beneath the waterline, alongside screens presenting on-water footage, design material and measured performance data. Axopar’s own design and engineering specialists are present throughout the show to explain the thinking behind each element and to answer questions directly, so that everyone stepping into the display can follow the reasoning from the first sketch to the sensation at the helm.

The Hull of Fame is a statement about what matters most in boating: not speed first, not space first and not optional extras first, but the hull first. The experience above the waterline — comfort, safety, efficiency, fun, control and trust — is created by what happens below it.

Solving the problems boaters have learned to accept

Over the last decade, Axopar identified a fundamental problem in the 20–45-foot market: too many boats were being designed from the top down, with drivability, handling and real-world performance treated as secondary considerations. The result was boats that could look impressive at the marina but felt less composed, predictable and rewarding at sea. Axopar chose to solve these compromises from the hull up. Handling, comfort and drivability come first, while cabin layouts and social spaces are engineered to support, rather than compromise, what the hull is designed to do. The result is confidence at the helm, a smooth ride in ever-changing conditions and a direct, thrilling connection to the water.

For many boaters, compromised handling has become so familiar that it is accepted as part of boating itself. A boat that drifts during harbor maneuvers, struggles to track straight at slow speed, lifts its bow heavily when accelerating, leans under uneven load, slams in chop, rolls at anchor or demands constant correction at cruising speed is not unusual in the market. For Axopar, however, these behaviors are not inevitable. They are design consequences — the result of where a boat’s priorities begin.

What makes an Axopar hull different?

At the heart of every Axopar is a carefully engineered combination of a sharp-entry bow, the distinctive exaggerated forward chine, a twin-stepped hull, a second chine, a low center of gravity and carefully balanced weight distribution. Working together, these elements enable the boat to get on plane instantly with zero bow rise while delivering rail-like cornering, excellent tracking and natural balance.

Axopar’s sharp-entry bows cut cleanly through waves, while the bow’s exaggerated forward chine helps create lift and directs spray away from the boat, contributing to a drier and more controlled ride. The second chine provides additional lift and stability as conditions become more demanding, helping the boat maintain balance and control. The twin steps pull air beneath the hull to reduce drag, creating an aerated cushion that helps the boat run lighter, faster and more efficiently. The resulting “tripod” effect delivers stability, safety, control, and thrill across a wide cruising-speed range.

Precise longitudinal balance and carefully distributed mass keep visibility clear for everyone onboard while maintaining steering feedback, control and comfort in choppy seas. With mass close to the waterline, the boat feels stable over wakes and at anchor, while precise balance helps it run comfortably over waves rather than slam into them. Positioning passengers lower in the boat further reduces the effects of roll and movement, improving dynamic balance and comfort at sea. Together, these features create drivability, stability, safety, and fun at any speed, and it is this hidden engineering beneath the surface that gives every Axopar its character and defines the experience above it.

Axopar’s low silhouette and sleek lines are not simply a design signature; they are essential to structural efficiency. Compared with conventionally designed boats of similar size and purpose, keeping the profile low reduces weight by up to 25–40%, supporting lighter, more fuel-efficient boats with a smaller environmental footprint and lower horsepower requirements for the same performance. Reduced windage also improves harbor maneuvering and stability in side winds. Axopar was the very first to develop sharp-entry bows combined with twin-stepped hulls. While stepped-hull designs are found among other brands today, none of the other brands’ hulls are comparable to the multiple innovations developed by Axopar and incorporated into an Axopar hull.

Learning from every hull to create a new category

Every new Axopar hull builds on what came before. Learnings from the Axopar 28 have carried forward into later generations, helping refine balance, efficiency, grip, drivability, and real-world behavior across the range. This development combines advanced CFD analysis with extensive sea trials and real-world performance data. By continuously comparing digital models with measured performance on the water, naval architects refine each hull until the mathematical model and physical reality align. The result is advanced engineering that feels intuitive at the helm. In real-world testing, Axopar hulls have repeatedly outperformed theoretical calculations, creating new benchmarks for what this type of hull can achieve.

Axopar’s hull-first philosophy reaches far beyond individual models. By creating the adventure boating category, Axopar introduced a new benchmark for boats that combine offshore capability, efficiency, modular thinking, everyday usability and an unmistakable sense of freedom on the water, and that innovation has helped move the wider industry forward, influencing what boaters now expect from modern powerboats. Today, Axopars are trusted globally by recreational boaters, professional operators and public authorities because their uncompromising design delivers real-world performance, safety, and reliability. The same hull philosophy can carry a family to an island, support a professional mission, give a beginner confidence, and give an experienced driver something to enjoy. This is where Axopar starts, and how Axopar keeps moving forward. Every boat is built from the hull up, and the Hull of Fame at the Cannes Yachting Festival makes this contribution visible, celebrating the award-winning hulls that make Axopar feel different, drive different and stand apart.

Visiting the Hull of Fame

The Hull of Fame is open to all visitors to the Cannes Yachting Festival, which runs from 8 to 13 September 2026, on the Axopar stand at Stand POWER 160, Port Canto. The display is accessible throughout show opening hours, and Axopar design and engineering specialists are on hand to guide visitors through the hull models, the on-screen material, and the performance data behind them.

More information about the Hull of Fame.
All Axopar releases are available in the Newsroom.

About Axopar: Axopar is a Finland-based boat manufacturer and one of the fastest-growing boat brands in the world. As the Adventure Boating Company, Axopar designs multifunctional, accessible, and innovative boats built around Scandinavian simplicity, unparalleled drivability, and effortless exploration. The multi-award-winning fleet spans 22 to 45 feet, including two all-electric AX/E models, and is supported by a global dealer network in more than 50 countries, with North America as the largest market. Designed in Finland and manufactured in Poland, Axopar has sold over 7,600 boats since its founding in 2014. In 2025, the Group’s turnover reached €170.4 million and it employed roughly 1,000 people.