Full stretch: A review of Wider's first catamaran Acali

The WiderCat 92 Acali shows Italian builder Wider hasn’t lost its appetite for innovation, says Kevin Koenig.

Wider has always defined itself by its, well, width. From the beginning, when it launched the avant-garde Wider 42 back in 2011, the builder has shown an obsession with maximising deck space. That boat, if you’ll recall, was one of the first to have expanding terraces on its aft deck. Wider has now taken that idea and pushed it to a logical conclusion – its first ever catamaran, the WiderCat 92. Hull No 1, named Acali, splashed in January 2024 and was delivered to her owners in May of that year, before her official debut at the 2024 Cannes Yachting Festival.

Wider enlisted veteran Milan-based designer Luca Dini to do both interiors and exteriors, and he did not hold back. The lines of the WiderCat will not leave the eye bored. High bulwarks and an imposingly tall flybridge give the yacht a look of solidity and a coiled musculature that is immediately noticeable. A raked bow portion peals back into a zigzagging sheer line that is mimicked by the lines of the flybridge.

“The aim behind the design of the WiderCat 92 was to create a catamaran that externally conveys the lines and elegance of a refined yacht, while integrating innovative solutions and a strong sense of balance,” says Dini of his creation. “We wanted to move away from the traditional, utilitarian look of many catamarans and instead offer a silhouette that embodies beauty, dynamism and harmony – a yacht that feels light, graceful and contemporary.”

Onboard space, however, was not sacrificed for aesthetics. As if the catamaran’s 12-metre beam was not enough, there are also flip-down terraces forward of the beach club that increase the vessel’s entertainment area beyond what any 28-metre boat should rightly be able to claim. She is simply huge, and that quality has made her attractive to owners sizing down out of bigger boats. 

“So far all of the clients that have chosen this boat have come from larger yachts,” says Marcello Maggi, president of W-Fin Sarl, the holding company that owns Wider. “The main challenge for the WiderCat 92 was to bring the content and comfort of a superyacht to a boat under 24 metres (load line length). By carefully studying the segment, we understood that there was an interesting gap to fill in this sense.”

To this end, the yacht’s interior is as eye-catching as her outer shell. The area where the vessel’s 12-metre beam is perhaps most evident is in a spacious saloon with a dining table amidships and a seating area to starboard. The space is replete with asymmetrical shapes seen on the sole, as well as on some of the walls, lending it a 70s-chic look, to my eye. 

The forward master on the main deck is a high point for Acali, as it takes full advantage of the beam and has a sliding glass door forward that leads to an al fresco owner’s terrace. The combination of interior and exterior spaces, when paired with the beam, make the master feel like it belongs on a 45-metre monohull.

The yacht has three guest cabins on the lower level. Mirroring VIPs aft have cool little details such as leather wraps around the bendable reading lights on the headboards, but the real star of the show in these cabins is the private access through a watertight door that leads to the fold-out terraces and the beach club. Imagine waking up in the morning and being able to slide out directly on a paddleboard in some paradisical cove.

When it’s time to find a new cove to play in, the captain drives the Wider from a bridge with a reverse-raked windshield and good lines of sight. The yacht has a diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system with twin electric motors delivering 500kW each to the thrusters. 

There are also two 357kW generators at play, as well as an advanced battery management system that helps improve the boat’s overall efficiency. Acali can also cruise in ZEM (zero-emissions mode) for 43 kilometres at six knots, and run on battery power alone at anchor for more than half a day. Underway the yacht has a top speed of 12 knots, with a fast cruise of 10 knots and a 1,000-nautical-mile range at eight knots – enough to get from Monaco to Mykonos without refuelling.

That’s a journey that can be undertaken in style and comfort on board this WiderCat 92, a yacht that combines forward-thinking tech with sharp design and a degree of liveability that is hard to match at this length. For catamaran lovers, or even monohull diehards looking for something new, this is a boat that should be approached with a mind wide open.

First published in the June 2025 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.