Designing the world’s largest sloop began with a blank piece of paper and a drive for superlatives. Her design progressed using hydrodynamic principles similar to those utilized in high-tech racing yachts – although carried to the extreme and modified for the MCA envelope. Her builder had amassed the United Kingdom’s largest base of composite technology while building minesweepers, yet 247-foot Mirabella V was still 50 feet longer and subject to higher loads than anything in VT’s prior repertoire. With input from composite design specialists from High Modulus, the original GRP hull spec evolved into a matrix of Kevlar, carbon, fiberglass, foam and resin. There are unheard-of numbers associated with this yacht. The main boom is 52 feet long on a 280-foot mast towering 300 feet over the water while setting 47,000 square feet of canvas. Fully 60 miles of electrical wiring and 7,000 pipes supply power and fluids throughout the yacht. Ballast is a staggering 150 tons riding at the bottom of a 33-foot deep lifting keel answering to a 165-ton hydraulic ram. Given this perspective, it is hard to find anything aboard Joe and Luciana Vittoria’s Mirabella V that is not innovative.