A 220-metre ship with three giant sails is now the biggest wind-powered vessel afloat — and it carries barely 110 guests.
Orient Express Corinthian, built at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France, has entered service as the world's largest sailing ship by volume. Accor's Orient Express brand, best known for its legendary trains, has translated that Art Deco elegance to the water. The numbers are striking: 26,600 gross tons, masts reaching 100 metres into the sky, and three 'Solid Sails' of 1,500 square metres each — a rig developed alongside conventional LNG engines from Wartsila, giving it a cruise speed of 17 knots.
Inside, the scale flips. Where a typical resort ship of this size would pack in thousands of passengers, Corinthian hosts around 110 guests across 54 suites, looked after by a crew of roughly 170 — nearly two staff per guest. The flagship Agatha Christie Suite runs to 225 square metres with a 180-square-metre terrace, and the Zephyr Suite is even larger indoors at 231 square metres.
Food and drink get serious attention. There are five dining venues, headlined by La Table de l'Orient-Express from Yannick Alléno, the Michelin-starred French chef, plus La Perle, Le Cellier, L'Ecrin and La Terrasse. Eight bars and lounges are scattered across eight decks — including Le Wagon Bar, a nod to the train carriages that started it all, a Marina Bar at the waterline, and a speakeasy.
A veteran cruise writer who recently toured the ship described it as a reminder of why they fell in love with the sea: the craftsmanship and train-inspired design impressed, but it was the intimate atmosphere and genuinely warm crew that stood out. That tracks with what Accor is selling — less a cruise, more a private yacht experience at a scale no sailing yacht could match.
For travellers, this is a genuinely new category. If you've dismissed big-ship cruising as too crowded but found true yacht charters out of reach, Corinthian sits in between: wind-powered, suite-only, and styled like a floating grand hotel. Expect pricing to match — this competes with the likes of Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton's yacht ventures rather than mainstream cruise lines. Book early and look at the smaller suites if the Christie and Zephyr are beyond budget; the onboard experience is largely the same.
