In an industrial area near Pisa, Italy, lies Overmarine Group’s next generation of metal yachts. The name of the new 54 metre flagship fits like a glove – the first Mangusta GranSport 54 is called El Leon, and this beast can really roar, with a top speed of 30 to 31 knots.
El Leon looks like a Mangusta on steroids: leaner, more muscular and aggressive. It would be easy to focus first on the exterior design, penned by Alberto Mancini in close consultation with the shipyard. The rush of fluid lines with a sharply slanted windshield looks potent – a lion lying low, ready to pounce. However, the story of the GranSport really starts with the rise of a new generation of boaters and a very capable aluminium hull developed to cater to them. “In our opinion, the idea of yachting is changing,” says Francesco Frediani, Overmarine Group’s commercial director. “There are first-time buyers who have a different perception of boating. They are younger, are sensitive to technical issues, but more than that they want to live an adventure on board.” In other words, they don't necessarily want to stick to the familiar yachting Meccas. They want to be able to go everywhere.
Over the years, the builder has made enormous strides in extending the cruising range of its Mangustas, which started as luxurious express cruisers ideally suited to port-hopping around the Mediterranean. By 2014, it had perfected its Mangusta 165, built in composite, a formula that included quadruple MTU engines and Kamewa water-jets for improved efficiency and increased range. However, transatlantic capability remained out of reach; to get across the Atlantic, Mangustas had to travel on a transport ship – and plenty did, as the jet- or Arneson-driven boats are ideally suited to cruising in the Bahamas, for example.
Overmarine’s first stab at building displacement-type yachts was the Mangusta Oceano line. The builder tapped a young Italian designer, who worked well with the brand’s DNA. The first yacht born of the collaboration with Mancini, the Mangusta Oceano 43, was the yard’s first metal yacht in decades, although the company’s CEO, Maurizio Balducci, has long experience of building boats in metal. When Overmarine Group built its new sheds near Pisa a few years ago, it was precisely to expand its metal-building capability with the goal of building larger yachts.
About five years ago, the yard started toying with the idea of a sort of hybrid between a displacement yacht and a Mangusta; a boat that would be fast as well as transatlantic. “We are strong believers in the Maxi Open concept,” Frediani says, “and we wanted to combine in one concept our experience in fast, high-efficiency hulls with the ability to go long distances while maintaining high performance and comfort – a real fast displacement yacht,” one as comfortable at top speed as it is capable of crossing the Atlantic. After studying the existing options for this fast-growing segment, Mangusta decided it needed to develop its own hull as few, if any, satisfied the top-speed requirement, without compromising on other specifications, such as beam.
The shipyard started with basic parameters: it wanted to develop a yacht between 45 and 50 metres and under 500 gross tonnes. Although the experienced builder has extensive in-house engineering expertise, it enlisted Pierluigi Ausonio Naval Architecture (PLANA), an Italian firm well versed in designing hulls for the navy, to achieve its performance goals – a top speed of 30 knots and a transatlantic range at 11 to 15 knots.
“In the beginning, the person who was most involved in the project was the naval architect; more so than the designer,” Frediani says. “By exploring the concept further and delving deeper into technical issues we found that the ideal hull length for efficiency and to remain below 500 gross tonnes was between 50 and 54 metres.”
What the yard added to PLANA’s hull form was its expertise in quadruple-engine packages. Like the Mangusta 165s, the GranSport 54 packs quad MTU 16V 2000 M96L, or four times 2,600bhp, coupled this time with shafts and propellers. Smaller and lighter, the new-generation engines are also more efficient. Tank testing and CFD analysis returned excellent results. “Only at that point did we start looking into the lifestyle aspect and the design,” Frediani says. Overmarine wanted to incorporate several of the features it had implemented on the Mangusta Oceano line – a beach club, a large flybridge, lots of glass and a forward lounge with a 1.8-metre deep pool.
Mancini had started working on a 45 metre version along these parameters and says he was delighted to see the length grow, allowing him to push the envelope in terms of styling. “It is a dream for a designer, because it was making the yacht sleeker,” Mancini says. “What I had in mind was a sword. I tried to strike a balance between sporty and elegant, and incorporate the Mangusta feel into a raised pilothouse [RPH] yacht. I think it is one of the longest RPH ever built.” There was a worry that extending an RPH design to that extent would make the yacht too streamlined and low. “The wheelhouse is very angled, but when you get in and sit down, it feels like a Lamborghini.” This, he adds, inspired the first owner, who was looking for a sporty yacht, to show interest in the project.
In the car world, GranSport is synonymous with high performance and comfort, and herein lies one of this flagship’s achievements. In spite of its slender profile, once on board it feels extremely spacious in every direction. The flybridge, says David Bigotti, from Overmarine Group’s interior department, was the most challenging to build in aluminium. It comprises many welded pieces to achieve its sculptural shape. It is also well protected with visually pleasing aluminium curves and glass inserts in its mid-section and, at 100 square metres, has room for yoga and a dining area under the hardtop.
The design ensures that even seated at the dining table, everyone can still enjoy water views. A spacious outdoor lounge overlooking the shallow pool is at the bow, matched by a spectacular 70 square metre beach club opening on three sides and a relaxed outdoor saloon aft on the main deck. Inside, the ceiling height is comparable to that of any displacement yacht. “On each deck, I pushed the engineer to get as much height, and we have 2.6 metres in the saloon above the dining area. I used lots of tricks to achieve this,” Mancini says.
Some of the apparent volume results from features such as floor-to-ceiling windows in the main saloon area. In turn the use of these windows pushed the engineering department to find some creative solutions for essential equipment such as the air conditioning system. Two beautiful oval pieces of furniture, flanking the dining table, were made to conceal fan coils. Wide teak floorboards run transversally to enhance the beam, a trick Mancini previously used on the Mangusta Oceano. Light is also prevalent in the elegant master suite, located forward on the main deck. As on the Mangusta Oceano, the pool’s glass bottom serves as a skylight in the master head. In addition, the full-beam cabin has a balcony on the starboard side.
The buyers of the first Mangusta GranSport were not the first-time boaters the yard envisaged. They had owned Mangustas. “The owner came to Miami during the boat show and fell in love with the design,” Frediani says. “When we explained that it was a new model with shafts and range, we found out this was actually his dream. Having had fast yachts for most of his boat life, he now has more time to spend on board and wants to explore the world.”
El Leon's owners had many ideas on how to personalise their GranSport. Decisions that made it into the finished boat included painting the hardtop a Silver Anniversary colour by DuPont and using blue-tinted skylights by Isoclima over the exterior dining area on the flybridge. They stayed closely involved with the interior choices as well.
“I trusted the clients, and the final result really exceeded my expectations as well as the owner’s,” says Mancini, who admits to a little hesitation at the outset when he discovered the owner’s fondness for glossy American nut and Macassar ebony. Wall coverings by Hermès and Rubelli combine with nubuck and other leather finishes to create a comfortably luxurious ambiance. Most of the furniture is custom designed, with a few exceptions, such as twin saloon sofas by Minotti. “It is not a super-modernist yacht, but it is very appealing,” Mancini says. A heavily veneered brown marble, similar to wood veneer, combines with a glass-enclosed Hermès animal print wall covering in the master head to suggest the idea of a tropical forest.
The owners had other requirements that pushed Mangusta towards a tailor-made layout, with an office and a larger than planned tender garage for a 7.3 metre craft designed by Mancini. Gullwing-style doors open the twin tender bays located in the forepeak beneath the pool.
Custom design beyond the choice of interior materials and accessories is not the goal, however. “We have studied the project well and are able to offer many different layout options thanks to Nicola Onori and Pier Giorgio Finatti from our technical department,” Frediani says. “We have very different layout options: a four-cabin layout in the lower deck plus social areas like a gym and cinema; master cabin on the main deck; another one with two full-beam VIPs on the lower deck; plus two guest cabins and a master cabin on the main deck. The customisation is very high if the owner enters in the very early stages, and a bit less flexible when the owner comes in the later stage.” Frediani says they can’t predict how many they’ll be able to build, but construction has begun on hull No 2 of the Mangusta Gransport 54.
After debuting in Saint-Tropez to Mangusta fans, El Leon appeared at the Monaco Yacht Show. She has ambitious plans, possibly going to the Caribbean, doing the kind of open ocean mileage no Mangusta has ever done before.
PLANA defines the Mangusta GranSport 54 hull as “fast and surface piercing”. Yacht architect Pierluigi Ausonio says it goes through the sea surface (it does not plane) but uses dynamic lift to control longitudinal trim and maintain displacement mode at high speed. Ausonio has designed fast naval vessels and worked with four-shaft arrangements and propellers since the 1980s. He has applied all that knowledge to the GranSport fast displacement hull.
CFD calculations and tank testing helped refine the hull’s round-bilge shape in the aft section to accommodate the four-shaft arrangement and maximise flow to the propellers and in the fore section, which incorporates a “dynamically surfacing bulbous bow and an effective spray rail”.
The hull’s resistance compares favourably with other fast boat hull types, such as so-called deep V or double chine hulls without bulbous bows. Calculations showed resistance to be 15 to 20 per cent less while travelling at 30 knots and 50 per cent less at 15 knots. “This huge improvement in the hull performances allows designing a fast motor yacht exceeding 50 metres, reaching a speed above 30 knots with relatively low power, cruising easily above 25 knots, but above all that, with a range of 4,800 nautical miles at 12 knots and 3,500 nautical miles at 15 knots,” Ausonio says. “So you can cross the Atlantic at 15 knots, which is unusual for any motor yacht.”
Designer Alberto Mancini worked closely with El Leon’s owners and Mangusta’s interiors department to create the stylish décor but was given relatively free rein. He enjoys incorporating features from the automotive world in his designs. There are a few on the outside of the Mangusta GranSport 54, the largest yacht he’s designed to date, but it is one interior feature, developed for luxury cars, that has him most excited. “We used a new type of veneer that allows us to create a kind of transparency. It’s a new technology by Alpi, developed for dashboards in luxury cars.
I asked the yard to use it to create backlit columns at the main entrance. The veneer includes little transparent stripes. It is so new that when the shipyard called the company that produced this kind of panel and asked how to glue it, they replied ‘Sorry, we don’t know.’ The shipyard is really very skilled and figured out how to glue it into a semicircular plexiglass material. The result is amazing.”
Mangusta
( www.mangustayachts.com )
Launched in 1929, this classic motor yacht has had 11 owners, saw service in the Second World War and had long been admired by owner No 12. Having finally bought her in 2015,he set about reviving this piece of maritime history and making her fit for a whole new charter adventure. Risa Merl reports on a 16-month labour of love.
From the moment her owner first laid eyes on this classic beauty, he knew it was the only yacht for him, but it would be a decade before they could be together. “He has loved this boat for 10 years,” says Haida 1929’s captain, Daan de Witt. “He told me once that he won’t own any other boat if he can’t own this one.”
Haida 1929 is indeed the owner’s first yacht, and his passion for her propelled a thorough 16-month refit, set on restoring the 66.5 metre (71.1 metre with bowsprit) motor yacht to her former glory, and then some. The yacht’s new name gives away her advanced age – she was launched in 1929 by Krupp Germaniawerft for the American yeast tycoon Max C Fleischmann, who christened her Haida, after a native Alaskan tribe. Over the course of a long and storied life, she’s had 11 owners and varied roles, including heroic service in the US Navy during the Second World War. She’s also gone by many monikers, such as USS Argus, Sarina, Rosenkavalier, Haida G and Dona Amelia.
As Dona Amelia, she had been laid up on the River Fal in Cornwall, not abandoned but certainly in disuse. After a few years, brokerage firm Edmiston was tasked with finding a new owner – and so in 2015, her current owner finally had his chance. Though he had pined for Haidafrom afar for many years, he took his time with the courtship. Before inking a deal, he visited her on the River Fal for a year. “And every time he would come back with new ideas,” says de Witt.
Restoring a classic yacht is quite an undertaking, and certainly for a first-time yacht owner, but Haida 1929’s owner was nothing if not prepared. Some owners come to a project with magazine clippings or a mood board of ideas. By the time Haida 1929’s owner had finalised the purchase of his long-sought yacht, he had three MacBooks full of in-depth designs as well as his own hand-drawn sketches. He just needed the right team.
“He has a good eye for detail,” says de Witt. “The boss didn’t want a designer – he wanted someone to make his ideas work.” While the owner had created an extremely comprehensive brief, he had to collaborate with a professional who could make his ideas technically viable.
“He was an unusual client in that he had a very, very clear idea of what he wanted to achieve,” says designer Adam Lay, who was introduced to the owner by Alex Busher, sales broker at Edmiston. “I thought it was a fantastic design brief – it’s exactly what I would’ve done with the vessel.”
A word used frequently in the brief was “fresh”, both in terms of freshening up the exterior spaces and creating a light, bright and natural interior. Yet everything also had to be elegant and chic, evocative of the romance of the 1920s and 30s whence she came. The refit plans were sympathetic to her history and included maintaining her original direct-drive engines and moving the tenders back to a position on the side decks. This would not be a modernisation so much as a restoration and any modern updates, such as the addition of new exterior staircases, a sundeck paddling pool and spa room on the main deck, were thoughtfully considered and employed with care.
“The Edmiston yacht management team prepared the initial refit specification, which expanded considerably, and identified a number of potential refit yards to visit with the owner,” says Nick Edmiston, the company’s founder. As chance would have it, the yacht had been left near Pendennis, a yard renowned for its experience in classic restorations. “[They] did an extremely good restoration of Malahne and understand classic yachts,” Edmiston adds.
Edmiston’s project managers remained at the yard throughout the refit, along with Captain de Witt, who knew the yacht well having been with her since 2011 during her days as Dona Amelia. Prior to that, he crewed on her big sister Talitha. The captain’s second in command has also been with the yacht for a long tenure – Haida has this way of casting a spell and making people stick around.
Haida 1929 arrived at Pendennis in July 2016 a ghost of her former self. The time she had spent on the river without continual maintenance had caused her steel – much of it original – to corrode. “The fact that steel plates that are nearly 90 years old were heavily corroded didn’t surprise us much,” says Nick Kearton, of Pendennis’s project team. “More surprising was the more recent steel repairs [from 15 to 20 years previously] were so poorly executed below the waterline.” This work from an earlier refit had overlapped with the original hull plate in some areas, acting as a doubler plate, which accelerated the corrosion of the original riveted hull.
“In total, we replaced well over 100 tonnes of steel within the hull structure,” says Kearton, “mainly below the waterline, including 100 per cent of the engine room plating, the majority of the hull boundaries of the three freshwater tanks and the chain locker.” The black and freshwater tanks and the chain locker were totally ripped out.
Replacing the steel in the engine room proved particularly challenging. “We discussed removing the engines to do this or leaving them in place, because they weigh 40 tonnes, and then you have to realign them when you put them back in,” says de Witt. In the end, the engines were left in place and propped up while the steel was cut out from under them. It would have been far easier to tear out the original engines and replace them with modern propulsion – from the outside no one would have been any the wiser. The twin diesel Krupp engines are a relic from 1929 and start via compressed air. Pendennis says they might be the oldest working engines of their type still in situ. There is no manual and you can’t buy parts off the shelf.
“We had to open up the gears and work stuff out,” says de Witt. There are no throttles in the wheelhouse; the captain steers the boat but doesn’t control its speed. Instead, a telegraph system transmits down to the engine room where his engineers – there are four on board – receive the signal and slow the engines accordingly.
There were pleasant surprises – the original riveted steel above the waterline was in fantastic shape, with some areas showing less than 5 per cent wastage of thickness – however, much of the original pipework was condemned. “There are always challenges with old boats. Sometimes you open something up for a small job and there are bigger problems,” de Witt says. “At some stage, I wanted to make a T-shirt with a boat on the back and the funnel as a tin can with worms coming out.”
Was the owner ever daunted by the growing scope of work? “He likes a project,” assures de Witt, “and he says he only wanted to do it once. We should do things in a way that we don’t have to do it again.” Every six weeks the owner visited the yard, staying for a few days each time and making decisions on the smallest details. As challenges arose, he never wavered from his original plan: to return Haida 1929 to her original beauty while improving the functionality.
A priority was placed on the enjoyment of exterior decks and the ease of traffic flow. Narrow, steep ladders common to classic yachts wouldn’t do; a new staircase now connects the main deck to the owner’s deck, another links the main deck to a lounge area on the fantail, a pair of staircases were added from the owner’s deck to the sundeck as well as one on the starboard side going to the sundeck. “They needed to look like they’ve always been there,” says Lay. This was a case where 3D designs alone couldn’t be relied upon. Full-scale mock-ups in plywood were created at the yard to ensure the stairs matched.
“Following the owner’s priority that the yacht be restored as closely as possible to its 1929 origins created several significant conundrums,” says Kearton. “One of the largest of these was fitting new tender davits back in the original side deck positions. To conform with current rules, one of these had to be certified to launch a SOLAS rescue boat in five minutes. Creating a traditional looking but technologically suitable solution required the input of a specialist company.” When the tenders are launched, exercise equipment is rolled out in their place, creating an al fresco gym.
Moving the tenders opened up the owner’s deck for a dining table for up to eight, where he will enjoy breakfast. The preferred dining space to host guests is the main aft deck, with a table that extends to seat 16 but is usually set up for 12. The formal dining saloon, forward on the main deck, is ideal in inclement weather, especially with the addition of a fireplace. “The owner likes to have a formal dinner in there once a week – he thinks it’s fun when his guests come in black tie but without shoes!” says de Witt.
The sundeck saw the biggest refresh, with an extension over the owner’s deck, a new bar forward of the funnel, a rebuild of the awning shade structure, new seating and sunpads and the addition of a pool, replacing a small spa pool. The latter was by far the most complicated procedure owing to the weight that needed to be supported. “The solution we settled upon was a steel rack built on the sundeck beneath the pool, which was then supported by a series of connecting columns down through the vessel to the hull,” says Kearton. “This meant we not only had to transfer the load down to the hull, but also fit the support columns where they were hidden from view.”
Some of these steel columns had to go through extremely tight spaces and required pipework, cabling and joinery modifications. One cut right through the owner’s bathroom – far from ideal, but Lay was able to hide this cleverly. Now two architectural columns frame the entrance to the bathroom – one holding the steel support, and the other one faux to match it. The owner’s bath has an enormous tub athwartships at the centreline, while the shower incorporates a steam room.
The owner’s cabin was redesigned to create a fresh, clean and calm look. The previous four-poster bed was cut down, and the complexity of the mouldings on the bulkheads was simplified to make them look more refined. The windows in the master open, letting a fresh breeze and plentiful light into this space.
The new interior is, as the owner desired, light, bright and calming. The yellow-cream paint from Dona Amelia has been replaced with a gleaming white. The white soft goods help lighten the interior, while the carefully chosen furnishings help keep her in her era. Floors throughout are mahogany, and the joinery is mahogany or teak, to accent the white Calacatta oro marble. Soft, white carpeting from Loro Piana is used in the guest cabins, while a plush white rug is under the bed atop a wood floor in the master.
Five guest cabins are on the lower deck – two twins, two VIPs and one double, as well as a single berth for a nanny. The air conditioning had to be updated throughout the guest cabins to bring it to modern standards, and new grilles were incorporated into the interior décor with care. “Things that seemed quite easy to do, because of the nature of the vessel, wound up being more complicated,” says Lay of this task.
The owner’s lounge is on the upper deck and can be used privately or as a shared saloon. The bar was redesigned, with a refrigerator, sink and coffee machine added behind doors. “We were always trying to incorporate modern conveniences, but in a discreet way,” says Lay. To use it as a cinema, a projector is hidden in a round detail in the bookshelf, so you wouldn’t know it’s there until a movie screen drops down from the ceiling. The lounge also acts an office space, with a desk area.
The main deck has decorative storage for wine, which had previously been relegated to a storeroom on the lower deck, a space that’s now been cleared for the spa. From the start, it was planned that Haida 1929 would charter – “[the owner] knew it was no good to have crew just sitting around”, says de Witt. The spa and wine storage are a few things you might not expect to find on a classic, but will be very welcome on a charter yacht. Set all the way aft on the main deck, the spa has a hammam and hosts guests for massages, hairdressing or cut-throat shaves from a resident barber among the crew.
From those original inspiration-packed MacBooks, the owner had a good idea of what he wanted for the furnishings, much of which he sourced himself. For the plush sofas, Lay suggested Dudgeon in London. Wicker chairs, a reference to the furniture on board the original Haida, are found in the guest cabins and the dining saloon. This loving attention to detail is why, despite the updates, the refit has kept Haida 1929 so faithful to her history. “Talitha is more a modern version of a classic,” says Lay, comparing the Krupp-built sisters. “Haida 1929 is more true to her era.”
Curling up with a good book on a cold day in front of a roaring fire – is there anything more romantic than that? “The owner wanted to reinstate the fireplace in the owner’s saloon,” says designer Adam Lay.
He also wanted a fireplace added forward in the formal dining room. Along with one in the main saloon, there are now three fireplaces on board Haida 1929. Designing fireplaces or fire pits on a yacht is never easy. So to be able to have a fireplace where you can actually feel a bit of heat on a cold day is a luxury indeed. The fireplaces on board Haida 1929“burn small blocks that are like biofuel, which are the same sort of fireplaces that would be installed in apartments in New York City”, explains Captain Daan de Witt.
“If you retrofit a city apartment, you can’t build a chimney, and these don’t require a chimney or flue.” What makes bioethanol fuel fireplaces ideal for blocked chimneys or flat walls in a home is what makes them an equally handy solution on a yacht. Unlike some onboard “fireplaces” that use steam and LED light to produce a fire-like effect, the biofuel used on Haida 1929 generates some real warmth without the need for a chimney. “They don’t create a lot of smoke, but they do create a bit of heat,” de Witt says. Even when not being used in the summer, the fireplaces add a touch of elegance to the décor all year round.
Pendennis
( www.pendennis.com )
“There was something about GO’s owner that I understood from the moment he walked into the shipyard,” says Mehmet Karabeyoglu, Turquoise Yachts’ CEO.
Even by the standards of superyacht owners, this man was particularly bold and decisive – two values the shipyard head appreciates. Karabeyoglu inaugurated his shipyard in 1997 by starting a 50 metre on spec; it was the largest yacht construction in Turkey at the time. “The contract [for GO] was all very quick because he’s a very [decisive] man. And here we are, just a year and a half later, with a brand new superyacht and our largest launch to date,” he says. As for the owner, building a 77 metre as your first yacht is one seriously bold stroke.
Turquoise had already begun building what would become its new flagship before the owner stepped in. “We always [begin] on spec because it saves owners so much time,” says Karabeyoglu. The yard hired London-based H2 Yacht Design to draw a distinctive yacht with Turquoise DNA. “After Mehmet’s partner passed away and his shares were bought by Oceanco owner Mohammed Al Barwani, the yard was looking to relaunch with a new flagship,” says Jonny Horsfield, H2’s co-founder. “GO is the seventh yacht that we have collaborated with Turquoise on, the most recent being the 72 metre Vicky. That was our starting point and from there we updated the look, keeping the design flexible enough so that a new owner could really put a personal stamp on it.”
GO’s aluminium superstructure features sculptural curves that swoop down through the deck levels and end in an arch that plunges to the waterline. But noteworthy as these are, GO will most likely be remembered for her hull colour: a show-stopping shade called Island Turquoise. “The turquoise is a theme that’s carried through the yacht,” says Ruth Thomas from H2.
“The design concept of the yacht is based on water in motion, so shades of turquoise made sense.” While moving water is the concept and turquoise is the theme, another element is repeated throughout the yacht: a chevron-meets-basket-weave pattern that turns up carved into carpet pile or etched into the mirrored ceiling of the main saloon. “When the owner bought the yacht,” says Horsfield, “he kept the general arrangement plan but decided to up the ante on the décor and make it more lush. We only had three months to do the redesign.” Karabeyoglu says that “we added 10 tonnes of mirror-polished steel for the interior details and inlays that he wanted, so much weight that it required re-engineering the yacht”.
In the saloon, white carpet, leather-covered walls and Tanganyika veneer are topped with sculpted metal bands that recall flowing water. The windows are so many and so large that the owner, a huge sports fan, had no qualms about placing a 100 inch Sony flat-screen TV in front of one.
The main dining area is a compendium of the yacht’s decorative themes: the chevron in the flooring is in stainless steel strips that contrast with white Thassos stone; the circular dining table is edged by a band of turquoise enamelled metal by Solomon & Wu, contrasting with a band of polished macassar ebony, which in turn contrasts with a central element in white onyx; and the table’s shiny surfaces reflect the dizzying pattern of a chandelier made up of short ropes of glass. “It took us weeks to install the chandelier because every pendant has its own LED source,” says Thomas. “We had the same company, Lasvit, make the wall sconces.”
But all this is just preamble for the Dale Chihuly sculpture that hangs at the centre of the foyer staircase: three storeys of blue-green blown glass that looks like a magnificent conglomerate of paramecia or a coral reef crustacean that you don’t want to step on barefoot. In fact, Chihuly calls the nearly 500 pieces that make up this giant work “icicles”.
“To be sure that the sculptures fit – they aren’t technically chandeliers because they are not lit from within – and to decide where to place the thin steel rods that keep it from swaying, we built a full-scale model of the staircase at Chihuly’s studio in Seattle, Washington,” says H2’s James Bermudez. Chihuly’s own glass engineers prepared the custom stabilisation each piece required for its unique installation. “We then numbered the pieces and shipped them to Istanbul. Just unpacking them took days.” It was well worth the effort: hanging the sculpture in the stairwell brings Chihuly’s work close enough to touch and transforms the drudgery of walking up stairs into a truly memorable experience.
GO’s seven guest cabins feature king sized beds and décor in tones that vary from suite to suite. Thanks to a door at the end of the long and wide hallway the final two cabins can be used as a larger suite with separate day and night spaces. The en suite guest baths all have heated floors in turquoise Amazonite and white Thassos stone and all of the guest showers are backed with eye-catching splash walls by Italian artist Alex Turco.
The owner’s suite on the upper deck has some notable glasswork in the shape of huge curved glass windows that are punctuated by thin mullions covered in bevelled mirrors. “I have to credit Turquoise for the fabulous view in this suite,” says Horsfield. “At first, our design was busy, with too many mullions. I wanted the view but didn’t think that curved glass this large could be manufactured.” “These are among the largest pieces of laminated, chemically hardened curved glass that have ever been mounted on a yacht,” Karabeyoglu points out. “Just five panes to make this whole sweep, the same arrangement on the bridge. And all of this is made in Turkey.”
The centrally placed bed and oval console table behind it both feature stitched leather detailing designed to recall rugby balls, one of the owner’s favourite sports. The view from the suite over the owner’s private foredeck and beyond is fabulous – but still faces stiff competition on game nights from a large flat-screen TV concealed in a cabinet in front of the central window. Cheering for the owner’s team will be by far the loudest sound thanks to Turquoise’s engine installation: just 38 decibels were registered in the guest and owner’s cabins when the yacht was under way.
On top of a private study, large his and hers dressing rooms and separate en suites, the owners have a private foredeck complete with their own spa pool. This huge sweep of space feels like a ledge over the sea thanks to removable carbon fibre railings and a telescopic mast that disappears into the deck to leave the view totally unencumbered. More turquoise, this time mixed with golden mosaic tiles, lines the five metre long sundeck spa pool fed by a waterfall that cascades from a spout in the mast. “The owner wants to keep this as a party deck,” says Bermudez. “The onyx, teak and polished steel bars have TV screens by Aqualite Outdoor and all furniture is loose except for the lounging couch aft: its base hides the extra ceiling height we allotted to the gym on the bridge deck below so that people can really run on the treadmill.”
The yacht has a lift that runs from the sundeck all the way down to the tender garage, which has a 10.6 metre long hull door made by Dutch company Newthex. “We are not an assembly shipyard,” says Karabeyoglu. “We build our own hulls and are very hands-on in engineering and naval architecture, but there are some hings that other companies can do better and faster than we can. In the case of Newthex, we just have to tell them the opening size of the doors we want and they do the rest. We have a very good working relationship.”
Locating the tender garage amidships means that the yacht’s huge 162 square metre beach club is purely for enjoyment and doesn’t do double duty as a loading platform. “The beach club was a real selling point for the yacht,” says Horsfield. “The owner dedicated special attention to it.” And it shows. The club area is accessed from the aft deck and has a nine metre wide transom that opens flush to the floor and a seven metre wide side shell door; indoors and outdoors blend perfectly.
A storage area for watersports equipment and a fully stocked backlit bar in onyx and macassar mean that both the water bug and the barfly are well cared for. The aesthete will appreciate the art panel by Alex Turco, while the sports fan will be drawn to the 100 inch flat-screen TV opposite it. There was even space for massage and steam rooms. “This is not what you’d call a plain vanilla yacht,” says Karabeyoglu. “Not to build, nor to design. But we like complicated jobs because we like to show the world what we can do.” Whether or not you know the intricacies of this spectacular yacht, with looks as bold as the minds that produced her, GO certainly does the job.
GO’s owner suggested that H2 Yacht Design contact the renowned American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly for a statement piece for the yacht’s central staircase. Chihuly has been boldly and colourfully reinventing glass sculpture since the 1970s and his outdoor installations as well as his individual pieces have won wide acclaim. “The client first visited Chihuly in Seattle in early 2017, meeting Dale in person and touring the Chihuly Ballard Studio,” says Ruth Thomas of H2. “They have their current projects in build there and do full-scale mock-ups.”
After determining the basic design, next came the palette. The predominant colour was to be GO’s turquoise with shades of blue, white and clear glass. Chihuly blew “icicles” in these tones for approval. The piece was almost fully developed when the client made a second visit to see the mock-up of the stairs and get an understanding of the scale of the piece.The final result is Sea Spray Chandelier. At 5.5m high by 90cm wide, it weighs 435kg and incorporates 468 individually blown “icicles” hanging on a vertical spine spanning three decks. “Chihuly recommended the sculpture be lit externally for a dramatic wash of light over the entire piece,” continues Thomas. “We developed high-output LED lights and integrated mirrors into the design of the stairs so guests can see Sea Spray Chandelier from all angles.” GO does have a lift but using it would mean missing the show.
Turquoise Yachts
( www.turquoiseyachts.com )
From the quay, Planet Nine all but obscures the sight of Mount Vesuvius, which looms over the Gulf of Naples. With her high bow and broad helipad aft, she appears the very essence of an explorer yacht: purposeful and uncomplicated. Elegant, for sure, but designed for more serious cruising.
Her long passerelle is like a slender bridge to another world. Behind me are stuttering mopeds and the sing-song arguments of local fishermen and contractors crowding the dock at Marina Molo Luise; ahead is calm, serenity and hugely welcome air con. And as I’m about to find out, it’s all underpinned by some effortless-looking interior design, which balances comfort and looks, without jeopardising the boat’s go-anywhere vocation. “The core idea was to build the best of Europe,” says skipper Rob Williamson, who also represented the owner for most of the project. “We wanted German machinery combined with an Italian build.”
This 73.2 metre explorer yacht, now reluctantly for sale with Fraser (and for charter with Edmiston) owing to a change in family circumstances for the owner, has been some time in the making. The bare hull took shape at Cantieri San Marco in La Spezia, before moving a few miles down the coast to The Italian Sea Group for the interior fit-out and finish. “The client was very demanding in terms of quality, style and for the interior,” says The Italian Sea Group’s vice-president Giuseppe Taranto. “But the result has been excellent.”
Ice classified 1D by Lloyd’s, Planet Nine has been built with thick hull plates, strong frames and bulkheads, and careful protection for her seawater intakes, to protect them from ice and the very cold temperatures encountered in high latitudes. “That is why the owner went to a shipyard [to build the hull], not a yacht builder,” says Williamson. It means she can deal with sea ice up to around 15 centimetres thick, making charters to Greenland or the Graham Land peninsula of Antarctica a possibility.
To ready her for Antarctic waters, the helipad has been very carefully designed with a lifting platform, so that the aircraft can be stowed away safely in a hangar when not in use. What this means is that the yacht can accommodate two choppers – one in the hangar and one on deck; so there will always be one free to take on board an ice pilot, for instance. “We can effectively operate a heliport,” says the captain.
“Guests can arrive by chopper, while the owner’s machine is on board.” And not just any chopper, either. The design team chose to scale everything to fit an AgustaWestland AW109 Grand – preferred for its large seven-passenger capacity. It also has a maximum weight of 3,175kg, so the helipad has been designed to support at least 10 tonnes. The boat’s current helicopter is an MD Explorer 902.
She’s undoubtedly a capable yacht but to characterise Planet Nine as an explorer alone is to do her a real disservice. Exterior designer Tim Heywood is adamant that there’s no contradiction between go-anywhere abilities and real luxury. “Planet Nine displays a constant state of great comfort and elegance,” he tells me. “The fact that she is wrapped in an ice-class hull only adds to her luxury.”
At 73.2 metres overall, any yacht would be impressive enough in its own right. Add in high latitudes looks and there is really no need to go over the top on the design. With an experienced owner taking a close interest, Heywood responsible for the lines and London-based studio Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi (MHZ) styling the interior, Planet Nine is a study in purposeful restraint.
“The client was looking for a 73 metre world cruising yacht with a crisp, timeless style in the design language of another of my designs, the motor yacht Ice,” Heywood explains. “I am extremely pleased with the proportions of the yacht, the overall form and the subtle sculptural features.” He singles out the trademark wing stations and mast structures, not too big, and the forward roof shapes. “All have been built as I imagined. “There is a really harmonious balance to the way the helipad and hangar have been accommodated using the same exterior styling as the main guest decks.
The superstructure is a relatively modest three-storey affair, but huge volume has been created within the hull’s tall topsides. All the tankage and machinery have been relegated to a single technical deck below the waterline. “By putting the engine room on what would traditionally have been the tank deck, we have completely freed up the lower deck,” says Williamson.
This, in turn, has been given over to five guest cabins and a staff cabin, opening off a long central corridor that connects to the beach club aft. “You don’t see that often and it’s tough to engineer,” he adds. “It is really quiet in the guest cabins, because the builders used the right materials for soundproofing. And guests can get directly to the beach club.”
Nearly the entire main deck above is given over to the owner’s suite of rooms, which total an agoraphobia-inducing 250 square metres. These include a huge bedroom with acres of sofa space and a pop-up television (the owner tolerates rather than embraces television so everywhere on the boat screens retract into elegant wooden pedestals). Sliding doors give access to the side decks, which are in use only for docking manoeuvres and therefore largely private.
Then there’s a library and conference space, lined from floor to ceiling with books, a further double bed and a separate office. It’s a space that would feel grandiose in a townhouse, but on a yacht it is an extraordinary luxury. “The owner was very active in business at the time and wanted private rooms away from the guests,” explains interior designer Tino Zervudachi. For my money, though, the VIP suite on the wheelhouse deck is the favourite. It is smaller, of course, but cosier, with a dressing room and ensuite bathroom. And the real draw is its own private aft deck, complete with sofa-style sunpads and an intimate dining area.
There are two lifts on board serving the five decks – one for the owner and guests (handy to get from the cabin to the sundeck) and a smaller one for the crew, which is used mainly for ferrying supplies from the store rooms below to the galley. “I was sceptical at first about the crew lift,” says Williamson. “I wanted a young, fit crew that suited the adventurous nature of the boat. But it’s proved its worth for the galley.”
The finish is meticulous, with much of the furniture built by German luxury outfitter Fitz Interior. At its workshop in Bavaria, the company built each space for a detailed walk-through and to make any changes, before the whole interior was dismantled again and shipped to Italy for installation. “We built the interior based on our substructure system, which allows every owner of the vessel to change the wall, ceiling or furniture cladding in no time,” says Fitz project manager Markus Jechnerer.
Zervudachi led the interior design, based on experience gained during work on several of the owner’s homes. “There were a few words, not a proper brief,” he says. “I understand him very well, and he made it clear that the boat had to be extremely comfortable, but masculine and streamlined.” They sourced exotic woods and fabrics from across the globe, in reference to the yacht’s go-anywhere capabilities. The finish in each cabin is different, creating a subtle variation: American elm, tropical olive wood and wacapou. Each bathroom features glass panelling, again with varying tints to it. “We decided we didn’t want any marble on board,” says the designer.
Elsewhere in the boat there is a wealth of textures and finishes that sit very comfortably together thanks to the restraint of MHZ. These range from the owner’s suite’s coveted African fabric for upholstery, woven in Dakar for Aïssa Dione, to a silk-linen blend from Twill Textiles on the walls in the guest cabins. Then there’s hand-woven abaca (from a Philippine banana palm) on the walls and ceiling of the main and upper decks, while limed oak and mutenye woods also appear in the wheelhouse and staircases.
And the door to each guest cabin has a different colour of rich Garrett leather on the corridor side “to help guests more easily identify their own cabins – and to keep the interiors from being too serious”, explains Dennis Pyle of MHZ.
The feature is repeated in the so-called boot room, where the lower deck meets the beach club. Here guests can leave shoes and personal items when going for a swim or preparing to go ashore. The opening transom has lights set into its teak surface, to illuminate the beach club when open. It’s the sort of detail that only an experienced team would think to include. Or, as Heywood puts it, “a truly international team of engineers with, possibly, more experience between them than any other yacht builder.”
The boat has an interesting double personality. On the one hand she is set up for the maximum comfort of the guests, with more than 20 crew, copious lounging space, top-notch audiovisual, spa and steam room, spa pool and bar on the sundeck and a super-surround sound cinema, with 11 speakers and two subwoofers, on the main deck. But on the other hand, she has a no-nonsense feel and a kind of restless desire to get stuck into some bad weather, to explore off the beaten track. “She is a true world cruiser,” says Heywood, “designed and built to withstand the harshest conditions, to cut through savage seas and not skirt bad weather. She was built with a confidence that is infectious!”
Bridging the two is a really comprehensive package of toys and watersports equipment, clearly pitched at the charter market. Besides the two businesslike 10 metre Rupert RIBs (one set up for watersports, the other with a little cabin for inshore work), there is a brace of Seabobs, more wetsuits and dive kits than you can shake a stick at, a pair of Sea-Doo personal watercraft, water skis, paddleboards and more. I suggest a small sailing boat, which skipper Williamson likes the sound of. At one point, he throws open a cupboard door on the side deck to reveal a beautifully designed rack containing a pair of heavily sidecut skis – for snow, not water. And why not? If you’re visiting far-flung polar regions and your primary tender is an Agusta Grand, heli-skiing is definitely on the menu…
At her cruising speed of 14 knots, Planet Nine has a range of more than 6,000 nautical miles – thanks to the 340,000 litres of fuel she can carry. Slow her twin Caterpillar 3516 engines down to a perfectly respectable 10 knots and that range rises to more than 10,000 miles, enough to cross from Sydney to Ushuaia and on up to the Caribbean, without halting for fuel.
“That’s including fuel for the generators,” says Captain Rob Williamson, who oversaw the redesign of the power systems to reduce the hotel load to a single 275kW Cat genset, although there are three aboard. Couple that with her ice class hull, 9,000 litres of aviation fuel (“around 10 times the range of an Agusta Grand”, says Williamson), 40,000 litres of fresh water, plus the ability to make around 18,000 litres more per day, and you can see she has phenomenal range and autonomy. Perhaps the limiting factor is fresh food. There is plenty of cold storage on board, down on the machinery deck in the bow, including several cold rooms and a walk-in freezer. “We can store luxury food for about a month,” says the captain. There’s storage for plenty more but after that you’d start relying more on tinned and ambient stored produce. So the effective range is a matter of taste for the owner or his guests.
Admiral Yachts
( http://admiral-yachts.com/ )
The new Custom Line 120’s mate has picked me up from Bay Street Marina with a tricked-out 12 metre Nor-Tech centre console and she is hurrying along, the triple Mercury outboards disturbing deep blue water with a widening trail of white foam.
At 50 knots it doesn’t take much time for the 38.4 metre Vista Blue, at first a shiny spot on the horizon, to come into sharper focus: lean, sharp lines, a graceful nose, geometric features, slim buttresses and railings glistening in the sun – this is a handsome yacht. The Nor-Tech fendered by the efficient crew, I hop onto the bathing platform and step up to the main deck of the mothership. The effect from up here is very special. As I stand at the innovative threshold of the saloon (more on that later) the cerulean blue of the seascape pours into the space from every direction. “The whole design was focused on enhancing contact with the sea and attempting to overthrow boundaries between exterior and interior,” says Francesco Paszkowski, the yacht’s designer. Every builder is striving for this goal, but it’s never been done quite like this before.
A couple of business partners with a fondness for fast boats, modern design and Caribbean sunsets bought hull No 1 of this new series after seeing renderings and a 3D video. They had been looking for a yacht already under construction, something sporty in this size range, but wanted to work directly with the manufacturer. They zeroed in on the new Custom Line project. “It was still [at the] early stage, but the fact that we did not have to wait for the entire period of the build was very attractive,” one of the owners says. “The design, the styling, the performance of the boat seemed very interesting to us and I have always been a big fan of Ferretti and Riva. The result exceeded our expectations.”
It was especially sweet since they had done quite a bit of work to personalise their CL 120. The bulk of the custom work went into the external entertainment areas, the foredeck and in particular the flybridge deck, where a spa pool-cum-seating unit with built-in cooler for a bottle of champagne – or a few Kalik beers – enhances the sunny side of the convivial deck. The two families had the opportunity to enjoy the yacht in the Bahamas where “some of the best times have been on the bow watching the sun set at Staniel Cay”, says one of the owners.
The foredeck lounge – with twin tables, umbrellas and sofas –proved especially useful when another yacht pulling up next to them nearly deprived them of the solar spectacle. “That’s probably my favourite place on the boat. The second is on the flybridge next to the Jacuzzi. We spent a lot of time on that built-in structure with the tub, the beds around it and storage underneath, which is useful for the boat.”
A key member of the build team was broker Jason Wood, who for a few months lived in La Spezia where hull No 1 was built and worked closely with the Custom Line team until the handover in Miami in early 2018. He knows the yacht inside out. “He was instrumental in making decisions in real time and was a trusted adviser on site,” the owner says. “Early on he helped design little things like the misting system, and so many other design elements that were not originally in the plan.”
Wood likes to say that he started in yachting 20 years ago at the very bottom, detailing boats and scrubbing decks. “Because I worked on boats, I understand a lot of what’s missing,” he says. He recommended a number of practical solutions, from plugs to storage. He points to a feature on the pilothouse roof, which identifies hull No 1 like a birthmark. Dark grey like the domes and radar, a raised section of the surface is shaped a little like the Batman signal. What led to this particular feature was a suggestion Wood made to relocate the compass from the front of the dash to the ceiling. In doing so he cleared the captain’s view, but the mechanism protruded a bit outside, and he wanted it concealed with a stylish design in keeping with the yacht’s sporty looks. It took a few days of trial and error, some foam, fibreglass and creativity, but the craftsmen got it right. “They were fantastic,” he says. One custom touch no one will see is behind the instrument panels and leather of the bridge, where the workers signed their names, at Wood’s request, on the flat panel of fibreglass beneath it all.
The raised pilothouse is neatly organised around the modern dash by Simrad and Naviop. It’s all digital, with large touchscreens and multiple redundancies built in. The yacht’s captain runs the boat at either 12 or 21 knots (the yacht’s cruising speed). “The boat runs really, really well at 21 knots and burns 10 to 15 per cent less fuel than other boats of this category with [MTU] 2000s; these are the 96 series, so the boat is a bit more efficient,” he says. The consumption is around 180 gallons per hour at that speed. “Typically, when I run from Nassau to Florida, I like to arrive there in the morning. At 12 knots we burn so much less fuel, it’s easy on the boat and we tow the Nor-Tech wherever we go.” The burn at 12 knots is just over 20 gallons per hour per engine, a solid argument to slow things down. A 20-year veteran of the Bahamas to Florida yacht circuit, Captain Mike says one of the “coolest” things about his new charge is the way people, including seasoned captains, react when they walk down the dock to take a closer look. “I hear three words: I get ‘wow’, I get ‘sexy’ and I get ‘spaceship’,” he says.
Beyond its undoubtedly attractive lines, Vista Blue packs a bag of tricks that are pretty extraordinary for her dimensions. To create its next generation planing yacht, Custom Line tapped an experienced Italian designer whose imprint is on countless fast boats built in Italy. Paszkowski, in turn, appreciated what appears to have been a challenge to convention. It’s no exaggeration to say that standing in the saloon feels like standing on an island. Nearly the entire aft section of the saloon is a door made of two inclined sections of glass. Floor-to-ceiling windows lining the saloon’s sides are convex, which becomes apparent only when walking along the side decks. The panes of glass, from Italian glassmaker Isoclima, act a bit like a magnifier without distorting the view. Missing are gunwales, generally the go-to solution to keep people in and water out. Instead, all along the side decks are sturdy square railings and safety lines, similar to those on sailing yachts, that vanish as soon as the eyes focus on the water beyond them. Finally, the superstructure floor is elevated, which not only enhances the panorama but has allowed the builder to add extra layers of insulation – while keeping headroom impressive. The term “floating floor” perfectly describes the sensation one has standing in the middle of the saloon. All these decisions were made “to enhance the feeling of a closer contact with the sea”, Paszkowski says.
A first is a massive door that lifts to open up the entire width of the saloon to the aft deck and pins overhead, flush with the overhang. It is one of Paszkowski’s favourite features and a new solution to the conundrum: how to make a door disappear when you don’t need it. The overhang itself, which shades the aft deck, seems suspended by nothing other than sheer engineering will – there are no columns, no poles, no visible support of any kind to interrupt the gaze. Among the ingredients of the engineers’ secret recipe for this amazing structure is carbon fibre.
Wood concedes that in spite of assurances by the Ferretti Group’s immensely experienced engineering team, he had some concerns about that large cantilevered section of carbon composite over the aft deck. “Vibrations were a major concern for us,” Wood says. They worked out a possible fix in case sea trials should reveal any trouble, but there was no need since the structure passed with flying colours. In addition to the head-turning Nor-Tech, the yacht carries a good-sized tender in the garage hidden behind its Dual Mode Transom door, which opens upwards or downwards. It gives one space two very useful functions: tender garage and beach club. With the tender launched (in this case a customised Williams 505), the space readily transforms into a beach club. All that’s left to do is fit the umbrellas in the sockets and plug in the stainless steel shower, a thin pole delivering a stream of cool water bliss to skin tightened by sun and salt.
With much fun to be had outdoors, the interior had to be pretty special. It is – open to the outside but also homely and elegant. Paszkowski, in collaboration with the designer Margherita Casprini, borrowed ideas and techniques from luxury residential design. For instance, the columns in the living area contain lighting, audio and air conditioning systems while flowing curtains can be pulled to partition the open space. A combination of parquet, wood and lacquered panels from Alpi keeps it contemporary. The broker worked with the shipyard on personalising the interior for the owners but went with many of their recommendations. Along with brands Hermès and Dedar, most of the furniture is from Italian companies, such as Minotti and Poltrona Frau. They even chose to keep the abstract artwork Paszkowski had suggested, which was pictured in the initial 3D renderings the shipyard showed them.
The layout is as expected, with a nice size master suite forward on the main deck (about 38 square metres). From it, the best views are from the bed or seated in the cosy saloon corners. Four guest cabins are on the lower deck, all en suites. The twin cabins have Pullman beds, cleverly covered with mirrors to expand the rooms visually. The crew mess, accessed via the modern galley, has room for up to six, including the captain, who enjoys a double cabin. It’s a layout that works well for charters, which the owners are planning on a limited basis. Accordingly, they asked Custom Line to build hull No 1 in compliance with MCA rules. One of the most obvious results of that extra MCA compliance is the handrails, about one metre taller than the designers envisioned. They catch the sun ever more readily, and that’s the gleam that caught my eye when I first spotted Vista Blue on the horizon. All that stainless steel makes the yacht shine even brighter. The CL 120 is a bit spaceship, yes, and definitely worthy of the wows lavished upon her.
Broker Jason Wood remembers the day the door to the saloon arrived. “I am standing by it and it is like a two-storey building. It’s the biggest piece of glass I have ever seen, and it weighs as much as a car.” At 2,300kg the door weighs about twice as much as a Mini Cooper. At four metres wide by more than two metres tall, the door comprises two panes of glass, installed at a 45 degree angle. The lifting mechanism includes electrified screw jacks, opening the structure slowly until it pins securely in its casing on the flybridge overhang. In the closed position, one pane slides over the other as more traditional doors do to allow entrance from the aft deck into the saloon. Whether the door is closed or open, the effect is stunning and, as Francesco Paszkowski envisioned, it creates the effect of a “glass lounge”.
But it’s one thing to dream it, quite another to make it happen. The Ferretti Group’s architects and engineers rose to the challenge, working with Mecaer Aviation Group to devise a door that is functional, safe and as fast and light as possible. This is, after all, a fast planing hull and any added weight has the potential to slow it down. Mecaer’s expertise in the aeronautical industry was especially valuable to keep the structure as lightweight as possible.
Custom Line
( www.customline-yacht.com )
The Yacht Club de Monaco magnetises the attention: this Norman Foster-designed, boat-inspired marvel (complete with towering masts) leaves most superyachts that line its dock literally and metaphorically in the shade. It’s a special 30 metre sailing boat, then, that can pry admiring stares away from both the club and the massive white motor yachts that sit alongside her.
But then Tango, the latest hull in the Wallycento series, is rather unusual. She has a striking black carbon hull and rig, and a flush teak deck that seems to stretch far beyond her true length. She is the second Wally for a repeat client, and the fourth Wallycento, but it’s immediately clear that she differs from her siblings, thanks to her unique design team: Pininfarina for the interior, and Mills Design for the naval architecture and exterior design, which was developed in collaboration with Wally.
From outside, the flush deck of Tango is both stylish and regatta-friendly. “Tango’s unusual reverse sheerline combines with our ramp deck geometry to allow a smooth unbroken line, running from bow to the stern,” explains naval architect Mark Mills.
“Since the first meetings, we shared the same vision of the innovations that can be applied to this type of yacht, like the cutting-edge deck layout that combines our flush deck with bulwarks aft, as introduced in 2006 with Esense, with the ramp deck of Alegre,” says Bassani.
This feeling is reinforced by the fact that Tango has no cockpit, in the style of the first classic yachts. But a large removable table can be installed with chairs and a bimini, creating a comfortable area when the yacht is moored up at anchor or in port. Even though Tango follows the same box rule as other Wallycentos, there is no doubt that the latest edits are improvements. Mills Design brought new ideas to the shape of the hull, the rig, the layout of the deck equipment and the all-important weight reduction.
“The most obvious development has been rearrangement of the interior layout to produce practical improvements without harming the value of the interior,” says Mills. “By centralising the engine and systems machinery, we were able to co-opt a lot of the keel and mast structure to support these; and place them beside the keel and mast and under the winches to reduce plumbing and wiring.” Centralising machinery also reduced the inertia of the pitching movements, conserving energy and improving performance. They considered hull stiffness too. “We worked with Pure Engineering, whose sophisticated structure used some of the most advanced carbon and core options available,” says Mills.
Leaving Port Hercules for a sea trial between Monaco and Cap Ferrat, conditions are light, with only six knots of true wind – but it is enough to get a glimpse of the potential of this cruiser-racer. In a few seconds, the new 3Di sails from North Sails are up, creating a cathedral of carbon. “The deck hardware is powerful and fast: it takes only seven seconds to hoist the jib” says Wally founder Luca Bassani.
This technical wizardry, which the owner describes as “the most advanced technologies in construction, systems, rig and sail handling”, were vital to the brief. After all, he was attracted to the Wallycento in the first place because “I never sailed at 25 knots and always wanted to know what it’d feel like”.
The 45 metre Southern Spars carbon mast offers a total sailplan of 640 square metres upwind, and the boat easily reaches seven knots. “Tango is lively and reactive in light air,” says Bassani. “The feeling at the helm is that of a much smaller boat, balanced and quick.” And a fast turn at the helm proves his point – Tango feels like she’s running on rails and reacts immediately with only one finger on the wheel.
Inside, Tango has an automotive essence. Persico Marine, which built the boat, has had a long relationship with Pininfarina through its sister company Persico Automotive. “Pininfarina was the ideal fit to develop sporty interiors matching the superyacht personality,” says Bassani. “Tango’s visionary owner agreed right away to integrate the renowned Italian design brand in Tango’s team. From its inception Wally has been open about involving new players in the development of projects.”
Not only was this Wally’s first collaboration with Pininfarina, but the firm was given a free hand, with no details from other Wallycentos carried forward except for the Konstantin Grcic steering wheels. These feature tapering spokes and what industrial designer Grcic describes as “a very rational, even edgy design, which clearly expresses the dynamic forces of steering such a maxi yacht”.
The design approach follows the theme of the cockpit-less deck, with staircase-less steps down to the saloon. Floating treads, their ends angled not unlike spoilers on a Formula One car or wavelets on an otherwise smooth sea, are suspended from the saloon’s aft bulkhead. The ends of two of the steps stretch out along the saloon walls forming shelves. Bassani enthusiastically describes the steps as well as the entire approach to the interior as “cool”, while Paolo Pininfarina, chairman of the company, notes that “to be innovative in a dream team of innovators” was a challenge.
The minimalist interior needed to be super-light and still offer comfortable accommodation for six guests in three cabins. “Thanks to the selection of materials and the innovative solutions of the interior decoration, delivering both function and aesthetics, we generated an ultra-light and super-performing yacht, perfectly suitable for cruising as well as for racing,” says Pininfarina. Key materials used include carbon fibre, wood and leather, creating a sporty atmosphere, reinforced by red accents in the furniture and red automotive-style seams on the upholstery. All of the accommodation is situated forward, including the master suite with double beds on either side. This area can be neatly converted into a sail storage room when the yacht is set up for regatta racing, since a giant skylight hatch gives direct access from the foredeck.
The choice of builder was vital to making this design work. Bergamo-based Persico Marine is known mainly for its racing boats and was founded on building lightweight moulded components, beginning with the shells and keels of the 1992 Italian America’s Cup entry Il Moro di Venezia. It has worked on some of the most demanding and gruelling yacht classes from TP52s and Mini-maxis to Volvo 65s and other America’s Cup challengers. “A large part of the carbon pieces for Tango were produced in Bergamo and moved to Savona by road,” says CEO Marcello Persico. Eight tonnes of composite were used and Persico reveals that the yard has decided to buy a new facility in Carrara for future Wally projects, such as the Wally 145 – scheduled for launch in 2019. This new shipyard is dedicated to superyachts, while all the racing projects will remain in Bergamo.
As for Tango, her owner’s verdict is that she’s “sleek, quick, beautiful looking – and comfortable to cruise”. After extensive sea trials, she was ready just a few days before her debut in Monaco. She was in the Principality for only a couple of days, and she left quickly for extra training with the crew in preparation for her first official regatta, Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, where she joined up with 14 other Wallys, including the three other Wallycentos, Open Season, Magic Carpet3 and Galateia.
In her regatta configuration, Tango has a crew of 24, and it seems that those extra days spent training and tuning the yacht were well used, since she won her first race in Saint-Tropez. Tango is a thing of beauty – but she’s also fast enough that you’ll be lucky to catch a glimpse.
Wally Yachts
( www.wally.com )
Exceptional cruising plans require exceptional yachts. This must have been what Endeavour II’s owners were thinking when they asked Rossinavi to build them something more than a typical superyacht to holiday on. Their brief was for a truly ocean-going boat that could be used year round but that would look modern and clean-lined instead of sturdy and workaday. In other words, an expedition yacht in disguise.
Experienced sailors looking to reward themselves for a lifetime of work, Endeavour II’s owners planned to spend months at a time on board, exploring lesser known oceans while retracing Magellan’s circumnavigation and Captain Cook’s expeditions.
“We were approached by Endeavour II’s owner after he had seen and loved our 70 metre yacht Numptia,” says Rossinavi’s COO Federico Rossi, the second generation of his family to work in shipbuilding. “He wanted to take long cruises to unusual destinations that are difficult to reach, but was looking for an expedition yacht more than an explorer. We called in a team we knew we could count on: Enrico Gobbi and his Team For Design studio for the exterior and Achille Salvagni for the yacht’s interiors. Enrico has already designed eight yachts for us and this is our third collaboration with Achille; we knew we were in good hands.”
“When we were called in for Endeavour II we already had the 50 metre concept engineered,” says Gobbi. “It took a lot of hard work in close collaboration with Arrabito Naval Architects, but thanks principally to a superstructure that is slimmer than the hull, we kept the yacht under 500GT. Another challenge well met was in designing for optimised hydrodynamics, unrestricted ocean service classification and for the larger fuel tanks and storage needed for autonomous navigation.”
Elsewhere, touches indicate that she is far more than a milk runner, like the synthetic teak decks that can take far more punishment than genuine teak, and the compactors and refrigerator for storing organic waste for those long periods between ports. Endeavour II’s diesel-electric propulsion system, meanwhile, helps reduce fuel consumption.
“The hull had already been designed for the Rolls-Royce marine pods and diesel-electric propulsion and this, for owners who wanted a silent, vibration-free and fuel efficient yacht for long distance navigation, was very important,” continues Gobbi. “With 5,000 nautical miles of autonomy at 12 knots, Endeavour II is very efficient, has a much longer range and is even faster than a displacement yacht: we have hit speeds of over 17 knots.”
While Endeavour II doesn’t have a pool or spa pool, she does have a generously sized opening transom for easy water access and a full range of toys, including custom amphibious and limo tenders and a 15 tonne crane that are stored under flush foredeck hatches that open like wings. “The clients liked the idea of the storage wells and the crane because they left plenty of room for the storage tanks they needed,” says Gobbi. “But what I think they liked most of all is the exterior’s simple style and the light and views that come in through the large windows. And, of course, the opening side terrace in the owner’s suite.”
Achille Salvagni, who designed Endeavour II’s interiors, found them an unusual challenge. “Working with the spaces that this hull offered was almost like designing for a sailing yacht,” he says. “That’s how sleek and fluid Endeavour II’s lines are. But these owners were happy to have less volume and more elegance; it’s more in keeping with their style.”
The owners asked to meet Salvagni after they had seen his interiors aboard Numptia. “I am from Rome, so I invited them down. It was springtime, and while we enjoyed lunch on a terrace overlooking the city we talked about the look they wanted for their yacht. I share their love for contemporary minimalist art and they have a special passion for Japan. We were on the same wavelength from the start.”
Japan and contemporary art were going to be the yacht’s themes, but Salvagni wanted to keep it subtle. “I wanted to evoke an atmosphere of Japan that could be perceived as a whole but not pinned to specific objects. So no to gurgling tsukubai fountains, but yes to certain colours and materials that speak of Japan.”
Salvagni’s interiors contrast with the “boy toy” aesthetic you might expect boarding an expedition yacht and it’s the surprise effect that makes Endeavour II so memorable. Entering the main saloon is like walking into the cool serenity of a winter sunset: pale blues and greys grounded by black, subtle pinks spiked by lacquer red, round soft shapes like snowdrifts accented by burnished gold. Everything is pleasing, even soothing, to the eye, and everything calls out to be touched. Starting from the floor covering springing softly under foot: could that be tatami, Japanese straw mats?
“Yes, it’s tatami that I sourced in Osaka,” says Salvagni, “and while using this material on a yacht posed some challenges, I think it has been a big success. The contrast of the tatami mats and the burnished bronze frames they are in reads like the yacht’s samurai backbone. I picked up the colour of the tatami in the koto wood walls and carried it over to the ceilings that are in slightly lighter toned Egyptian cotton. I wanted the serenity and the sense of comfort that come from unity and both the tatami and the cotton ceilings are backed with felt that gives them the added advantage of being very phono-absorbent.”
Salvagni was inspired by origami for the lines of Endeavour II’s curved walls and by Japanese gardens for the wooden poles veneered in brushed and waxed koto wood that mimics bamboo. “I am an architect, not a decorator, and I think that’s why the interiors I design stand out. I want to sculpt the space I’m working with and give it character, dignity and strength. It’s not a question of pretty things placed here and there; the materials and the lines I work with have to have tension. I don’t want corners because they break the line; I want curves that join and flow.”
While the ottomans, sofas and armchairs in the saloon are custom pieces designed by Salvagni for the yacht, the 12 chairs around the dining table speak of a past history and an interesting one at that. “I don’t use production pieces in my interiors because I’m not filling up a furniture showroom: every interior I design is exclusive and unique, custom made to fit the owners’ taste. That’s why I only use my own designs or pieces by great architects from the past that I source from other collectors or at auctions. The art deco dining chairs are by the French designer Paul Dupré-Lafon and the mid-century floor lamps are by Stilnovo.
Endeavour II’s full beam owner’s suite is located forward of the saloon on the main deck and is exceptionally light thanks to long windows and an opening side balcony. Here Salvagni calls voyaging to mind with buckled leather straps on an upholstered bench and storage units that recall saddlebags. There is an armchair by the icon of Italian design, Gio Ponti. “I found three chairs that Ponti designed for a cruise ship,” says Salvagni. “The one in the owners’ cabin is upholstered in white linen and there are two more in tobacco-coloured leather in the sky lounge. Ponti designed them with a low centre of gravity so that you’d feel the ship’s roll less than you would on higher seating. It’s an important lesson and explains why you won’t find high bar stools in the interior.”
Further guest accommodation and the crew area are on the lower deck and are reached via a stairwell that glows in a soft golden tone. “Another fixation of mine is for patina, for surfaces that have depth,” continues Salvagni. “The nickel silver walls in the stairwell are the end result of a long search for a metal that is lightweight and resistant, but can be treated to give it a warm, soft patina. I love the way it catches the light and reflects darkly, like an antique mirror.”
Endeavour II has two twin cabins and a full beam VIP suite that can become two double cabins by closing sliding shōji-style doors made from the same roughly woven cotton fabric sandwiched between glass that is used to create screen-like doors for the yacht’s en-suite bathrooms.
While Endeavour II proves that an expedition yacht can be defined more by her function than by her aesthetics, she has everything that you would expect from a yacht built for long range, efficient cruising. She runs on two Caterpillar C32 Acert engines driving twin diesel-electric Rolls-Royce azimuthing pods, a power plant that gives her a range of 5,000 nautical miles at 12 knots.
So what’s stopping her stretching those sea legs and seeing the world? Her owner’s plans changed and she’s now up for sale, asking €29.5 million. A snip, surely, for any ocean-adventuring Japanophiles out there who want to round Cape Horn in style.
Rossinavi
( www.rossinavi.it/en/ )
“I never understand that,” says Cor D Rover, designer of Benetti’s custom 67 metre Seasense. The subject of his bemusement is superyacht design that stacks big volume interiors on to the world’s finest vehicles for appreciating the outdoors. “This is a client in real estate in New York. He spends his weekdays in air-conditioned skyscrapers; finally you go out at sea for the weekend and you’re going to sit inside again in an air-conditioned environment?”
Absolutely not, was the answer from this particular owner, Charles C Cohen, whose portfolio of real estate, fashion, film and wine businesses makes him amply qualified to comment on matters of lifestyle. “I wasn’t interested in a ship that had a lot of enclosed living areas with low ceilings and dark wood,” he says. “I wanted it to be light, I wanted it to be airy, I wanted to have ceiling height. I wanted to celebrate the outdoors.”
This synergy of purpose between owner and designer has resulted in a yacht that doesn’t simply maximise exterior spaces — it uses them as a starting point for the entire design.
The project was sparked five years ago when Benetti asked a selection of top designers to pen concepts for the Italian yard, presented with fanfare at the 2012 Monaco Yacht Show. These became a book — a fantastical brochure for Benetti clients — and when Cohen leafed through its pages, Cor D Rover’s pool-centric drawing stood out.
“You see a lot of superyacht swimming pools,” says Rover, “but some of them are even in the lower deck, which means you are swimming without any ray of sun, which I think is sad.”
Cohen, who has owned three Rivas and appreciates feeling the elements while at sea, was entirely on board with this idea. In fact he wanted no obstacles at all to sunlight glinting off his aft deck water feature. “Originally part of the pool was under the overhang of the deck above it,” he says, “and I worked with Benetti on pulling that out from the shadow into the sunlight, which resulted in the boat being stretched in the rear.”
The proportions of the pool itself also necessitated that lengthening. “We started with a six by three metre pool, but the owner wanted it bigger,” says Rover. At 10 by 3.6 metres, with a depth of 1.2 metres at its deepest point, the result feels exceptionally large.
Consider this: Oceanco’s 2007 Alfa Nero is 15 metres longer, but that yacht’s famous pool (the first of its kind) is only 1.6 metres longer than Seasense’s, and is almost the same width.
Supporting 27,000 litres of water was another task facing Benetti. While project engineer Marco Coiatelli plays down the difficulty — “we are not building rockets” — the scale of this feature did require beefing up its surrounds.
“That swimming pool is part of the hull, so it is made of steel; it’s not something inserted in the structure of the hull,” says Coiatelli. “We had to strengthen the bottom of the pool to withstand the forces coming both from the water inside the pool and the interaction between the hull and the sea.”
And it does tricks too. The water drains into a dump tank below to avoid wasting fresh water overboard, but it can also stay in the pool during navigation without sloshing about or causing stability problems. “We decided to ask MARIN [Maritime Research Institute Netherlands] to tank test the boat, to understand the behaviour of the pool with different headings, wave periods and sea states,” says Coiatelli.
The results showed no problems in reasonable sea states, with due consideration from the captain. Their technical work reduced the free surface of water — so it can’t build up momentum to create a big wave that will spill over the edge.
When it’s empty, the crew can transform the pool into a basketball court using 22 panels stored in lower deck lockers, in an operation that Rover estimates will take half a day (they haven’t tried it yet). A basketball hoop affixes to the deck overhang at the forward end of the pool. “Benetti thought that might be an interesting idea and my three sons love basketball, so I thought why not?” says Cohen.
When the pool is in use, this is still one spectacular playground. Teak decking runs athwartships rather than fore to aft, emphasising the breadth of the space — and giving a luxurious feeling of sprawl. The fact that you can walk all around the water does the same job — it is a lavish use of space — and also visually underlines an intellectual point, that this pool lies at the centre of the design.
Teak louvres along the sides of the aft deck can be adjusted to shade lounging guests from sunshine pouring on to the pool, as do broad pagoda-like umbrellas by Yachting Line, while misters keep things cool.
Forward of the pool is a teak-decked dining area with a table that stretches athwartships (again, emphasising the beam) and forward again a television lounge. Two sets of massive sliding doors can divide the pool/dining area/lounge into two or three spaces, or, when left open, create one sprawling indoor-outdoor space that runs for about half the length of Seasense — more than 30 metres.
“There are a lot of blues on there and they might look alike, but they’re different,” says Walt Thomas, joint principal of AREA, the LA-based architecture and design firm that penned the yacht’s decorative theme — its first yacht project aside from one of Cohen’s Rivas.
The sort of interior design schemes commonly seen on the dock in Monaco were out of the question — as Thomas puts it, what they had seen was either “boring or over the top, like way over the top”. The owner wanted something that was different, “but at the same time would still feel comfortable, contemporary and timeless,” he adds.
But that was not the only principle in play. “We’ve done a couple of residences and a lot of office projects with Mr Cohen. I think his mantra for every project is that he doesn’t want to ever see something repeated. Every room has to be different — you can’t repeat any finishes and you can’t repeat colours or fabrics. Everything has to be unique,” says Thomas.
AREA, then, had to create a cohesive theme, the materials and tones of which would change in every space. How was it done? Partly by eye, and partly by continuing one neutral element throughout. “We used a white [dyed Tanganika Frise] wood for all the bases, all the trims, the doors and all the door frames. That is the only thing that is repeated consistently.”
The resulting décor is, as Thomas accurately describes, like a jewellery box: lapis lazuli velvet and leather furniture by Holly Hunt and Chai Ming Studios among others, with silky, mottled blue carpets by Tai Ping in the television lounge, as well as in the upper saloon, where the palette is spiked with the pinks, golds, limes and emeralds of the owner’s artworks. It’s a colour scheme that could be overpowering in smaller spaces, but the scale of this boat can take it.
“The most unusual element in the interior is the headroom,” says Rover. “The owner is used to New York apartment buildings with phenomenal headroom. So we’ve got 2.7 metres in all the spaces, but more than three metres in the owner’s suite. Which is like a cathedral; it gives a very airy feeling above the bed.”
The owner’s suite, situated forward on the main deck, is huge and glamorous, from the monolithic marble bath in the en suite to dressing rooms and a long grey wood desk. The design also makes the most of the recessed ceiling over the bed, with a mirror-polished stainless steel chandelier by Studio Roso that glints in the light.
Aft of the suite is a VIP perfectly positioned for family members, while what is quite correctly labelled on the GA as the “grand entrance” sits aft of here. Down via a marble staircase, or the lift that centres it, lie four guest cabins with the same breathtaking height.
Crew accommodation and the galley on the lower deck, as well as the main deck pantry and upper deck captain’s cabin, benefit from this vertical freedom too. The engine room and technical spaces, meanwhile, have such spacious surrounds that some bits of kit look like exhibits in a modern art gallery.
The effect of vertical space on the profile — making it taller — is offset by the sheer length of Seasense, as well as the tapering of that aft deck, the size of which reduces the overall volume of superstructure. The plumb bow and purposeful exterior style also lend themselves well to high ceilings. “We were looking for almost a friendly version of a navy or a frigate style of boat, very white, giving the appearance of masculinity and safety,” says Rover.
But this was not the only knock-on effect. The special height of the owner’s cabin meant “we had to sacrifice the seating arrangement in front of the wheelhouse”, Rover says. But the pool area has rejigged the way that one would expect all the exterior decks to be used.
“A lot of boats have a sundeck far up and a beach club far down, almost in a sad place, very dark and tucked away, perhaps with a lot of technical stuff around it,” says Rover. “We brought the beach club up one deck and the sundeck down and we combined these two in this aft deck beach area.”
The superyacht sundeck is now a private spot for family breakfasts, sweating it out in the gym or soaking in the superyacht spa pool up front. And while the main deck is traditional for formal dining, on Seasense the upper deck is in play: a custom circular table by AREA straddles the line between the upper saloon and its aft deck, combining a blue Sodalite stone top and a Blue Eucalyptus Frise veneer.
Curved sliding doors enclose or open up this dining area as desired. With this owner, it seems likely those doors won’t be closed very often. And why should they be? It’s a lifestyle at sea that makes perfect sense.
Benetti
( www.benettiyachts.it )
It was the windows that first attracted the owner to this 50 metre Heesen. The rectangular floor-to-ceiling glazing is the first thing you notice from the outside on this yacht, which was started on spec as Project Nova, and it commands your attention inside as well, the panoramic glass pulling your gaze to the natural world beyond.
“He bought the boat because of the windows,” confirms interior designer Cristiano Gatto. “He told me, ‘my idea of being on board is to wake up and see the sea around me — I don’t want to be in marinas very much.’ We worked to simplify and minimise the interiors so that the windows are the artwork.”
It’s fitting also that this is the first hull to couple hybrid propulsion to the proven Fast Displacement Hull Form by Van Oossanen Naval Architects, allowing an owner who loves looking at nature to reduce his impact on it.
Home is another success story for Heesen’s spec-built business model. The owner bought his previous yachts on the brokerage market and didn’t want to wait three years for a new build. So when Heesen’s Thom Conboy showed him a project that had the lines, space and views he was looking for, with the ability to customise the interior within a short delivery time, it was game on.
The yacht’s lines were inspired by another Heesen, 50 metre Sibelle, says Frank Laupman of Omega Architects. The two boats share the aggressive bow, which might be right on trend but also serves a purpose, providing progressive buoyancy when carving through waves. The bow shape also means the crew accommodation can be set further forward. In order to stay under 500GT, Omega created walkaround decks, while also giving the master suite forward on the main deck the full beam.
“This worked quite well,” says Laupman. “We chamfered the superstructure and gave little knuckles in the glass, so the walkaround starts wide then gets narrower — it makes a difference psychologically.” Uninterrupted sightlines from inside are achieved with cut-out bulwarks topped by specially designed handrails.
The interior was started on spec by Sinot Exclusive Yacht Design, but the original motif didn’t appeal to Home’s owner. Gatto was called in after coming recommended. The layout, main partitions, sub-construction and some furniture were already completed; Gatto’s task was less a gut job than carefully laying his ideas on top of an already fixed skeleton.
“We had to study the design that was done and transform it,” he says. “If we needed to redesign everything completely that would have been easier, but then would have caused a six month delay. But the owner is a very fast decision maker. I met him and we redesigned [the concept for the interior] in three weeks.”
To the credit of all involved, she was delivered right on time. Her captain, Nigel Jenkins, who has served as a build captain five times, was brought in to help make this so. “Heesen were on track, but the external contractors were slow in providing information required, and so I was brought in to try and turn it around again. Straight away Cristiano and I hit it off, both with similar standards, both looking for the same thing — to produce a good boat, and a good-looking boat,” says Jenkins.
The owner’s brief was for a modern, comfortable interior; the keyword was simplicity, not minimalism. “The owner used her for seven and a half weeks back-to-back, straight from taking delivery,” says Jenkins. “He wants to be able to live on board about seven months of the year. That’s why the name Home came about.”
The style of Home’s furnishings is similar to what you’d see in the owner’s properties on shore — low, deep sofas, for instance, and usable art in the shape of chaises longues — and the palette is refined to four main hues: white, black, grey and maroon to give a splash of colour. The white materials range from wood and marble to leather and metal.
Texture, tactility and reflection were used to transform spaces. “Materials that have the same colour react differently in light, so the same colours can be transformed by the lighting, particularly white, because of the reflection and the way it absorbs light,” says Gatto.
Although all of the sub-construction of the ceilings, including the lighting, was in place, Gatto edited the lighting plan, a process that proved to be the most challenging. Focused LEDs, custom wall lamps, loose lighting and strip lighting were designed to capture the reflective nature of each of the chosen materials.
Though Gatto spent six months sourcing artworks for the interior, the owner selected just three pieces. The purposeful absence of art on board is powerful and effective as the eye is instead drawn to the scenery outside. The owner plans to use the boat in the colourful cruising grounds of the Bahamas, primarily the Exumas. “When you’re spending time in cold destinations or want to put your focus inside, you need more art. But the nature you see outside is the real artwork,” says Gatto.
The owner will use Home for work as well as play, and two offices that precede the master cabin are designed around his business needs. An inner office, connected to the cabin, is dedicated to the owner’s use, while an outer office has a desk for two so staff can work alongside.
When work finishes, however, play can start. The furniture on the sundeck is all low-slung Paola Lenti pieces, which are also functional — Jenkins points out the yoga mats stored beneath the sunloungers.
Everything is sea-fastened for safety, but movable to create more space for entertaining. There is a projector and a screen set-up, turning the deck into an outdoor cinema. The superyacht spa pool is much used, says Jenkins, and he also points out the dancing pole. “After a few drinks, if you’ve got the party wigs and silly hats on, it’s just for a bit of fun…”
But the real hotspot for dancing on board is the upper saloon. This space is the one that perhaps best shows off the holistic indoor/outdoor ethos that Gatto and Laupman pulled off with such aplomb. “We took out everything, we erased the drawings and made an extension of the outside deck — inside,” says Gatto.
The only built-in furniture is a small bar, and everything else is loose Paola Lenti outdoor pieces that can be used inside or on the aft deck. With full height windows, it’s a lovely place to sit and watch the world roll by, and the glass doors open completely so that the lines between inside and outside are blurred. Or close the doors, remove all the furniture and add a mirror ball and smoke machine to create an epic party room.
More fun can be found on Home’s foredeck, in a telescopic seat that rises from the bow, allowing uninterrupted 360-degree views. It can even be used under way if the conditions are right. It’s the ideal spot to watch dolphins riding the bow wave, especially in the clear water of the Bahamas.
It can’t be forgotten that Home rides on Van Oossanen’s Fast Displacement Hull Form. This is the third optimisation of the design, and one that the naval architect says makes her 48 per cent more efficient than other 50 metre yachts, and with a superior level of comfort. Upping the ante on efficiency is the use of hybrid propulsion.
Home’s captain enjoys the variety afforded by the four engine modes: basic diesel cruising, ideal for quicker passages; quiet mode with electric motors; boost mode, which combines diesel and electric for an added surge of power; and the fourth, which is Jenkins’ favourite: eco mode.
On our sea trial from Monaco to Antibes, we put Home’s various engine modes to the test. On the mains, the captain takes her to 17.2 knots. Boost mode kicks things up a notch, just a bit faster to 17.7. But it’s her silence that speaks volumes. We cruise at 9.3 knots on electric power, the air con louder than the engines.
Wandering into the master cabin, the quiet is disarming as we cut through the water, gazing out of the massive windows and watching the waves move by in soundless bliss. It’s easy to see how the owner will make this yacht his sanctuary, truly his home at sea.
Heesen Yachts
( www.heesenyachts.com )
