“Clients are getting younger and
younger,” says interior designer
Guillaume Rolland, of Studio
Liaigre, “and they have another
vision of the world. They want
more of a gathering place than a
showpiece. It’s rare you have to
spend a lot of time inside, so you
push away the dining table and
create a cozy corner that you would
use more often.”
Rolland is a proponent of
maximizing every inch to effect
change, noting that superyachts
could take a page from the playbook
of smaller boats. “Sometimes
superyachts forget that they are
basically a boat,” he says. “If you
look at a 15 meter [49 footer], they
really twist everything, it’s like
magic. They can’t afford to lose four
inches. Even on an 80 meter [262ft]
boat, space is valuable. If you can
gain four inches on a door swing,
that can change everything.”
London-based interior designer
Peter Mikic agrees. “It’s about
maximizing everything – the space,
the look, the comfort, the style –
everything you possibly can to
develop that interior. More of our
clients are requesting less
traditional layouts, more unique
interiors and everyone’s DNA is
different.” This emphasis on the
individual is key. Mikic likes
raiding a client’s house to discover
favorite artworks or furnishings
that can inform a yacht’s design.
For designers like him the
ubiquitous chic but bland,
impersonal yacht interior is over.Brokers & resaleEven when an owner and designer
seemingly agree on exactly what
they want from their yacht, the
question of resale value can stifle
design progress. A designer might
pitch a boat that forgoes a dining
salon only for the owner to betalked back into it by a broker who’s
thinking about resale and/or
charter. Eidsgaard has a sage
reminder: “There’s too much focus
on resale value because you’re
comparing something new to boats
that are on the market now, while
what we’re designing is ready in
four years and sold in 10 years.
If we didn’t have owners who
pushed the envelope, we wouldn’t
have big spas and different
exteriors to begin with.”
The key, Horsfield suggests, is in
making the onboard spaces more
flexible. So today’s movie theater
could be turned into a dining room
in five years’ time – and flexible
spaces are another big plus for
today’s owner.
The barriers and solutions to
design revolution are inextricably
linked. The traditional placement
of engine rooms has meant that so
many yacht layouts look alike but
hybrid propulsion systems change
all this. The advanced and compact
propulsion system on Wider’s 151ft
yacht Genesi allowed the engine
room to be moved, making way for
a massive combined garage and
beach club, hosting a tender rarely
found on a yacht of this size. These
continuing advancements in
energy generation on yachts could
prove a game-changer for designers.Cost & materials“Escalating building costs are
definitely holding clients back from
going down a more radical route,”
says Horsfield, of yet another
challenge to advancing change.
This could motivate owners to
consider building in a different
country or in a new manner – like
the 351ft explorer yacht Ulysses,
which has an H2 interior. It
launched at a commercial yard in
Norway with a more rugged fit and
finish, which suited the owner.
“The guy who ordered UlyssesMAY 2017 WWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM MAY 2017wanted to be able to walk around in
his wetsuit,” Horsfield says.
Materials themselves present a
hurdle in pushing things further,
but this inspires designers to build
in composites and even use 3D
printing to create increasingly
complex exteriors – not to mention
the recent progress in glass
technology, which has led to design
features such as the water-level
viewing room on Feadship’s
274ft World Superyacht Award-
winning Savannah.Regulations
& shipyardsThe sometimes conservative stance
of shipyards and onerous
regulations are other barriers to
progressive designs. It’s something
Peder Eidsgaard knows well. Four
of his yachts in build have split-
level decks, a bold idea that
increases headroom, improves
sight lines and creates new exterior
opportunities. Shipyards aren’t
always quick to embrace such
concepts but Eidsgaard says the
risk is low as torsion can easily be
compensated for.
“It’s up to the designer to
encourage the client,” Eidsgaard
says. “You need a relationship
where the client trusts you to create
the vision for the exterior and
interior layout, and then to get the
shipyard on board. It’s not about
selling a particular design, but a
way of thinking. The design on the
table is actually about the minds
meeting and establishing how
much we can push the boundaries.”
Before it launched, the
Eidsgaard-designed 187ft Feadship
Halo was criticized for its unusual
beams, running from the sundeck
down to the wheelhouse. “Some
people were negative during the
build,” he says, “but that changed
when the boat was completed. I felt[the beams] were right and the
owner said ‘yes, absolutely.’ The
client really wanted to make it an
aggressive boat.” The beams limit
the view from the wheelhouse, but,
Eidsgaard argues, the view from
Halo’s bridge is still better than that
from a car driver’s seat. “Cars travel
at much higher speeds and much
closer to each other, so if we can do
it on a car, we should be able to do
it on a boat!”
Horsfield thinks regulations
have held back major advancements
in interior layouts, as well as
hindering some of the things that
go unseen – air conditioning,
cabling, ducting. “These elements
have not changed significantly in 20
years, so we still face the same
restrictions in creating interesting
spaces,” he says. “And the industry’s
reliance on ‘platform’ sharing is
perhaps also slowing progress in
general arrangements and design.”
So is superyacht design really
stuck in a rut? It would seem the
answer is no – but make no mistake
that there are clear challenges to
PHOTOGRAPH: JEFF BROWN this slow-burning revolution. Bwasted,” says Fabio Ermetto, COO
of Benetti. “Now we are moving the
garage forward in all of our boats
and we are extending a fixed
platform on the back, which for
Benetti is a big change, because
people want to live closer to the sea.”
When it comes to exterior
design, Horsfield says that a quiet
revolution has been taking place
over the past 20 years. “If you
compare a yacht from the early
1990s to today, the level of detail,
surfacing and the resolution of the
design in 3D have allowed radical
designs to be built.”
Exterior design evolution
extends to paint jobs, with metallic
tones inspired by the auto industry
leading the charge. “Paint
companies have come a long way in
making metallics feasible, but many
operators are reluctant to embracethis,” says Peder Eidsgaard, of
Eidsgaard Design. “For me this is
like with the car industry: a long
time ago there were not many
metallic-tone cars around, now
hardly anyone will order a car in
non-metallic. In the future, it will
be normal.”InteriorThere’s an old joke that motor
yacht layouts are so predictable that
you could walk through most of
them blindfolded. As with all
clichés, there is a grain of truth.
Fortunately, we’re starting to see
the subtle signs of a rebellion from
staid general arrangements, with
main salons now being used as
movie theaters, interior volumes
shrunk to prioritize outdoor spaces
and even the slow death of the
formal dining salon.Right:
Peder Eidsgaard
likes to employ
bold ideas, such as
split-level decks
(above), in
his designsAbove:
The Peter
Mikic-designed
interior of Feadship
Elisabeth F, now
Mirage“ Escalating building costs are
holding clients back from going down
a more radical route”Top:
151ft Genesi’s
compact propulsion
system allows for a
less conventional
layout of the yacht
Above:
187ft Halo features
unusual beams,
running from the
sundeck down to
the wheelhouse1320123456789ART
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