Power & Motoryacht – June 2017

Seeing into the Future

VIRTUAL REALITY IS POISED TO TRANSFORM THE YACHT BUILDING—AND BUYING—PROCESS.

BY JEFF MOSER

Virtual reality let show-goers at Yachts Miami Beach

explore the Hatteras 90 Motor Yacht before it was built.

POWER &TECHNOLOGY

G

azing over a South African

savanna from an open Land

Rover, I see big-game animals

grazing in every direction. Noisy bird

calls and an elephant’s trumpeting peal

rise above the light rustle of the veldt

grasses. It’s stunning. Th e scene soft ens

and suddenly I’m sitting in a yurt with a

family during supper. I look around the

circular dwelling, down at my plate of

food, then through the open canvas door

at the Mongolian steppe. As I study a wall

hanging, I feel a tap on my shoulder—

time’s up. I remove the Samsung virtual

reality (VR) headset, and I’m back in New

York City. Th e experience was surreal. Or

was it so real?

VR has gone from a video gamer’s play-

thing to an extremely valuable tool for

myriad modalities. Boatbuilders, too, are

realizing the powerful ways in which VR

can be implemented, from a vessel’s initial

design to dockside deal-making.

Perennially at the forefront in yacht de-

sign and technology, Dutch builders and

designers have been enthusiastic about VR for quite some time.

“Th e topic is really alive,” said Jeroen Droogsma, Vripack’s design

studio manager. Calling from the design company’s Amsterdam

offi ce, Droogsma related how VR is reshaping Vripack, putting the

terabytes of data produced in yacht design, refi ts, and consultations

to more effi cient use. “It’s allowed us to use data in a diff erent way,

in a better way,” he said. “Th ere’s much more intelligence in those

fi les than can be [seen] from printing on paper. We’re extracting

much more out of it.”

Another Dutchman, entrepreneur Ingmar Vroege, founded

Ships & Goggles as an off shoot of his VR design house Bricks &

Goggles about two years ago. Vroege saw the potential of VR in

megayacht design, so he took his Oculus Rift VR headset to last

year’s Monaco Yacht Show and immediately impressed superyacht

behemoth Yachting Partners International. “YPI was enthusias-

tic from the beginning,” Vroege said. He’s currently working with

company on an immersive VR experience for a 344-foot yacht.

Both Droogsma and Vroege mentioned the dual role VR plays

for builders and clients. “Th ere’s a lot of

money involved in superyachts, and a high

amount of bespoke objects and interiors.

Builders want happy clients [and] to deliver

on time, so the more uncertainty you can

get rid of, the better,” Droogsma explained.

Vroege echoed these remarks. “Custom-

ers will begin to ask for it,” he said, adding

that VR is helping builders obviate the need

to put together scale models. “By building

up the model [in VR], how it needs to be

done by the shipyard, we’re teaching em-

ployees to build a boat before the build. It’s

good for us, good for the clients, and good

for the shipyard,” Vroege said.

Across the pond, at around the same time

Vroege was wooing YPI, Hatteras Yachts

COO Wade Watson was talking with High

Rock Studios, a full-service marketing

fi rm. Watson had previously worked on

VR projects with High Rock and saw its

potential for Hatteras. Th e builder wanted

something innovative to help advertise its

in-build 90-foot mo-toryacht at the Ft. Lau-

derdale boat show. “We needed something

more immersive, where the customer could get a real sense of space,”

Hatteras Marketing Director Joe Cacopardo told me.

Hatteras promoted the VR for the 90 via its dealer network and

had potential customers lined up and ready at FLIBS. As with the

Dutch VR systems, these clients wore a headset (HTC Vine and

Oculus Rift are the leaders in the fi eld) and used a video-game-

type controller to tour the vessel. If desired, they could ask ques-

tions, pull up a fl oor plan, select items, change colors of settees,

update countertop materials—even move bulkheads.

For Hatteras, VR “went really, really well,” Cacopardo said, as the

company sold Hull No. 1 at the show. Cacopardo now sees VR as

a more permanent part of the boat-selling process, a tool that can

be used to get clients emotionally involved. And like Vroege, he

thinks VR will play a major role in product development and the

spatial-relationship process. “Soon, we will be designing behind

the glasses, not on the computer screen,” Vroege told me. “All of the

foundations [of boat design] will be done this way.” Seems like VR

is on board to shake up the boatbuilding process for the better. U

22 POWER & MOTORYACHT / JUNE 2017 WWW.PMYMAG.COM