people say you can breed the fish to
eat too. Tilapia, perch, trout, catfish
and hybrid-striped bass are very
good species for this. However, we
haven’t yet fully resolved the top-up
system because there is evaporation
in aquaponics. And we want to
make it quite a visual experience,
but don’t yet know to what extent we
can control the environment: what
it will smell like, what sort of
humidity it will need to be kept at.
But it’s very clean. There’s no toxic
run-off, which you get from
conventional fish farms.”
For long-range expedition yachts,
a supply of fresh food grown using
hydro or aquaponics is a compelling
alternative to banks of freezers
packed with provisions and
circumvents the need to dump soil
on entering the waters of countries
that forbid the import of plants and
soil, which is most of them. Plants,
too, are among the items confiscated
by US Customs and Border
Protection, and indeed the border
agencies of most nations. (For
permits to bring in live animals or
birds – and if the pirates of yore were
indicative, then parrots and their
like can thrive on boats, though I’ve
yet to find a yacht with an aviary –
you need to apply in advance to the
US Fish & Wildlife Service or its
equivalent elsewhere.) The EU is no
less strict.
For those who want more
permanent displays of foliage, one
option is to fake it with what is
known as stabilized planting, a
process in which the sap is removed
from a tree or plant and replaced
with glycerin. This preserves it in a
way that looks convincingly lifelike,enabling designers to incorporate
vertical walls of exotic plants and
indeed trees into their interior
schemes without the need for soil,
water or special lights. The only
maintenance they require is
occasional dusting with a hairdryer.
When the Dubai-based Bahraini
designer Fatima Ahmed Al Maidan,
of SFL Design, created the interiors
of Mondomarine superyacht
Serenity, the panels of flowering
plants and lichens she used in the
guest cabins were made by the
Italian company LinfaDecor. But
Nice-based Déco Végétale also has
an impressive line in vertical
gardens and indeed trees (thuya, a
kind of miniature cypress; dwarf
eucalyptus, and several varieties of
palm) as well as bonsai fukuoka and
juniper, which can last 10 to 12 years
before they begin to shed their
leaves. (Flowers have a shorter
lifespan of more like four.)
Corals are another biological
organism that can thrive on a yacht.
Prince Khaled bin Sultan’sGolden
Odysseyincorporates a glass-
bottomed swimming pool to
observe the natural world in a
double-height aquarium between
the dining salon and the pool. This
aquarium is large enough to contain
a living coral reef seeded in
collaboration with the Monaco’s
Institut Océanographique, which
has been cultivating coral since- (As founder of the Khaled bin
Sultan Living Oceans Foundation,
the prince’s concern for the plight of
the world’s deteriorating reefs is
well known.)
Maintaining a live reef requires
specialist skills, and for owners
“Some clients just want something out of the ordinary.
We’re currently working on two tall jellyfish tanks for a yacht,
and we’ve had clients ask foroctopuses, rays and sharks”
GREEN SHOOTS
The temperature-
controlled garden on
Laurel, above; thetropical vegetation
on board Boadicea,
below; Galactica Star,
bottomPHOTOGRAPHS: LUXURY VISION PRODUCTIONS; SRD; DAVID CHURCHILL
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