Londoners Rick Baker and Paul Morgan, who
have created furniture pieces and design features
for the owner for 20 years, were asked if they
would design an interior around the GA
developed by Cook, Royal Huisman and Dubois.
They embraced their first yacht project
unequivocally. “We planned an interior that is
modern, organic and curved, following on the
exterior lines. We know the owner likes curves
and tactile finishes. It’s nice when you can be on
the same page with a client,” Morgan says. “We
approached it with a very open eye. Royal
Huisman was so helpful and there was a shared
respect for craft. I think our concepts were
eagerly awaited in the manner of wondering what
we would come up with next. They kept us to a
strict weight budget except for the marble in the
showers and the wooden soaking tub,” he adds.
To the description modern, curved and
organic, I would add youthful and exuberant.
Colours and art pieces – a collage of photos that
becomes a seascape by Vik Muniz, a bust of awoman with an artichoke on her head and a
Stefano Bombardieri sculpture of a rhinoceros
suspended in air – could be talking points for
days, but the real show-stoppers are wall panels
commissioned by Officina Coppola, an English
company specialising in custom finishes and art
panels of resin, metal and limestone. The pieces
are pressed into service as wardrobe doors and
bedside wall panels; their colours and movement
make it seem like you are looking at the bottom
of a shallow sea.
Indeed, contact with the water was key for the
owner, which is why there is no flybridge. Ngoni’s
main deck is completely encircled with optically
perfect glass with exacting compound curves.
Only one manufacturer, BCM in Turkey, would
attempt the project. The glass, which is laminated
with tinted film and heated to a near liquid state,
is slumped into moulds to shape as it cools. The
effect of the near 360 degree view from almost
anywhere within the main deck structure is
nothing short of awesome.The forward end of the glass deckhouse wraps
around a navigation and communications
console on starboard and a service pantry on
port. In the centre of the open area is the top of
the massive lifting keel box doing double duty as
a chart table and staging meal service from the
galley below. As if the curved glass wrapping
around and over the coachroof frame isn’t
enough, skylights give views of the towering mast
above, creating an atrium-like effect on the crew
space below. With the doors open, as they
generally are, it is possible to see from the aft
deck straight through the saloon and navigation
station to the bow.
The open plan saloon – there are no internal
supports – encompasses a dining table, a full wet
bar with a backlit onyx top and custom bar stools
matching the satinwood dining chairs by Francis
Sultana, and a circular section for watching
television or films from a small pop-up screen.
Textures such as bleached wenge floor planks, the
uniquely textured bronze-look “Boetti” bar frontfollowing on the exterior lines. We know the owner likes curves”
The real stars are the windows by Turkish contractor BCM that curve up to the overhead. Unobstructed by blinds or drapes, they initiate
a jaw-dropping view of the surroundings. The lighting design throughout is by the UK-based Light Corporation