A well-worn aphorism that’s been tacking around luxury marinas from the Cote d’Azur to the Bahamas for many decades, claims that a big yacht will give a man the two happiest days of his life – the day he buys it and the day he sells it…
Yachts and mega yachts are God’s way of dishing out pleasure and pain in one huge, ocean-going, wallet-emptying package – a salty, gin-soaked summer cruise filled with joy but tainted with jealousy. You see, size matters in the harbour at Saint Tropez and, more often than not, a billionaire mega yacht owner’s favourite topic of conversation will be other billionaires’ mega yachts – specifically the feet and inches specifications.
Because they can’t really appreciate the bulk of their own boats when they are actually standing on them, billionaire yachties become obsessed with the boats they clock in the cross hairs of their binoculars and the ego-eclipsing sight of a larger, more impressively appointed vessel can be a vacation-crushing experience. You can bet that when news of the $1.2 billion Triple Deuce project, set to be the world’s biggest super yacht at a whopping 222 meters (728 feet) long and estimated to be completed in 2018, reached Roman Abramovich, his first words were “I’m going to need a bigger boat”.
Pictured: Ocean Emerald by Foster & Partners (left) & Foggy by Frank Gehry (right)
But bigger is not always better when it comes to boats. Impressive size and dominant harbour presence often hides a charisma-vacuum of disappointment on the interior. Think white, sleek and clean lines on the outside but inside all gussied up in marble, chrome and coppery, varnished wood like a branch of Westfield, with décor that seems intent on referencing provincial shopping malls, corporate hotel suites and Nobu franchises. Altitude, the 180 foot Benetti yacht chartered by Jay-Z and Beyoncé last summer at a reported cost of $900,000 a week, for instance, might have a cruising speed of 14 knots, six cabins, a gym, an Aqua Jump water trampoline and a Hobie Cat catamaran, but even at that exorbitant price, its bedrooms are still kitted out in a style that says ‘Saddam Hussein’s holiday home’. It’s a hyper immaculate and rigorously depersonalised, uptight aesthetic that might chime with the megalomaniacal super-rich but looks a bit, well, naff and old fashioned to anyone with a passing interest in contemporary design. So, if you have a few million to spare and the idea of an overly ‘boaty’ boat design doesn’t appeal, where do you go?
Pictured: Ocean Emerald by Foster & Partners
A new generation of boats created by ateliers thinking outside the white box of nautical convention is a great start. Look at starchitects and celebrity industrial designers such as Germany’s Konstantin Grcic, who collaborated with British sailor Alex Thomson to design a black, round-the-world racing yacht for fashion brand Hugo Boss. France’s Philippe Starck – once described as the enfant terrible of modern design – is world famous for his ubiquitous ‘ghost’ chairs and hotel interiors and is now concentrating on making extraordinary boats for the rich and adventurous – most notably, Venus for Steve Jobs and the spectacular Motor Yacht A for Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, replaced last summer with the even more extraordinary, Starck-designed Sailing Yacht A. Yearning for more? Here are some A-list, designer-led-meets-architect-conceived boats to enjoy…
1. OCEAN EMERALD DESIGNED BY FOSTER + PARTNERS
Imagine architect Norman Foster’s Gherkin landmark wrenched from its City of London position and laid sideways in the Thames and you will start to understand the design of Ocean Emerald. The property of Yacht Plus, a fractionally owned luxury fleet (which means only a lucky group of multi-millionaires gets to sail her every year), the boat’s grey and moody, post-industrial, minimal design is pure Dubai Death Star chic. With around 30% more deck space than any other similar yacht this is a party boat, and keen attention has been paid to design and detail, ranging from space and ambience through to crockery, cutlery, fabrics and crew uniforms. All furnishings and fittings are provided by the Italian manufacturer Cassina.
The luminous vessel boasts floor-to-ceiling windows and a panoramic saloon on the upper deck, offering wide, unobstructed views of the horizon, while natural materials such as solid teak and coconut husk fibre flooring dissipate the boundaries between the lush interior and the sleek, chic outer deck to elegant effect.
2. FOGGY BY FRANK GEHRY
An avid sailor, architect Frank Gehry’s first boat Foggy features accents, material choices and aesthetics that give it away as, well, a Frank Gehry project. Even the plaited wood wheel is a work of architectural beauty.
A jaunty play on the architect’s initials (Frank Owen Gehry), Foggy is a two-masted Beneteau First 44.7 manufactured by Brooklin Boat Yard, Maine, USA using ‘cold molding’ technology; sandwiching Larch wood around a high-tech core to create a lighter and more durable craft than traditional carpentry. The designer of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Louis Vuitton Foundation went to painstaking detail making sure there was a story behind every item on the boat – every cleat, doorknob and showerhead. His date of birth (02/08/29) make up the numbers on the boat’s sails.
Post-war Italian design was a great source of inspiration for the designer of the Riva Aquariva by Marc Newson
3. THE RIVA AQUARIVA BY MARC NEWSON
With a lifelong passion for vehicles (he’s already designed a plane and a car) the Australian-born über designer created a speed boat that honoured the sleek glamour of a classic Riva. Working in collaboration with Italian boat manufacturer Officina Italiana Design, the lines of Newson’s Aquariva reinterpret the iconic Riva Aquarama by using anodised aluminium and a grained, textile-based, phenolic compound laminate instead of the traditional wood finish. The wraparound windscreen is made of a single piece of laminated glass, while upholstery is turquoise or orange. “As a child I was fascinated by design and the ability to create,” says Newson. “Post-war Italian design was a great source of inspiration for me. I was impressed by the incomparable ability of designers to give shape to any type of industrial product, from furniture to cars. My career was undoubtedly influenced by the ability of Italian artisans to excel in many areas of design, and this influence is clearly recognisable in ‘Aquariva by Marc Newson’.”
Newson, whose Lockheed Lounge chair set an auction record as the world’s most expensive design object – the aluminium and fiberglass chaise longue fetched £2,434,500 during a sale at Phillips in 2015 – made the boat in a limited edition of just 22 available through the Gagosian Gallery.
4. KIRRIBILLI BY RENZO PIANO
Best known in the UK for his design of the skyline-dominating Shard building in London, Renzo Piano’s boat combines advanced construction technology, researched hydrodynamics and performance with elegance. Italian nautical experts Vismara invited Piano to create “a fast cruiser with all of the characteristics of the most modern maxi yachts, and the sober qualities and essential lines of the famous J Class, which competed in the America’s Cup in the 1930s.” The result is a graceful, extremely light, monocoque structure with hull and deck manufactured in one, continuous sandwich of materials, eliminating the need for almost any secondary reinforcement structures leaving smooth, seamless surfaces inside and outside the boat.
The hull, deck and bulkheads of the MAS60 yacht are painted in the same delicate, mother-of-pearl shade. “Nautical details are good details,” Piano explains. “They have to be good, because they must survive the sea.”
5. B60 LUCA BRENTA BY JOHN PAWSON
Pared down, clean and simple, with materials and beautiful finishes to the fore; architect John Pawson’s boat is an exercise in ocean-going minimalism – think single mast and Daz-white sails hanging above a white carbon-fibre hull and a sci-fi white cabin beneath. Luca Brenta’s expertise lies in pushing forms and materials and the rigours of an approach which consistently prioritises vision over established ways of doing things. Ergo, the collaboration with Pawson focussed on a particular set of interior spatial ideals. In true Pawson style the interior dispenses with conventional door handles and unsightly hand rails. Lounging comes in the form of a pair of monastically-styled day beds. This is the simple life at sea.
