Design Showcase: Outside In
Louis Postel
02/01/2008

At 61 knots, you’re breezing over the skin of planet Earth, waves parting "so you feel a little bit like Moses," says yacht designer Peter Sampson.

Ten thousand horsepower effortlessly propels you, ensconced in the bubble-like "cockpit" of a 163-foot motor yacht in the very forward tip of one of its three huge, well-upholstered hulls. Were Eric Clapton to materialize right there to lay down screaming "Layla" power chords in soulful accompaniment to the ride, you couldn’t be more psyched. Who could imagine a window/porthole such as this, with such a hyperkinetic, all-embracing view of sea and sky?

Right now, bubble cockpits such as this are just imagined, conjured by the cowboy-booted, long-haired Sampson of medieval Tallinn, Estonia, on the shores of the Baltic Sea. However, given his years of successful marine and yacht design, he may be putting the Hylas concept into production sooner than later. The concept, with its novel window configuration, represents Sampson’s radical refiguring of the prevailing motor yacht layout—enter stern, proceed to salon with galley port side—designed in direct response to where he thinks many of his clients are headed, which is, toward cars and jets as models for their yachts. (Click image to enlarge)

The challenge for today’s yacht window designers—mainstream designers and iconoclasts like Sampson—is the creation of evermore-thrilling, luxurious views from the interior, while creating increasingly sleek hull profiles to be admired from outside. Windows on large motor yachts unfailingly yield a kaleidoscope of world wonders—snarly glaciers toppling, crenellated castles misting, Valencia waking, albatrosses dipping and banking, moonbeams magically spreading themselves over stateroom beds like satin sheets. But the larger these windows are, the more awkward they can look to anyone strolling on the quay.

"What’s good for the inside is usually pretty bad for the outside," says Dutch designer René van der Velden.

Top and Bottom: High-tech glass manufacturing enabled designer Peter Sampson to create headlight-like bubbles around the Hylas master suite. (Click images to enlarge)

Which is not to say the glam ocean liner look with portholes perforating the hull doesn’t have great and lasting merit. Small is sometimes more architecturally elegant. In fact, on land-based structures these days, there’s a significant counter-trend architecturally against vast floor-to-ceiling window-walls. Though they offer drop-dead views, they seem to many architects distressingly vacant, like tony dental offices. Some of their clients are opting for smaller, view-defining panes with expensive mullions and molding. The aim is to frame the view and thereby enhance it, just as one would frame and enhance a painting. And so it goes with traditional portholes: pelicans, a jetty, palm trees, a bikini-clad girl and a cerveza sign all find themselves in a kind of snapshot, a nicely framed circular still life neatly bisected by the horizon line.

For those not particularly disposed to the small-is-beautiful tack, van der Velden suggests that big boats do help in working out the proportions. "You lose so much invaluable storage with every window," he says. It’s not until you reach roughly 150 feet in length that the floor-to-ceiling apartment look for windows becomes more tenable and the hull’s sleekness less affected.A glass-enclosed skylounge or observation lounge that blends seamlessly with the outside decks is another big-window strategy.

"It’s sort of a beach feeling inside; not so formal," says the designer. Explorer-type yachts such as van der Velden’s Moonen 115 or Farmont 85 are the exception to the 150-foot rule of thumb "because they look a little bit bulky already. Vertical lines are part of their profile. And these are getting increasingly popular."

Sampson designs with more glass than most. The jet cockpit-inspired bubbles on the Hylas concept are just one example. (Click image to enlarge)

"Glass in yacht interiors feels so right to me," Sampson says. "Glass is a semi-solid, almost a fluid, which catches and shapes light in so many ways. It seems the perfect material for use in bright, sunny locations on the sea. If you look at certain yachts, it’s like something back in time. Conditions are not airy but are somehow still dark, and the windows are tiny little things."

Having spent years converting the four-deck, 60.4-meter Titan and supplying the interior engineering and construction for the King of Norway’s yacht Norge, Sampson is tuning into a new generation of clients who are calling for designs that are more car-like and jet-like in window styling. They are not coming from generations of sailing tradition. Willingness to compromise with the exigencies of the sea is "zero," according to Sampson, and for many it’s their first time on the water.

"All the new fire protection rules and regulations for megayachts often come as an ugly surprise," he continues. "There’s the feeling that they have to look for ways around those regs. But for designers such as myself that have a lot of commercial marine experience, the regs come as no surprise. We accept that the windows have to have the same characteristics as the hull around them, and [we] know how to make that happen."

Whether on motorsailers (top) or explorers ( bottom) the new owner generation requires the amenities of home, starting with lots of glass. (Click images to enlarge)

Moreover, when designing, one has to account for the hulls to bend, which requires extra space for the window glass to adjust. One manufacturing company Sampson recommends is Yachtglass, based in Dersum, Germany. The company is a digitally proficient, high-tech firm, which happened to have a booth opposite his at the Monaco Yacht Show. Yachtglass is bringing to private yachts many of the techniques developed in the burgeoning cruise industry: cylindrically curved glass, chemically toughened glass, fire-resistant glazing, bullet-proofing, curving, insulating and wind-screening.

Though Sampson readily acknowledges that large yachts today are less about floating hotels going from place to place and more about floating parties availing themselves to privacy and security, he’s still uneasy about banquettes along the windows of the salon. "What a waste for everyone to be looking inward when there’s so much to see out," he says. "And come to think of it, why does the captain always get the million-dollar view, the one looking forward? Why are the owners looking backward from the aft deck?" To him this seems like a puzzling injustice.

Top to bottom: Traditionally inspired portlights frame ocean views, as opposed to leaving them wide open—an effect that some owners find too vacuous. Top and middle photographs by Neil Rabinowitz. (Click images to enlarge)

To correct the situation, Sampson offers the Nereus concept, a 163-foot motorsailer with an ice-class steel hull. Modern, but with undertones of gentlemanly Edwardian flair, Nereus’ prize feature is an all-glass, three-level "winter garden" over the owner’s suite.

"In its lounge area you have a full panoramic view, and under the glass roof you have the bedroom. Lying there with your head against the mast, you look straight up at the night sky with the unfurled sail fluttering in the breeze."

The owner’s winter garden, however, has not short-changed the captain’s wheelhouse windows above. Instead of the usual forward slant, the solar-controlled glazed glass slants back to cut down on glare like a racing car.

"Of course," says Sampson, "on very sunny days there will be some dazzle, which will be a good excuse for the captain to [don] his cool pilot shades."

And how about the Nereus hull? Does it look equally cool, or has Sampson’s winter garden and wheelhouse concept made it look strange?

It does look cool, but unlike anything you’ve seen before; so in that sense it’s cool, but not classic, unless you want to call it a modern classic or a classic in the making (if it’s built). The point is that on many levels Sampson has answered the call for racecar sleekness inside and out, just as van der Velden and others have done with more recognizable styles.