Seven years ago, the gleaming white 47.4-meter sloop Hyperion – sculpted by designers Pieter Beeldsnijder and Germán Frers – answered owner Jim Clark’s longing for a yacht born of his own fertile imagination, which also had spawned an astonishing array of successful software-driven systems. Yet, even while Hyperion was under construction at the Royal Huisman Shipyard in the Netherlands, Clark had second thoughts: For all her promised distinction, he knew Hyperion would not offer the total independence at sea he dreamed of, as she lacked a theater, library, proper diving facilities, an appropriate galley, sufficient guest cabins and a helipad. So he asked Beeldsnijder – whose friendship, talent, and “impish sense of humor” he had come to value – to sketch something as large as 100 meters overall, perhaps even a motor yacht, to embrace these features.

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Like legions of Royal Huisman clients before him, Jim Clark was enamored of the shipyard and felt abiding respect and affection for its eminent chieftain, Wolter Huisman. “I don’t think any boatbuilder in the world does a better job than Huisman,” Clark says. “It is the best, most conscientious organization to build a boat in the world.” He naturally wanted to build there again.
 
But when he confronted Wolter Huisman with the project, alarm bells sounded. Huisman had planned to build a larger construction hall, but only for yachts up to 60 meters. And he had hoped that everyone would absorb the lessons learned from Hyperion before embarking on a new project. He hesitated, and Clark and Beeldsnijder reluctantly explored building elsewhere. But, as Beeldsnijder now says, “If Wolter Huisman has one major weakness, it is his inability to say ‘No’ to a great challenge. After a time, he got used to the length, and told me he would like to go ahead.”Scaling back to something Huisman could build, Beeldsnijder used an earlier 60-meter adaptation of his classic 33.5-meter staysail schooner, Gloria, as a base for discussions. By early 1999, Huisman had persuaded him to share the forging of rig, hull lines and structure of any new design with Gerard Dijkstra & Partners. Adept at “modern classics,” Dijkstra also was expert at overseeing the towing-tank and wind-tunnel tests that would be imperative for this groundbreaking yacht. Models were built, drawings rendered, mockups erected, heated meetings held. As the concept was slowly transfigured under influence of the great belles of yesteryear, it experienced “mission creep” – by July 1999, it was 66 meters long, and by September, more than 80 meters. Finally, after months of passionate technical and stylistic deliberation, the present clipper-bowed, three-masted gaff schooner emerged as Clark’s chosen framework.