If a week is a long time in politics, then 25 years is a
lifetime in the megayacht world. Monumental changes in design and technology
have mirrored a paradigm shift in how owners see and use their yachts. Francois
van Well, president of Feadship America, reflects on how Feadships looked and
felt a quarter-century ago.
Top: the Feadship Royal Van Lent yard in
the 1960s.
Middle: New Horizon
L’s lapis lazuli bathroom with marble waterfall is
incorporated into the stateroom. Bottom: The launch of Santa Maria in
1963. (Click images to enlarge)
In the late 1970s, a 100-hp engine was considered sizeable for
an automobile and ensured decent speeds. With the added weight of air bags,
electric seats, sun hatches, air conditioning and the myriad other amenities we
expect to find in our vehicles today, 100 horsepower would barely move the
average car into third gear. Changing consumer demands precipitated this
revolution in automobile design and engineering, and the same occurred in the
yacht industry.
The Feadship fleet included some large yachts 25 years ago,
such as the 65-meter
Al
Riyadh in 1978. This
masterpiece built for the Saudi royal family was the exception rather than the
rule. The majority of projects were around the 45-meter mark. From a design and
exterior styling perspective, boats still were seen primarily as better-looking
and better-equipped versions of ships. Yachts were drawn in layers like wedding
cakes: You designed the hull, added a deckhouse and stacked on another deck.
Seeing them as total 3-D objects from mast to waterline was an idea in
gestation. A major difference between then and now is that every serious
megayacht today is considered as a unified design.
Irrespective of size, the predominant layout on a
triple-deck boat 25 years ago was guest cabins below, engine room
amidships, owners on the foredeck, a full lounge and dining room on the main
deck, and a wheelhouse, captain’s cabin and small lounge on what was then called
the boat deck. The top deck was home to the stack or central mast, which was an
observation area at most.
From top: Confidante’s dining room, guest stateroom and
main lounge. Pierre Tanter designed
the yacht interiors. (Click images to enlarge)
There were still lots of semi-raised-pilothouse designs around
in the late seventies with the tenders on the aft deck. Only after anchoring up
and launching these tenders did you have an outside deck for sitting. This
reflected the minor importance attached to the alfresco lifestyle at a time when
glamorous cocktail and dinner parties were the rage. Watersports toys were
rare.
In essence, luxury yachts were a cross between a home and a
means of transportation. This concept can be traced back to the late nineteenth
century when hundreds of megayachts were afloat in the United States alone. In
the absence of private jets, large boats were a safe and comfortable way for the
wealthy to go from New York to California or Florida, and perhaps see more of
the world.
An element of this still prevailed in the early eighties.
Greek, Middle Eastern and American owners used their vessels to move from Point
A to Point B, and watersports were virtually unheard of. Being on a boat had
little to do with being on the water, never mind bringing the water on board.
Eyebrows were raised in 1983 when a Jacuzzi was installed in the middle of the
stateroom on New Horizon L. The notion of simply flopping down on
mattresses on the sun deck was seen as risqué. Confidante was a pioneer
in 1987, in this respect. She also was the first boat to have lowered fixed
bulwarks on the side of the main deck and cap rails on stanchions. New vistas
were on the horizon.
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