Trinity 161

Given the hefty number of recent launches from the Louisiana-based builder, this project marks a conscious turning point. When the first metal was cut for the 161-foot aluminum tri-deck in May of 2003, it was the first time the company started a build on spec. Then, as now, the yard was working to capacity. "We had plenty of work, but we felt it was time we gave the boats a new look," says Trinity Senior Vice President Billy Smith.

It is a strangely fitting bit of synchronicity that Zoom Zoom Zoom, the company’s poster child for change, is the first yacht to steam from its New Orleans yard after Hurricane Katrina redesigned the Gulf Coast and forced Trinity and its employees to rethink the way they live and work.

Trinity CEO Felix Sabates tasked his head designer, Geoff van Aller, with developing a new exterior look. "Prior to designing Zoom, I hadn’t had the opportunity to do anything really different," van Aller says. This, says Smith, was due to buyers seeing things they liked and asking for more of the same. (Click image to enlarge)

Trinity’s marketing plan, however, does not include anything about forcing buyers to change their minds just so the yard can break new styling ground. Thus, a spec boat was the most practical way for the yard to jump-start its desired change. Luckily, van Aller, as enthusiastic designers are wont to do, keeps a notepad filled with sketches.

"We had some different ideas shooting around, and a lot of faxes went back and forth between me and Felix. I pulled about five things together, elements I had drawn that finally had the opportunity to be let loose," van Aller says.

The designer points to a gradual change in the boat’s curves from bottom to top and then going forward. "I look at the entire boat as one big design element, not to be designed deck by deck, so nothing looks out of place."

He curved the aft edge of the main-deck overhang—an attention-grabbing touch—strictly for aesthetic reasons. "Most of the curves on the boat are concave. I needed a few convex curves to match the arch, but I didn’t want the curves to match each other." He drew each curve ever-so-slightly differently. "That way," van Aller says, "it doesn’t look like things were just pasted on." The sheer curve he drew coming off the raised bulwark—abaft of the oval vertical portlights and curving down to the main deck—balances, but doesn’t mimic, the curve of the electronics arch two decks above it.

A window was added in the arch on either side that not only breaks up the expanse of white aluminum, but visually ties it to the shapes created by the fashion plates that distinguish the windows on the decks below. Functionally, they eliminate claustrophobia, completing the view for guests at the bar or the barbecue.

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