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Wally breaks new ground with 143-foot Esense.
by Justin Ratcliffe
photography by Gilles Martin-Raget
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04/01/2007
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| Wally 143 |  |
If I thought the exterior styling of Esense was
breathtaking, more surprises were in store belowdecks. A keen sailor from
Brittany, working on her first boat project, French interior designer
Odile Decq has produced a loft-style layout that defies conventional wisdom. "I
dislike narrow corridors and have avoided permanent partitions wherever
possible," Decq explains.
Top: The bar in the entrance foyer. Bottom: A guest head. Photography by Toni Meneguzzo. (Click images to enlarge)
The result is a highly modular interior that can be rearranged
virtually at will and according to the occasion. The main salon looks out
through a wall of glass over the stern terrace so that the wake is at head
height. It is a multifunctional space that can serve as an immense social area
with seating for some 40 guests, or it can be transformed into two twin cabins
with ensuite bathrooms by folding or sliding a few wall panels into place. The
transformation is both uncanny and ingenious, especially considering that the
need for storage space has not been overlooked. Open a seemingly featureless
carbon laminate panel and it will reveal a Frigomar minibar or VideoWorks
audiovisual system. Coming up with adequate storage space on even a 143-foot
sailboat is problematic, but on one like Esense, with an interior that
resembles an exercise in architectural origami, it is quite remarkable.
The origami simile continues into the atrium amidships that can
be accessed from the main-deck hatch. The space resembles a hotel lobby with a
red laminated bar unit where guests arriving aboard can be received with a
welcoming cocktail. The bar extends into the galley to starboard, but a frosted
glass screen folds out to bisect the unit and can fully close off the galley and
crew dinette. Testimony to the yacht’s long-range capability, the two custom
fridge-freezers are supplemented by a further 800 liters of freezer space under
the galley floor. On the port side, a day sofa can similarly be screened off to
provide a third guest cabin with two Pullman berths.
A portside corridor is lined on the inboard wall with red and
black carbon shelving with chrome trim. "The only thing I couldn’t move was the
engine room," says Decq, "so I turned the resulting corridor into a library."
 Photograph by Gilles Martin-Raget. (Click image to enlarge)
This corridor leads forward past a dayhead, radio room,
electronics room and engine room access to the owner’s suite. The owner’s suite
is the only permanent cabin aboard the yacht. It features a study area with a
flat-screen computer disguised behind a carbon-fiber panel and a workout bench
stored under the bench seating. But the main attraction in the owner’s suite is
the bathroom with its enormous shower stall that includes a carbon-fiber bathtub
under the hydraulically operated teak and titanium
grating. Ordinarily two three-kW boilers would have been sufficient for the
yacht’s hot water needs, but because of the bath a third five-kW unit had to be
added. Even the glass bathroom partitions are heated to inhibit condensation
from developing.
Such bold interior design would not have been possible before
the advent of lightweight composite materials, and Decq relishes the extensive
use of carbon fiber. "Because carbon fiber is so light, you can play around with
it, and I like its shiny, silky smooth finish," she says.
Her geometrical planes complement perfectly the unadorned exterior lines of
the hull and flush deck. With a new 148-footer by Tripp for German owner Albert
Bull approaching completion, and a 130-footer by Javier Soto Acebal under way,
Esense is just the first of a series of 100-plus-foot megasailers from
the Wally stable. These are exciting times in Fano, where Luca Bassani is
clearly upping the ante in terms of size and claims to have a half-dozen parties
interested in similar projects, not to mention a slightly shorter version of
Andre Hoek’s 200-foot Pilgrim project.
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