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Horizon extends a proven hull and delivers a knockout one-off.
by Bill Ando
photography by Jim Raycroft
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06/01/2007
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| Horizon 86 |  |
The Yows’ choice of Horizon was supported by diligent reading
and by attending boat shows to touch and feel as many boats as they could. The
Horizon had the most headroom of any of the boats they considered, which was a
requirement, given the vertical orientation of the men in the family and the
crew.
"Our captain is six feet, six inches and he stands tall in the
galley," Lionel said.
Top: The skylounge reflects the cottage décor. Bottom:
Xanadu’s
"mark" shows in the shoji screens. (Click images to enlarge)
Once the factory items were dealt with, the next step was to
put their personal stamp on the boat. The name was never in question. They would
christen her Xanadu. Lionel explained a familial connection to the name.
His father’s 500-acre corn and soybean farm on the Intracoastal Waterway is
named Xanadu after a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn.
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree," says
the poem.
"This is the pleasure dome," Lionel said.
To ensure that the boat would look like the pleasure dome the
couple envisioned, Connie enlisted North Carolina yacht interior designer Dawn
Moffitt. Rather than select fabrics and stones from pictures in the builder’s
pamphlet, they visited Keys Granite in Miami. There they selected the stone
slabs for the yacht, which included the lively blue lapis lazuli in the guest
heads and the blue Bahia granite outdoor bar tops. They had them cut to size and
air-freighted to Taiwan where they were finished and installed on Xanadu.
 The bath has an ivory onyx counter. (Click image to enlarge)
Selecting makoré and camphor burl as the interior woods, the
couple wanted to do "something a little sleeker than raised panels, yet not
incur a lot of cost with the yard," Moffitt said. She had 3/8-inch-wide
ebony, cherry and maple marquetry manufactured in North Carolina, then shipped
to the yard where it was inlaid throughout the cabinetry and interior passage
doors, artfully separating the two woods. The ebony provides the black presence,
Connie’s neutral color, which is included in every room. Connie also hung
paintings by six North Carolina artists that had been in their home. The overall
effect is pleasantly contemporary with enough of a classic hue to keep it cozy.
A continuous though subtle motif throughout the décor is the
"X" of Xanadu’s name. Moffitt was able to work the letter into the shoji
screens, mullions and overheads, mirrors in the owner’s and VIP staterooms and
lacquered panels in the salon. The panels are mitered and quartered with the
joint forming the "X."
Xanadu has many features to make life offshore more
pleasant. She is equipped with a Headhunter sewage treatment system, a
Besanzoni passerelle that extends hydraulically from the portside top transom
step and a three-chiller, 188,000-Btu air-conditioning system. Fuel capacity was
increased from 2,250 to 2,700 gallons for greater range.
Xanadu’s first destination was Turks and Caicos. There the avid divers
tested the Brownie’s air compressor plumbed to the transom. Four underwater
stern lights brighten things up for night dives—a nice touch befitting a
pleasure dome.
Contact
Horizon at 206-223-9333.
www.horizonyacht.com
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