Within Athena’s bilges, ‘tween-decks and other technical spaces lie miles of cables, ducts and pipes. Beneath the Ferrari-red Caterpillar 3516 diesels alone there lurks a seven-layer pipe labyrinth, resembling the screen saver “3-D Pipes,” which conveys hot and cold fresh water; gray, black and bilge water; hydraulic fluid; compressed air; clean and used lubricating oil; hot and cold seawater and diesel fuel. Each one designed and built in accord with Lloyd’s and MCA regulations, these pipes are fabricated of aluminum, copper, stainless steel, polypropylene and polyethylene. And though installed by technicians from several contracted suppliers, their every bend, coupling, valve, nipple and bracket was clinically shaped in three dimensions by a computer, as no human could ever hope to do it alone without getting sewage in the fuel.
 
The fruits of computer-aided design, of course, are to be found everywhere in Athena’s cavernous volume. In building her, the shipyard alone used more than a dozen programs. But no result serves as a better metaphor for her entire creation than those pipes, as they represent the convergence of all the disciplines required to build so great a yacht. So, while admiring her grace and power, one must never forget that Athena is not a pretty marine painting, but a well-engineered oceangoing vehicle formulated to sustain more than 30 lives at sea, for which these pipes play a vital role. No wonder that out of pride, and no little irony, a principal Huisman systems designer remarked, “We used to deal occasionally with large pipes. In Athena every pipe is large. We are all plumbers now.”