The World's First Luxury Yacht for Women

Monaco based designer, Lidia Bersani, has created a unique superyacht with an exclusive target audience. La Belle is an 80m long floating cruiser made by a woman for women.

Read More

The World's First Hybrid Superyacht

Feadship, a Dutch luxury shipbuilder, launched the world's first hybrid superyacht called Savannah with an impressive size of  83.5m. With her pioneering electro-mechanical propulsion platform, this custom created yacht is the future of the environmentally friendly yachting business. In economic terms, its innovative engine generates fuel savings of up to thirty per cent in comparison to similar sized yachts.

Read More

The Future of Superyachts

When it's a question of cool design, superyachts are the answer. At the forefront of innovative design, shipbuilders need to pull out all the stops to entice their famously hard to please billionaire clients. Leisure & Luxury turns a keen eye to the future for a glimpse of what can be expected in design, technology and performance in the superyacht industry.

A common complaint of superyacht owners is the lack of privacy. With some vessels harbouring up to nearly 80 crew members, finding that bit of peace and quiet you want from a luxury holiday can prove difficult. Monaco-based yacht designer, Pastrovich Studio, has unveiled plans for a futuristic superyacht that has captured the imagination of the boating industry. The 250ft X R-Evolution has intelligent storage space designed to hold several vessels each capable of being deployed to serve as floating gardens or sundecks when a bit of privacy from the crew is needed.

The stunning superyacht seen in the featured image is the brainchild of multiple-award-winning Dame Zaha Hadid. With a mesh of weaving curves and loops covering its exterior, the Blohm+Voss superyacht is more akin to the Bird’s Nest of the Beijing Olympics than any superyacht seen before. Indeed Zaha Hadid has experience of designing sports venues, as the creator of the iconic Aquatics Centre at the London 2012 games. However this is only her first venture into superyacht design and there have certainly been worse debuts. Her initial design which has been fondly compared to a skeleton includes a 128m ‘mothership’ and five other 90m “unique circle yachts”. Each of these smaller yacht scan be tailored to future buyers’ preferences.

They say inspiration comes from some unlikely sources and that couldn’t be more true of  Lujac Desautel’s ‘Glass’ superyacht. The cuboid shaped yacht was modelled on Lego as part of this year’s Boat International Young Designer of the Year competition. Inspiration from the children’s toy has spawned a modular structure whereby each floor of the 5,600sq ft yacht is stacked upon the other like building blocks. The yacht, whose more rigid structure stands in stark contrast to Zaha Hadid’s superyacht conception features an elevator, six guest bedrooms, a private owner’s lounge and steps at the aft deck intended to resemble those of ancient Mayan temples.

Original blog post provided by Luxisto

Read More

The Brightest Star

Star is the latest superyacht design that promises to set the yachting world alight. The brainchild of yacht designer Igor Lobanov, and engineering and design collaborators BMT Nigel Gee and Alex Malybaev, Star is intended to blow conventional yacht architecture out of the water with its non-conformist design.

To that effect, many yacht industry professionals have complained of the stagnant nature of yacht designs when compared to other luxury sector goods such as supercars and building constructions. Lobanov agrees, stating that “Alex (Malybaev) and I exchanged some thoughts about yachting and came to the conclusion that to those outside the marine industry, all yachts look the same: It seems that modern architecture, product design and car design have no influence on yachts,” said Lobanov. There has been a noticeable reaction to this revelation, leading to an upsurge in creative yacht structures as Lesiure & Luxury reported in Sepetember. The likes of award winning architect Zaha Hadid has since attempted her first superyacht: a neo-futuristic mesh design.

Star is expected to measure 132 metres long and 60 metres high with its interior rooms and living spaces equalling 37,000 sq ft. Luxury features include an underwater viewing gallery at the depths of the ship’s hull, connected by lift to another viewing platform on the eighth deck. Star also features all electric architecture and fully azimuthing propulsion, meaning improved maneuvarabillity and the absence of rudders. The vessel’s maximum speed is 18+kts, with a range of 14kts of 5000+NM.

While Star has come under criticism by some for lacking unshaded outdoor deck space, the team’s designers have still managed to find room for a helipad. Any criticism to that regard however has been swiftly washed over as the superyacht’s stunning design continues to attract widespread acclaim. As its name suggests, the superyacht resembles the top half of a star and has an elegant lattice exterior akin to a snowflake.

BMT yacht design director James Roy, was keen to emphasise the importance of technological advances as the key factor responsible for Star’s unusual design. “STAR is a tangible view of a 21st century interpretation of art and science,” he said. “We are fortunate to live in an era where technology makes the delivery of bolder designs more possible”.

Original article by Luxisto

Read More

The Fort Lauderdale Boat Show 2014

Fort Lauderdale in Florida will this year host its 55^th international boat show. The exhibition is the world’s largest in-water boat show and runs between 30^th October-3^rd November across seven city locations. Spread over a colossal three million square feet of exhibition space, the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show will feature nearly four billion dollars of boats and marine products ranging from trawlers to inflatables and catamarans to superyachts.

Read More