Yachting's Sea Change

Sure, the yachts dreamt up by big-name architects and designers look fabulous. But are they seaworthy?

- Lucy Alexander

Pleasure yachts were once the province of amateur sailors and oligarchs—men who, aside from a shared appreciation of varnished teak, adhered to diverging aesthetic templates. For serious mariners, form followed function and fripperies were frowned upon. The upper-cruster aboard his gin palace, meanwhile, preferred nightclub chic, with heavy doses of gold, chandeliers and black-lacquered surfaces. Both types of vessel suffered from a surplus of wood panelling and a scarcity of sea views.

That design rulebook has now been thrown out, thanks to shifting priorities, new technologies and the pandemicfuelled boom in yacht ownership. A rising generation of younger owners prefers watersports toys and wellness suites over cigar lounges and book-matched mahogany. Seductive superyacht concepts on social media promise a life in which families waft unbounded through fluid, open-plan, indooroutdoor spaces devoid of clutter and supporting walls.

Suffice to say, such experimentation is not typically dictated by dyed-in-the-wool naval architects but comes from a fresh influx of creative outsiders from the land-bound worlds of hotels, private homes, furniture and even fashion. The designers serving the yacht-owning class of 2024 may be disparate, but they have one thing in common: boats are not their area of expertise.