We humans are an inquisitive bunch. We are all born with an innate sense of curiosity, we often find ourselves asking ‘why’? In this case you may be asking ‘what’ and namely ‘what is the point of this article’? Well prepare to be wowed into even more confusion because the what in question is indeed a why, and the why is actually a yacht, WHAT?!
Last week, at the Abu Dhabi yacht show, plans were unveiled for WHY, a joint venture between Monaco-based Yacht makers Wally and Hermes, the Paris fashion house, which could turn out to be the finest yacht ever to grace the seas. An extravagant piano-like shape, the yacht is billed as a ‘moving island’ the ultimate possession for the super wealthy, essentially a roving mass of land, complete with a fleet of ‘sea-servants’ waiting patiently to fulfil all your decadent wishes. On the promotional website for the WHY, Luca Bassani Antivari, the president of Wally says: “Everybody’s dream is to live on an island. A yacht offers the freedom to move, but does not have the space of a property. WHY has it all: space, stability, movement, independence, peace.”
The yacht, once finished, has a length of 58 meters and width stretching 38 metres, giving its residents a surface area of 3,400sq meters on which to frolic. In total 12 guests, each with 280sq metres of surface area to play with, can be accommodated on the WHY, tended to by 20 crew hands. The yacht is split into three floors: the master space, the guest space and the common space. The master space is intended for the owner and encompasses a 200 sq metre suite which spans the entire third floor and gives ‘the master’ a “sweeping view of the sea from its spacious yet intimate private terrace”.
The 200sq metre second floor, the guest space, has five suites, each suite giving the guests their own unique view of the sprawling sea in which they sail.
The un-aptly named common space is where the fun will be had. It has a pool, a spa, a helipad, a cinema, a music room, a walkway that crosses the upper areas of the yacht, and what is described as “a perfect 30-metre beach”.
The designers of the Isle of Yacht are keen to stress that the vessel is far more environmentally sound than other constructs of competing size. With the roof and hull of the ship covered in 900sq meters of photovoltaic panels the makers estimate that up to 500kw of solar power will be generated per day. They claim that the yacht will be able to cross the Atlantic Ocean four times without the need to refuel, and that it will save 200 tonnes of diesel fuel a year, as it will use less energy than any other yacht of its size. Antivari states that “The architecture of the whole project fits perfectly in the environment- there are no excesses, nothing is superfluous, the impact on the sea is minimum”.
In what is sure to anger the forgotten denizens of Atlantis, Antivari also says that the WHY is “A new and unique way to live on the sea while caring about it, protecting it, and loving it”.
Work on the WHY has not yet begun but when it is finished all this luxury will cost but a paltry sum of $160 million.
If you work on a yacht have a look at our specialist page on Financial Planning for Yacht Crews.
Images courtesy of Wally and Hermes.