Most extraordinary customer requests to yacht designers and shipyards

Shipbuilders and yacht designers quite often have to deal with extremely unusual customer requests

Some yards and design studios believe that their motto should be “to make the impossible possible”, and have a decent collection of rather “wild” customer requests. However, some of them seem wild only at first or inexperienced glance. Many of them have already been successfully implemented and even set new trends. Imagine that just a couple of decades ago fold-down balconies and terraces seemed a “crazy” idea, while today this solution is considered mainstream even for compact yachts. 

A lot of extraordinary customer wishes remain on paper – in case they are completely unviable, or when they arise at a late construction stage, when the yacht is almost complete. Sometimes the costs can negate any potential pleasure, and some owners back down. However, technical challenges can rarely stop those who are ready to invest in their dreams, and experts do manage to find a solution. That is one of the reasons it is believed that yachting industry drives all shipbuilding forward. 

This article is our collection of customers’ wishes. Some of them have come true, and some haven’t. To make it more interesting, we won’t reveal which of them have been implemented and which haven’t. Moreover, we have tweaked the quotes below just a tiny bit to make it more interesting for you to guess. You can find the right answers at the end of the article.

#1 | Indoor court for paddle tennis

#2 | Removable helipad

#3 | Terrarium

#4 | Stable for a pony

#5 | Planetarium

#6 | Snorkeling while couch potatoing

#7 | Snow room

#8 | Suite for a monkey

#9 | Ceiling of tortoise shells

#10 | Space for a cowboy hat

We hope that in the future we will be able to give you a lot more examples of this kind of amazing requests, because the owners’ imagination is boundless, and designers and shipyards love challenging tasks. The best professionals in yachting design are now racking their brains over the task of designing a three-deck-high jellyfish tank, a vegetable farm, a sandy beach and lot of other things on board. 

Well, here are the right answers. 

1.  Done. The paddle court has been built on board the 98-metre Aviva yacht by Abeking & Rasmussen in 2017.
2. This bright idea (removable helipad ) has been put aside for a while. But you never know… 
3. Done. The terrarium can be seen on board the 88.5-metre Nirvana yacht built by Oceanco in 2012. And it is not just an extravagant whim: the entire interior of the yacht is based on the idea of a tropical island. The dining and lounging areas on board the Nirvana are separated by two vivariums with water dragons, bearded lizards, turtles, exotic frogs and a chameleon.
4. The late Ed Dubois earned a reputation of a magician of sailing yachts design. That might be the reason the owner believed that literally anything was possible. Luckily, they managed to convince her that it was not a very good idea – for the pony. 
5. The Stargate Room can be seen in the sky lounge of the 65-metre Ambrosia III launched by Benetti in 2006. It took five years to complete it. The Stargate room is a round space that used as an informal dining area and a cocktail bar. Hundreds of fiber-optic strands project constellations onto the ceiling panel powered by electric engines connected to GPS and rotating in accordance with the yacht’s location. 
6. Not done, despite the fact that glass bottom boat tours are quite common at popular sea resorts.
7. The snow room can be found on board the 96-metre Faith (ex. Vertigo) built by Feadship in 2017. After five years in private use, the yacht became available for charter and is probably the only place in the world, where you can make a snowman while in the Caribbean. It was conceived as part of a spa centre, where there is also a hammam and a massage parlour. 
8. Unfortunately, because of the quarantine the suite for a monkey remained on paper! 
9. It has been done, but not a single tortoise has been harmed: they achieved this by 3D-scanning clay and wood details, which were then produced in SikaBlock by CNC machine, all finally being sanded and painted to replicate the look. Faux tortoiseshell only! 
10. Done. Despite the high costs. The things people do for their favourite cowboy hat…

This article was created based on the publication of Boat International magazine and other open sources