Superyachts made for sharing

It’s that time of year when, for many of us, sharing time with family and friends comes to the fore, whether it’s for festive feasts. This year, once again, we are reminded of how important those shared moments are, and how precious time spent together is. With travel still difficult and the pandemic still impacting many areas of our lives, it’s as important as ever to find safe ways of getting together, and a yacht is one of the safest bubbles around. What’s more, yachts are catering more and more to those who want a variety of spaces to enjoy, especially when it comes to being outside – whether that’s a romantic cocktail from the privacy of a roof deck to lounging in the sun next to the lap of the waves.

Take, for example, the beach club. The area at the back of a yacht was once little more than a place for boarding with perhaps a small platform at water level that allowed access to the sea for swimming or watersports, but now it has developed into one of the key social hubs on board. On the larger yachts, this can often include shell doors in the hull sides that create terraces on the water linked to vast interior spaces with all mod cons – the yacht equivalent of a beach house right at the water’s edge. It not only increases the sense of connection with the water and makes it easier to access, it is also perfect for keeping an eye on the younger members of the family while they enjoy the water.

This trend, however, is no longer the preserve of the giants, and – driven both by designers’ innovation and clients’ demand – the beach club has become a mainstay of almost any yacht. “You see them on megayachts all the way down to 35-footers,” says Ewen Foster, Chief Technical Officer at British builder Sunseeker. “Every builder and every designer accepts that people want more social areas than interior areas these days, and if you can’t provide that with the layout as it stands you have to try and provide an element that converts or modifies or transforms.”

This evolution is driving a new breed of yacht where families and friends can interact with each other and their surroundings far more readily than ever before. A superyacht has often been described as a villa on the water, with the advantage that it can change its location on a whim. The beach club and social deck spaces atop and at the front of yachts are becoming the on-water equivalent of a villa’s expansive terraces and pool area, and it’s opening the doors to those who want every aspect of that villa experience but who had previously felt that compromises in the poolside feeling were a barrier to boating.

These changing constructs are evident everywhere, and especially at the smaller (and therefore more attainable) end of the big boat spectrum. Benetti’s stunning Oasis Deck design – which is available as an option on several of the yard’s models – employs drop-down bulwarks to extend the aft deck area and create 270-degree panoramas from the aft pool. Wally has used the same principle to open up the deck areas of its WHY200 design, which also features a huge master cabin in the bow with wraparound windows for a view to die for. Princess has developed an extraordinary new layout philosophy with its X95 model that takes the main deck guest areas all the way to the bow and extends the sun deck equally to create what the builder calls a Super Flybridge, just as Sunseeker too is extending its flybridge and connecting it to the less utilised foredeck area.

In fact, look at almost any yacht or superyacht builder operating in the 20-metre and above size bracket and you will find interesting and inviting designs that are reshaping how we use yachts and how we interact on them with each other and the sea. In these days of recurring restrictions and a desire to keep our families safe within controllable bubbles, these innovations are making the modern yacht truly irresistible as the ultimate safety bubble and private luxury getaway combined.

It’s something that Luca Bassani, founder of Wally and a visionary designer in his own right, speaks to when he talks about why the WHY200 has the layout features it does. “I think we can attract a lot of different people,” he explains. “The very young can have huge parties with a lot of friends on board, but also the middle-aged or seniors with children and grandchildren can enjoy the comfort and space.”

For Marco Valle, CEO of Azimut-Benetti, the pandemic has served to jolt people and force them to reconsider the fundamental aspects of our lives – and yachts provide the perfect panacea. “Living isolated indoors has enabled us most of all to rediscover the importance of establishing physical contact with the outside environment, a feeling of freedom that can find almost infinite expression on board a yacht,” he said in an interview with Barche in July 2021. “That’s the crucial point. Yachts have proved to be the best antidote. They have enabled us to regain a sense of liberty alongside our nearest and dearest and enjoy a quality of life that in terms of experience reaches its highest point on a yacht.” Thanks to the extraordinary work of design offices and engineering teams all over the world, the modern yacht is only taking that experience higher.