Since hanging his own shingle in 1993, Evan K. Marshall has made a name for himself without having a signature style. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Marshall likes mixing contemporary with classic, and particularly taking an idea initiated by a client and elevating it in a way they never anticipated.

A few years ago, Marshall was commissioned to design a yacht that mixed seemingly unrelated elements. Here, he explains a special 154-footer (47-meter) was the result, but unfortunately wasn’t built. Terra, as she’s known, is fully spec’d to RINA classification and remains ready to be contracted.

“Terra was designed to be an around-the-world cruiser for a family that plans to spend long periods onboard exploring remote parts of the world. The exterior styling, specifically her plumb bow, was inspired by WWI military vessels that historically had captured the client’s imagination as a young boy growing up in St. Petersburg, Russia. At the same time, the client desired a sleek and unconventional exterior. With her sweeping lines and flush, curved windows forward and unique proportions, Terra has achieved the requirements of her design brief.

“Another important aspect of Terra’s design is a requirement for a hull form that achieved high levels of efficiency at relatively high and low speeds. The late naval architect Paolo Scanu was responsible for Terra’s hull lines and engineering, in which he created an optimization between a boat capable of cruising at 20 knots with a top speed of 23 knots, but was equally efficient plotting along at 12 knots. This performance range was achieved through a carefully studied optimization of her hull lines, engine power curves, and fixed-pitch, five-blade, moderately skewed-back propellers.

“Additional requirements for Terra’s exterior design included an abundance of deck space both for relaxation as well as space for tenders and toys. In fact, there is a total of four tenders onboard the vessel, with two placed on the exterior aft 01 deck and two in the transom garage. The uppermost portion of the superstructure features a pod that contains the pilothouse, navigation area, captain’s cabin, and engineers cabin. This area has its own private aft deck for the offices and the rest of the crew.

“Terra’s master stateroom features a bi-level layout that is accessed internally from the main deck. The main deck portion of the stateroom suite contains an owner’s study, lounge area, his-and-her walk-in wardrobes, and a large, full-beam his-and-her bathroom. The sleeping portion of the stateroom is on the deck above and is accessed via a sweeping, floating staircase from the main deck. This portion of the stateroom, with a forward-facing bed has 180 degrees of panoramic views forward and a full-beam balcony looking down into the main-deck portion of the stateroom. From the this level of the stateroom, there is access to the forward deck area that features two large sitting areas and a forward-facing sunbed.

“Movement throughout the boat for both the crew and the owner’s party has been studied very carefully. Since the efficient running of a vessel depends so much on the crew’s ability to get easy access to all areas both internally and externally, we made sure there was a completely separate network of internal stairs for the crew to move from their lower crew compartment all the way up to the pilothouse deck. Externally, there are port and starboard stairs from the main deck to the 0 deck, both forward and aft as well as a network of midship internal stairs that connect with the 01 side decks to provide access for the owner or crew to the pilothouse deck.

“Another of Terra’s exterior design requirement was to have a completely clean transom, which at the same time did not compromise on access to the aft deck, the garage , etc. This meant that the stairs to the swim platform, the transom doors concealing the stairs, and passerelle all had to be blended into the transom design, along with the garage door.”

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