Human beings are funny creatures: Some of us are quite good at visualizing concepts when just the briefest of explanations are given, while others need to be presented with in-depth illustrations and pictures to understand an idea.
Imagine, then, what shipyards and designers go through when a new customer comes to the door and says he or she wants a yacht–but can’t interpret a G.A. (general arrangement, a.k.a. accommodations plan) drawing. Unless the yard has a megayacht under construction that reflects the same things the potential owner wants–and construction is far enough along for furniture to be in place–it can be difficult, to say the least, for the client to grasp the spatial relations.
Maybe that’s what inspired Feadship’s Royal De Vries shipyard to create 3-D, scale models of its SL39 series and the various options for the interior layout, so that owners can literally see what the rooms would be like if they commissioned one. The scale models are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: The client selects four layouts from a total of 16 options for the bridge-deck, the main-saloon layout, the master suite, and the lower deck. How can there be four options for each? Well, for the helm, for example, clients can have the captain’s cabin just aft of the wheelhouse and a completely private skylounge, or they can have an open bridge-deck layout in which the skylounge and helm are open to one another, making for terrific interaction between guests and captain. Some owners might not like this option, however, as it places the captain’s cabin on the lower deck, with the rest of the crew. As for the guest accommodations on the lower deck, clients can have anywhere from two to four cabins, all configured as independent rooms or even ones that can transform into large, full-beam suites.
You’ll get a better sense of it all in this video, which I shot during my visit to the yard earlier this month. The unseen “owner” choosing the layouts is John Mitchell, head of digital media for The Yacht Report, who liked the 3-D models as much as I did and indulged my request to demonstrate the possibilities.
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