No business can thrive without an injection of new blood, the superyacht business included. Olivier Dorrell and Peter Symonds, two twenty-something designers, certainly believe it. They launched Vienna-based Totti Design in January of this year with the philosophy that megayacht owners who build fully custom yachts deserve fully custom tenders.
Dorrell and Symonds have degrees in automotive design, an achievement they share with some of today’s leading yacht designers, including Glade Johnson. Consider also that some of their car designs have received professional accolades, with Symonds receiving an award for Best Interior by ADI (Italian Industrial Design Association) at the Stile Giovanni Design Competition in 2006 and Dorrell being a finalist in the 2004 World Automotive Design Competition.
Though the partners are positioning themselves as designers of custom tenders, they’re also meeting with clients who simply want a smaller (20- to 40-foot) primary boat. Dorrell says they have met with brokers and shipyard representatives and alternately shown their own concepts as well as incorporated ideas an owner requested.
One such concept is the Magneto 25, pictured above. The color and the shape combine for a bold, modern statement. It’s easy to imagine something like this accompanying an equally bold, aggressively styled yacht. Dorrell says it can be built of fiberglass or carbon fiber.
For a more traditional approach, check out the classic cruiser seen here. Built by PEurope in Hungary, the all-wood beauty still employs the latest technology for performance, but she additionally embraces the design elements that made Rivas and other mahogany runabouts the stuff of many a yachtsman’s dream.
Thought it’s a tough time to be launching a new business, Dorrell and Symonds seem determined to succeed. I look forward to seeing more come from their studio.
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