A Yacht That Doesnt Get in the Way of Your Ocean Views

The funny thing about sitting in a yacht is you cant really see the water. I mean, you can see the water, technically, but it requires you to peer through windows that do little justice to the view. Shouldnt you be able to gaze out at the topaz ripples of the Mediterranean without rising from your gilded chaise lounge? Of course you should. This is a yacht, not San Quentin.

Behold then, a rendering of the boat of your dreams. The 55-meter vessel, christened Salt, isnt real (yet), but theres no doubt a band of obscenely wealthy people clamoring to change that. Salt is the work of Lujac Desautel, an architecture student at San Franciscos California College of the Arts. He designed the ship as an entry to a young boat designers competition, which asked participants to take an existing hull of a sailboat and go crazy.

Desautels design features a simple glass rectangle that sits atop the hull like a cage of luxury. The glass facade can be pulled open like a sliding door to create an even more direct connection with the sea. The idea came to him after spending most of his summers between classes working on the crew of yachts in the south of France. I would stand in the living room or guest room and think, I cant even see the water, it doesnt even feel like the ocean,' he recalls. I thought, what if we could start borrowing elements used in architectural practice?

Things like using glass a structural element or eliminating walls to produce an open, airy feeling. Desautels design shows the glass portion of the boat having one wall to separate the headthats what the bathroom is called on a boatfrom the living space. Its reminiscent of Philip Johnsons Glass House, the famed modernist home in New Canaan, Connecticut, thats almost fully transparent. Theres something so simple and powerful in its raw connection from the exterior to interior, Desautel says of Johnsons home. I thought, what if I just took this idea and placed it on the boat?

The glass box is hugged on both sides by staircases that lead to upper decks. The stern features a swimming platform that extends from the master suite. One of the more inviting features is a staircase. A hydraulic system would control the staircase, raising and lowering it down to water level. Imagine, walking down the stairs into your own ocean sized pool. The design ispurposefully simple, so when the vesselchanges hands (as yachts tend to do), the new owner would have an easy framework fromwhich to customize it.

Desautels not an engineer. And you can imagine if Salt were to be built, the realities of mechanical systems, weight and balance would ground some of his more frivolous features. For instance, a good question to ask might be: How resilient and strong is glass against the powers of Poseidons tantrums? These are points that Desautel readily concedes, but his intent was not to design an off-the-shelf yacht. He figures if and when someone wants to make Salt a reality (and hes already gotten calls), the engineering logistics will fall into place. For the time being, all thats left to do is ogle, and ogle we will.

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A Yacht That Doesnt Get in the Way of Your Ocean Views