Luca Bassani Antivari It was in Portofino. My parents loved the sea. What I remember is a large boat, Miranda, which won all the races! I was six and there were big waves. I was spellbound! My father retired when he was sixty and he and my mother boarded their sailing yacht to tour Number of signs: the world, a tour that ended up lasting twenty years. It was a yacht that I had designed free hand. My first boat …

Pierre-Alexis Dumas I was two years old and just starting to walk. We were in Greece, on the Island of Spetses. It was a fisherman’s boat in the Aegean.

Gabriele Pezzini A sailing boat, while on holiday in the Mediterranean. I was a student, invited by a friend who loved sailing. It was fantastic, complete with a storm. We weren’t the least bit afraid! I even thought it was funny.

What does the sea represent for you?

G.P. It depends on the sea. Whether I’m on shore or offshore. The waves, infinity, colours, that deep blue, the smell … And the sky, when the two mix together … That’s the closest I’ve felt to nature.

P.-A.D. Free! The sea is an escape, a beautiful escape. Sailing is the only way to be fearless and go against the current.

L.B.A. Between meetings with clients, regattas and holidays, I spend three months every year on a boat. For me, speed is an essential part of the pleasure of sailing. That said, I would love to live on the water all year round. My dream is a “floating island” close to shore. How did the first meeting between Hermès and Wally come about ?

P.-A.D. I knew that Luca Bassani wanted to do something with Hermès. I like Wally boats a lot. Their design is efficient, the hulls are sharp, the colours are those of the sea. And that idea of extending the deck inside … We met in Paris. At that time, Luca was thinking about an accessorised interior project for one of his boats. My intuition was to get on board. In autumn 2007, I went down to Monaco with a sailing friend who knows all the tricks in the book. I saw Luca again and he pulled out his 100-metre supertanker project with a tennis court and palm trees. I was impressed by the sheer audacity of the project, but I wasn’t too interested in all the speed power.

L.B.A. Yes, my initial idea was a Wally decorated by Hermès. I’ve been a loyal client for a long time now. What I’ve always liked about Hermès, aside from its intrinsic quality, is its audacity and radicalism; its desire to go beyond trends and not follow them, to make no compromises and to maintain the authenticity of the brand. Wally has the exact same values. “Hermès-on-Land”, “Wally-on-Sea”: our paths crossing was inevitable.

How were the gangways thrown between a House on land and a man of the sea?

P.-A.D. Luca wanted to go fast, which, for me, didn’t really seem to reflect the times. I believe that, today, we want comfort, slowness, depth. When I was little, I wanted to be an inventor and an astrophysician. One of my uncles, Olivier Dumas, was the president of the Friends of Jules Verne. I grew up totally enthralled by and marvelling at this utopian idea. My meeting with Luca Bassani rekindled all of those old feelings. Although it did take him some time to give up the speed!

Over the course of your discussions coasting against the current, how did you come up with the idea of a triangular hull?

P.-A.D. Everything happens in cycles. We don’t move forward because we get bored of a shape or a colour, but rather because our values evolve with time. My inspiration is still the Greek caïque, roomy, generous and slow. This eulogy to slowness is demonstrated in such a magnificent way. A pared-down craft with nothing superfluous about it. We needed a stable hull in order to hold the sea comfortably. The idea of a triangular hull, which doesn’t exist in the world of leisure boating, came from the utilitarian merchant marine.

L.B.A. Yes, he’s right, it took me a few months to let go of my idea, my taste for speed! In summer 2008, I came across a picture of a supertanker while reading a professional magazine. A cable-handling vessel, used in the geo-mining and seismological industry in the North Sea, invented by a Norwegian naval engineer, Roar Ramde, and fully patented. There was nothing new about this ship. It had been in use for twenty-five years. As soon as I saw it, I picked up the phone and called my consultant naval architect, Mauro Sculli. He looked in the Rina, the Italian naval classification registry: never seen or heard of before in the world of yachting! It was perfect. We had our hull.

G.P. Instead of choosing a structure that conveys and calls for speed, we opted for a dynamic that involves slowness via stability. When you look at this cable-handling vessel in its rigging, it’s ugly, stark, powerful, unbelievably stable; its proportions are astronomical. And then, you see that it’s like an adjustable spanner. All its potential is concentrated in a single function.

P.-A.D. And its maximum speed was 14 knots. The entire project took off from there.

How did you all get on board?

G.P. Once the hull had been chosen and agreed upon,  everyone rowed in the same direction. From Oslo to Ancona, via Paris.

L.B.A. We bought exclusive rights to the concept, patented strictly for yachting. Using an existing design was simply out of the question.

G.P. This Norwegian boat, the perfect anti-stereotype, naturally lent itself to the sphere of design that gives a raw functional object a twist in order to give it a new function. We’re talking fundamentals here.

What kind of maritime vision did it inspire?

L.B.A. An amphitheatre on the sea. Like Portofino.

P.-A.D. A piece of land that had broken off, but wasn’t adrift. Living the legend of the mythical wave. Or that of the whale. Surfing and Moby Dick: the image of the “tube” and the white whale. A new territory. Did this new territory require you to come up with a new way to design a boat?

P.-A.D. It is indeed a strange project. Its atypical side draws me in, like when you enter a new world. Hermès needs projects like this. WHY addresses the very real problem of consumption, which is today exacerbated by the global context. We provide an answer in a field where clients are responsible for setting an example, embracing a new ethic. What this market needs is a boat designed with the environment in mind. This new way of moving on water must give way to a new way of managing energy, its sources and uses, how to recycle it, etc. The same goes for the choice of materials; we have to limit the effect on the environment.

G.P. In terms of design, you don’t approach a boat like any other object. It’s a world that’s already defined by the very shape of the hull. We didn’t design a boat, we gave shape to an idea. The sea is one of the last spaces where people can indulge in absolute freedom. Deciding to live on the sea means rethinking everything that’s been done before. You need to start from scratch! For example, we provide a real jogging track inspired by coastal paths running around the ship. Above all, we had to transpose and translate functions into forms, and vice versa, by merging the viewpoints of Hermès and Wally.

L.B.A. A boat moves. And not everyone has the constitution of a sailor. So it has to be as stable as possible. This is the fundamental conceptual base for the whole WHY project. We tested it for six months in the specialised tank testing facility, to see how it performed in big seas. The outcome is that, in full swell, the bow moves a tiny bit and the stern stays completely still. Anchored, the boat creates a totally flat surface behind it, like an Olympic-size pool where you can swim in total peace. On the bow, there’s a seawater pool 25 metres long that follows the curve of the prow.

P.-A.D. Its slowness dictates a new aesthetic, while its function makes it beautiful, bizarrely beautiful. Naturally, the idea for the structure came later.

Did you use a similar approach for the interior design?

P.-A.D. The sheer size of the hull called for serious interiorarchitecture work. It’s a house on water! Naturally, we asked the RDAI agency, a company Hermès has been working with for over thirty years, to come up with an architectural concept that coalesced with the general concept of the boat. What they came up with was powerful, beyond our wildest dreams. Luca and I were very enthusiastic about the project. In terms of the interior layout, what were the limitations?

L.B.A. Decorating the interior of a yacht is a meeting point between the rawness of the boat and the fragility of the human body. When I started designing boats, my main concern was to create sensual and comforting spaces. Life on board has unavoidable aesthetic limitations resulting more from the materials than the forms. You have to keep in mind that, on a boat, you’re always barefoot and in a swimsuit. The contact between the materials and the skin is extremely important. No sharp corners, no abrasive materials that can hurt people. Everything has to be nice, harmless, skin-friendly.

When you say Hermès, leather instantly comes to mind. What about leather on the sea?

G.P. Of course there’s leather on board. The interiors are very natural, in their tones and materials. We mainly used water-resistant buffalo leather and worked vertically using the calpinage approach.

What are the environmental and ecological advantages of WHY?

L.B.A. Only a pure sailing yacht can be totally ecological. A dream. Going back to tradition. But the reality is that today, 90 % of the market is powerboats. So you have to work on this market in order to reduce diesel consumption, per year and per yacht, 20 to 30 % for propulsion and 40 to 50 % for generation. We believe this goal is attainable.

P.-A.D. Everything starts with the hull. The boat’s performance depends on it. Ours requires less power at cruising speed than a boat of equal size. Its diesel-electric motorisation is the most efficient motorisation out there today, and the surface of the photovoltaic panels, almost 900 square metres, covers part of what’s needed to subsist on the boat! We’re also looking into a telescopic wind-turbine system and a retractable mast with a computer-operated sail measuring over 200 square metres that will produce at least 30 % of the energy used to propel the boat. It’s a revolutionary innovation called SkySails®.

What functions do you need for life on board?

L.B.A. Ventilation and cooling for all the systems. Then there’s fresh water, made from desalted seawater. And finally, food storage. I even thought about planting a vegetable garden! It’s actually not an extravagant idea. Since Antiquity, ships have always had a real giardinetto in the driest spots on board. They would grow basil, herbs, vegetables, etc.

What kinds of innovative features does the first WHY boat have?

L.B.A. SkySails® involves new and advanced technology. There’s also the silica photovoltaic panels, a first on this scale, as even cruise ships don’t have a surface like this. They’re totally adjustable, retractable and filter light and wind. They’re latest generation panels, storing enough energy to provide for almost half the needs of a 20-person crew and twelve guests living in a 3,000-square-metre space.

G.P. Other innovations include the coastal path, a 30-metre beach at the back and a swim lane that hugs the bow of the boat.

P.-A.D. The boat is contained in the hull. There is no superstructure. Only the cockpit emerges from the silhouette of the ship, like a lighthouse on an island. Light became a major concern. Probably because of my Mediterranean roots, I dreamed up an outdoor patio to go in the middle of the boat complete with an olive tree. Done. The light shafts also make for warm lighting for the spaces inside…

With its unusual dimensions and design, is the first WHY boat a mere utopia?

P.-A.D. For six generations, Hermès has grown thanks to extraordinary designs, which our craftsmen need in order to push their limits. This monumental project fulfils our dreams. It’s not about a utopia, but rather about making a dream come true, the dream of living on water in harmony with the elements and in absolute comfort.

L.B.A. My imagination has no bounds. Designing a boat that resembles an island is not a utopia. We’re proving that right now, aren’t we ?

Could you sum up in a few words what this boat represents for you?

P.-A.D. A dream. Our ability to innovate. An architectural structure on water, in harmony with nature, made of sustainable materials and light, with an artisan spirit. A new way of living on the sea.

L.B.A. I know one of Dante’s sonnets about the sea by heart and my father lived his entire life by a few verses from Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano that he kept in a frame on his boat… An island, a peak, a cape, a peninsula.

Back to the Part І
Go to the Part ІІІ