Last September, at the Monaco Yacht Show, Lürssen exhibited a ground breaking 105m project. The design of this impressive project is in hands of London based design firm Lobanov Ltd. Igor Lobanov, the founder of the company, was pleased to tell SYT more about White Night.
"White Night is a 105m yacht with a "petit" superstructure designed in a time of continual size increases which are now resulting in the ultra large megayachts currently in build. We developed her to express an opinion about this current situation, bigger and bigger boats are reminiscent of the cold war, rather like an arms race! No longer is a 130m yacht so unusual or so impressive. So we thought about an alternative approach, another way for the wealthy among us to express themselves through their yachts".
"The magic of 100m still holds certain significance among some clientele but even then the yacht can be smaller in volume and lighter, providing 12 guests with optimum comfort. White Night offers intimate cozy bedrooms and spaces that are the 'right size' for the 'right number of people'. Long open decks provoke evening parties for large numbers of visitors, although only the select few will be staying on board".
"There are a few styling features worthy of mention, the obvious one being the highly fashionable reverse bow which is becoming more common. But the key to the design are the open teak decks running forward over the front canopies and maintaining the same width on all external decks. The remaining space outboard provides the sculptural "movement" of surfaces, which start aft from the hull sides twisting forward and upwards before dropping again in a sort of "Mobius" band. In this way the hull merges with the superstructure that is reminiscent of the old paddle steamers and harks back to the XIX century as does the reverse bow".
"More than that the open decks give an extra feeling to the boat, as if there is no longer a hull and a superstructure, they are now as one and the wooden decks are inserted into the steel structure. The main deck stairs also have a role to play as they act as the pillar supporting the upper deck. As a finishing touch the graphical centre piece is the very long balcony in the middle of the superstructure side".