When most people think of luxury yachts, they imagine the kinds of glamorous boats with interiors that look like those of modern hotels. The Baltic 107, Inukshuk, challenges that idea by offering luxurious spaces that draw inspiration from nature rather than glamour.
Redefining the luxury yacht concept isn’t an easy job. To reach its lofty goal, Baltic Yachts worked with some of the most experienced professionals in the boating industry, including naval architect Germán Frers; interior designer Adam Lay; and project manager Nigel Ingram from MCM. Mark von Drashek and Georges Bourgouignie of GCB Marine also played crucial roles in building a ship that looked like an extension of nature.
The result is so wonderful that it must surprise everyone involved. Inukshuk will certainly surprise everyone who sees it traversing waters or pulling into a harbor. While onlookers will immediately fall victim to her beauty, building a vessel like Inukshuk required technological advances as well as a pure aesthetic vision. Knowing about the challenges faced by her designers and builders will only amplify one’s appreciation for her beauty.
Building Inukshuk
Inukshuk is the largest yacht built by Baltic Yachts that includes a female CNC milled centerline split mould. Builders always encounter challenges when they push their abilities to explore new architectural territories.
Despite the yacht’s large size, the owner wanted a sloop that could travel at quick speeds and venture into shallow waters. Baltic Yachts faced this challenge by creating a hull that incorporates a large telescopic keel. A conventional lifting keel would have let Inukshuk pass through shallow waters, but using that design would have limited the amount of space available below deck. Replacing the typical design with a telescopic keel lets her draft into shallow waters while retaining a spacious interior for the owner and his guests.
When creating the interior, Baltic Yachts decided to build individual modules and then transfer them to the boat. This improved efficiency and let the designers find unique ways to use every inch of available space. Without this approach, Inukshuk probably wouldn’t have such a large interior. Baltic Yachts certainly wouldn’t have been able to build her within the expected timeframe.
Given that the owner wanted a yacht that could also travel at a fast clip, German Frers also had to take a unique approach to designing Inukshuk. He settled on a lightweight sloop that offers exceptional performance and a 78,232-kilogram (172,472-pound) total displacement. This power-to-weight ratio makes Inukshuk a unique vessel that can travel at fast speeds in deep and shallow waters.
Staying Aboard Baltic 107
Inukshuk’s nature-inspired beauty becomes most obvious below deck. The saloon has custom-designed furniture and lighting that draws inspiration from deep forests. The floor has a rustic look as old as a South American jungle. The overhead, recessed lights give the appearance of sunlight penetrating a thick canopy of leaves and limbs, or perhaps star-filled sky during a clear night at sea. The table looks like the perfect home for lichen, creating an old world feel that resides somewhere between the slick interior of a cave and the rocky side of a mountain.
The kitchen uses wood excessively to balance the stainless steel countertops and appliances. This creates a balance between the modern and the old. The stainless steel areas give chefs the perfect places to chop ingredients for upcoming meals. The flat, metallic spaces also make it simple to clean up after the meal has been prepared. The wooden cabinets, walls, and floor turn the kitchen into a meditative space that gets reflected in the polished metal.
Inukshuk has five cabins (plus two more for crewmembers). The guest cabins feel like slipping underground to take rest in a quiet cave. Bedheads draw inspiration from granite and lichen. Meanwhile, the wooden draws and walls create a contrast of light and dark that blurs the line between nature’s randomness and the organizational hand of man.
All of the rooms are constructed from lightweight materials, including limed oak, and driftwood. This reduces Inukshuk’s weight so she can meet her performance expectations while also creating the natural look that makes this yacht stand out from every other vessel in the world.
Of course, Inukshuk also has modern electronics that help keep people safe at sea. A KVH TracPhone V3 keeps her in contact with the human world. Wave WiFi gives guests access to information and entertainment stored in the virtual world. GPS Furuno, a Sirius weather receiver, and Furuno MFDBB NavNet3D help the captain pinpoint the boat’s location and prepare for developing weather.
Boats like Inukshuk can only appear at certain points in history when civilizations has the right tools to mix nature and technology without letting one overpower the other. By blending what the world’s greatest yacht designers know with the aesthetic creations of nature-inspired interior designers, Baltic Yachts has built a vessel that can float at a midpoint between the human world and the natural world. She is the type of boat that only comes along once in a great while.
