Is It A Prime Time For Design ?

From my home office in London at the beginning of February, I’m pondering what this year will be like. Do any of us know? Tomorrow, I get my vaccine. I’m one of the early call ups due to having had asthma most of my life. The text came in last night, and the options were three different locations, two of which had appointments all booked up, so I quickly chose the last one. So at least I can put a time on when I will have significantly reduced the risk of getting Covid-19 to 12 weeks in the future. Other than that, it’s a crystal ball that’s required because the rest of society has to catchup, then across Europe and the rest of the world.

That aside, it still suggests that travel is going to remain difficult for most of this year and many of the yacht shows put at risk again of not happening. For a yacht broker, this makes it challenging, as without viewing a yacht and being on board, how do you know for sure, she’s the right one for you. I remember a yacht I really liked on paper. Loved the styling, the price and the old-style wood interiors. When I got on board, there was a musty smell, and it was significantly darker than the images. Two problems that would be impossible to determine with virtual viewings and brochures. The ambience on board a yacht, the stillness, the sounds, the textures and the light, are all very important requirements that I for one, would not leave to chance with my own money, far less a client.

Where does that leave us then. If we can’t get clients onboard due to travel restrictions, we need to be focussing on different areas which fit better while we are in this interim twilight phase. I’ve been working hard at this challenge since early last year when I was grounded from my shipyard tour. I had started 2020 with much enthusiasm. I had several clients all finalising their selection and narrowing down what they were after. I was looking to create more social media material for visitors by visiting as many shipyards as I could and bring the experience. I started with Benetti and flew into Pisa at this time last year, about 2 weeks before a nearby town had its first outbreak. Then I went to Amels and Heesen in the Netherlands in the same week and was able to get a sneak preview of some of their new yachts in production. Then it ended and the world changed.

This year, my strategy is to do more online, given that we’re all now best friends with our zoom app and more comfortable now that we know everyone has the same frustrations with getting online on time without looking flustered. I know that we have a range of different requirements of people online, so I had to cater for a wide range. Firstly, there’s those who, like me, love yachts, and want to keep close to the action. So, I created a news site which is free to subscribe, called SuperYacht Now, which curates the news from various magazines, online publications and the mainstream media to bring a daily dose of what’s sold, new design concepts, and the occasional update about when things go wrong.

The uptake of the news was swift in a month. Its free and only an email given away in exchange. So, with that part of the SuperYacht market comfortable of their involvement, there was a gap to address for those in the industry who meet up at the yacht shows and collaborate on projects for clients. For this, a community website and app was needed and SuperYacht Networks was born. A small subscription of a few dollars will introduce subscribers to potential business opportunities and industry colleagues who understand the challenges we’re all faced with. Several of those who’ve joined have shared their ambitious plans for the year and getting support, as well as potential new clients. This article came out of a conversation with someone who I’d known for a few years by attending parties in Monaco, but it was the first time we had chatted. With him being focussed on design and my services focussed on selling, it felt like a good fit to start working together with clients who aren’t quite ready to dip their toe in the water this year, but a few years in the future seems a better prediction. Meantime, instead of waiting and doing nothing, those clients need to see progress of some sort or they’ll go stir crazy.

The saying goes that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. The reason for that is that we need to be engaged constantly in something that is developing, growing, and evolving. No matter what is going on in the outside world, you just can’t hold a naturally ambitious person back from achieving their goals. Is it a prime time for design? Well, we certainly think so. The design process is one of the few processes in the Superyacht industry that can be done completely online.

Design is about the interaction of people with images and creative brainstorming and fine tuning of precise detail that can be done arguably even better in a close online environment. The precise focus of a few people looking closely on an area of detail on the screen is vastly better than in an office environment. The client is in the comfort of their own home office and more relaxed. Choose the right time of day and you’ll get the most creativity being generated and therefore more ambitious plans with more attention to detail than at other times.

From designers like Clifford Denn, Andrew Winch, Laurent Giles and Tillberg Design, this year we’ll be using our online time with clients to bring teams together to make create masterpieces of the future. The yachts that come out of this creative period will be the most ambitious, futuristic and life affirming. This year, more than any in our lifetimes, we value life, we value living, we value those things that were nearly taken away from us and we want to make sure they won’t get further away again.

Let’s start the design process, let’s make sure this quiet time through less commuting, less travel, isn’t wasted, but instead merely redirected to better, more thoughtful use of our time. 

Douglas McFarlane, is CEO of Lomond Yachts, a SuperYacht broker based in London.