A year ago, lifestyle-, car, and yacht-oriented Web sites (this one included) were burning up with posts about a catamaran megayacht design from Porsche Design Studio, a subsidiary of the famed car company. Most people were surprised by the news, given that this was the firm’s first entry into the superyacht market, as well as the catamaran market. It also marked the entry of a new company into the yacht-construction business, Asia-based Royal Falcon Fleet.
The RFF135, as the joint project is being called – or the “spacecraft on the water,” as the team reportedly envisioned it – is back in the news again, as the hull is a few weeks away from completion. The hull will then depart the shipyard for full outfitting in Sweden, at Kockums, which specializes in submarines, naval ships, and workboats, the latter including carbon fiber catamarans. (It’s also a division of ThyssenKrupp, the same parent company of Blohm + Voss.) The photo of the tank-test model above gives you a good idea of what the RFF135, measuring 135 feet LOA, will look like when the hull and superstructure are joined. Launch is expected toward the end of next year.
As for Porsche Design Studio, the company creates products for its own brand as well as in collaboration with other firms, so the venture with Royal Falcon Fleet isn’t entirely unusual. It has previously worked with Fearless Yachts on an 80-mph sportboat. On a side note, it has won awards (including prestigious Red Dot design awards) for everything from a mobile phone to a running shoe, even kitchenware and a pen that works upon a flick of the wrist. For this project, the Porsche Design Studio team says it was instructed to employ curves and other elements outside the norm for a yacht. It admits that what it came up with has presented a challenge for the naval architecture team, but it believes the overall effect is a successful embodiment of modern design.
Here’s a better look at that design, inside and outside.
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