7 July 2016

There are three big names behind the Brenta 80 DC, a dream boat that has been attracting a lot of attention in the last few months: Michael Schmidt, founder and former CEO of Hanse, Brenta Design, in the person of Lorenzo Argento, and the British starchitect Sir David Chipperfield. The three have come together to create an 80-foot yacht for Schmidt himself, who wanted a comfortable, elegant, spacious and contemporary cruiser, but with a look that would evoke more traditional lines. The first element of this reappraisal, the wheelhouse with vertical sides, barely visible from the outside: a solution that offers many advantages, including that of having portholes which let in light and improve ventilation below deck. The deck has three different levels, recalling the characteristics of the boats of other times: while in the stern, where the ample terrace is located, the gunwale is almost 60 cm high, in the middle, next to the wheelhouse, it is only 30 and in the bows, beyond the mast, there is a simple stretcher. The choice of a central cockpit to accommodate guests on board has guided Chipperfield’s organization of the internal spaces: roomy, essential and refined, alternating design of the highest quality, such as Franco Albini’s chairs, with solutions of great class and practicality, like the leather handles on the manrope fixed to the ceiling or the straps, also made of leather, used to open the drawers. Real masterstrokes of sailboat design.