Windows of opportunity
Imagine no boundaries between walls and ceiling, a great expanse of crystal- clear glass where no part of the sea or sky is out of view. The dome-like walls curve outwards beyond the superstructure, glittering in the sun like a jewel and revealing, for those cocooned inside, the raw beauty of nature in perfect clarity. In fact, you don’t have to imagine this, because yacht designers already have.
In the last decade, some long-held tenets regarding the use of glass on superyachts were discarded for a future free of the worries that once held engineers back. Yachts emerged with more glass than had ever been used before. Once owners got a taste for the full- on light and views that these clear barriers offered, there was no turning back. Less structure and more glass is the demand of the day, and there’s further innovation to come.
How we got here
Owners have a behind-the-scenes group to thank for much of the advancement. Consider that the use of glass we are seeing now on yachts isn’t new technology – it is knowledge that has been used on land for years. The problem was convincing those who certify vessels as safe that it would work.
In 2005, a technical committee for the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), composed of glass experts along with classification societies and flag states, began working on unified standards for glass. Before then it was more of a case of who was sitting on the other side of the table.
“At the time, if you
