Seasoned yacht designers might feel aggrieved to learn that, for Katharine Pooley, her first boat project wasn't the result of rounds of fevered pitching, or a concept that finally caught an owner's eye. Instead, it came simply from a happy client, whose chalet she had recently completed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Having already partnered with Custom Line to take delivery of the 32-metre Custom Line 106 yacht, and with Fraser overseeing the whole project, the owner came to Pooley asking, “I hope it's not too late can you help us?”
“My very first reaction was ‘Of course, I will,” she laughs, “Renata [Righi, Pooley's design director] and I were delighted, because we had always talked about doing a boat together, but the industry is very small. All it takes is for one person to trust you and then off you go.”
Not that Pooley is a design novice by any stretch of the imagination. Her bustling studio of 49 in London's Chelsea has been well established for more than 19 years, and she was recently named British Interior Designer of the Decade by the IDAA [International Design & Architecture Awards].
