Yacht Styling: the Squares vs the Rounds

Rediscovering Curves

I can’t believe it’s finally happened.  Italian yacht stylists have finally rediscovered CURVES!  Let’s face it, the Italians usually call the shots insofar as design trends are concerned whether it be in yachts, automobiles or furniture.  After years of designing yachts, most of which looked like Pablo Picasso had taken up yacht design (with superstructures looking like they were formed of folded cardboard), smooth, rounded, sensuous forms are just starting to appear in some of their latest boats and I predict, within a year, this trend will be widespread.

As a lone advocate for rounded, organic boat styling these past years, it seemed to me that since the mid-60’s, boats have looked like they were planned by designers who possessed only straightedges and didn’t know about French curves, splines, or circle templates.  The Italian boats, for the most part, were startling but never what one would call beautiful -- most of them looking like “Battle Star Galactica” sitting atop an ocean racing hull.  There were funny bumps, creases, wows, hiccups, indentations, protuberances and windows going off at different, crazy angles with no relationship to one another.  There were structures that, as an engineer, I can only describe as “funny things” sticking up out of the superstructure at different angles for no apparent reason.  Looking at some of these boats kind of made me itch.  A few bucked the trend -- Riva is one that comes to mind -- but mostly, it was “Kirk to Enterprise” time for the Italians.  American boats were not as radical, but were still, basically, straight and square. 

You don’t fool with Mother Nature.  Consider if an egg were to be cube-shaped.  Not only would it be structurally fragile, but it would be pure hell for a hen to lay and thereafter incubate…OUCH!  Why aren’t there square tree trunks?  Why aren’t water droplets cube-shaped?  And why don’t ducks have chines and flat bottoms?  The answer is that nature has forsaken hard corners for rounded forms that are more structurally sound, more aero or hydrodynamic, or simply more beautiful.  It’s funny, the Italians are known for their love and appreciation of beautiful women.  You’d think they would have caught on sooner.  Picasso may have drawn women with cube-shaped breasts and sharp corners on their legs and buttocks but you could never imagine a real woman like that… could you?  (As a matter of fact, I DID know a woman like that once…but that’s another story.)  No… beautiful women do not come with square corners and the lusty Italians, more than anyone, should know this.

From the days of the early power boats, marine shapes have mimicked the automotive shapes of the day.  The term “auto boats” became popular in the 20’s and 30’s for this reason.  Of course, everything runs in circles.  And, just as ladies’ hemlines go up and down, stylists continually vacillate between roundness and sharp corners.  Following the auto industry, sharp, angular superstructures of the 20’s gave way to rounded, billowy forms in the 30’s and continued after the war.  In the 50’s things got extreme with some cars looking like big, melted marshmallows (remember the ’50 Mercury and the ’50 Dodge?).  In the mid-60’s we started seeing sharply creased automobiles replacing the round ones and in the 70’s the trend continued – razor – edged, wedge-shaped automobiles were the rage. Yes, there were some dissenters that rebelled either on artistic principles or of economic necessity (which required them to utilize tooling from the round eras).  

Jaguar is a good example.  Jaguar has always been round and they never seem to go out of style.  Their beautiful XJ6 sedan designed in the early 60’s is still an eye-catcher today.  For a good example of automotive design trends, let’s follow the Corvette from its inception in 1953 to today.  Conceived in the early 50’s, the first body style was very round looking somewhat like a puffy cloud.  This basic style was carried from 1953 to 1962.  The ’63, first of the “mid-year” Corvettes, marked a transition between roundness and razor-edge.  Mid-year ‘Vettes were produced from ’63 through ’67.  The ’68 Corvette was something entirely different.  It employed sharp ridges, creases, and hard angles all over its body.  This body style ran from ’68 to ’82.  In 1983 we saw the all-new Corvette introduced and, lo’ and behold, it was round again!  

The boating industry seems to lag the automobile industry, as far as styling goes, by about five years.  In the 50’s Chris Crafts were, perhaps, some of the roundest boats ever produced, with bulbous stems, rounded sheer lines, rounded cabin tops, and rounded edges everywhere on the cabin.  Remember, these were wooden production boats so the workmanship on these boats was something to be admired.  The first Hatteras (that’s the famous 41’ sportfisherman) was of rounded styling in the early ‘60’s.  By the mid-60’s, boat superstructures began to square up and this theme has been carried on to this day for over twenty years with few exceptions. 

But now, all is changing!  Sensuous curves are appearing and this important trend cannot be overlooked.  At my urging, Cheoy Lee took the plunge in 1980. Trojan’s new “meter” boats are round and the trend is expanding in the U.S.  In Italy, Tullio Abbate has just come out with a 45’ Magnum-type speedboat called “Exception”.  Instead of a hard corner where the deck meets the sheer, a heavy radius exists similar to the beautiful mahogany Greavette streamlined speedboats from the ‘30’s.  The “Exception’s” transom curves in two planes -- athwart ships and down towards the water.  In all, curves are a very refreshing change -- and one that is sure to be imitated by other boat builders. 

I have come up with a fool-proof way to determine if an object is of good design.  It is simply: does it feel good to clean it?  Yes… Does it feel good to clean it?  I had a 1980 sharp edged Corvette for years that never gave me any pleasure when I washed it.  When a new Isuzu Impulse came into my life I found I enjoyed the hell out of washing that car with its beautiful, rounded contours.  The same applies to kitchen objects… and boats.  Corners, it seems, are as unfriendly to hands or brushes or sponges as they are to water or air. 

If I know the Italians, they will carry their newly discovered roundness to the extreme and, soon, their boats will look like Crayolas left out in the sun too long or, perhaps, a well-used candle.  After this happens, you can rest assured that sharp creased will be back again.  We should all celebrate the rediscovery of curves in yacht design and enjoy it while it lasts.  Now… about that woman with the cubes…

April 1985

(Reprinted with permission of Regina Fexas.)

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