Boat Review | Perini Selene

A triumph of art déco

The opening of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris hailed the arrival of Art Déco, a style that was to dominate the furnishings and saloons of the great transatlantic liners of the day but today rarely seen aboard a yacht at all. “It’s a difficult thing to pull off but it also makes her special”: the words of Bernardo Chichi, head of Perini Navi’s fitting out division, referring of course to Selene, the star of the Monaco Yacht Show. “Almost always when people mention Art Déco they’re talking about a furnishing accessory, a single object. But with Selene we designed and made everything in the Art Déco style: the spaces, furnishings, accessories. It was a challenge: Art Déco is all about colours, forms, chiaro-scuro. It’s not easy to create balanced, well-proportioned luxurious spaces.”
The fourth addition to Perini’s 56-metre line after her sister ships Burrasca, Santa Maria and Rosehearty, Selene was born, in terms of her interiors at least, of her lady owner’s artistic passion. That said there is plenty that’s new on deck too. The main focus of interest is a Perini trademark: the stern living area. “We got rid of the coaming,” explains Franco Romani, head of engineering at Perini who collaborated with Ron Holland on Selene. “Without those 25 centimetres that separated the living area from the deck surface, we got a whole new perspective. In addition to this we have an enormous port. Lastly, stowing the second tender forward was another new idea.”  And it was no easy feat finding the space for the second tender, a Sea Doo 180, particularly close to the owner’s heart. We had to modify the compartment and fit it out with a whole host of safety gear as the Sea Doo is powered by a petrol engine. Then we had to redesign the deck hatch.  But the result is magnificent: once closed there’s just a centimetre between the Sea Doo console and the port. Selene is, however, still a Perini Navi yacht and, as such, has all of the usual easy sailing features and rig. Her aluminium masts are by Perini as are her 13 captive reel winches. She also has a swing keel that cuts her draught from 9.73 metres to just 3.95 metres. Her carbon-fibre Marten Spars boom features in-boom furling too. Selene hoists a maximum  of 1,492 square metres of sail. Her fly is signature Perini with a second wheel area and a guest section with Jacuzzi.
And then we step into her interiors and suddenly nothing is standard fare, starting with a first for a Perini 56-metre. “It was already in the air at the yard so we suggested it to the lady owner and then we did it,” explains Chichi.  The idea was to create a corridor that would allow the crew to move around Salene without having to go through the guest areas. The corridor starts in the galley on the lower deck and leads up to the bridge from where it runs along the port side of the main deck right up to the cockpit. It also provides the crew with access to the fly, the lower deck and the saloon. “It’s a solution that gives a very elegant sense of privacy to the entire yacht,” emphasises Chichi. On the main deck, three different spaces – the saloon area, the bar and the dining area – are all separated by glass doors but standing at one end and looking up through them they actually feel like one large space despite the fact that they can be closed off from each other. They all have the same style but with their own individual details, particularly when it comes to materials. Sequoia root, ebony and wengé are all used on the main deck. The furnishings were made by the Perini Navi joinery department which made models and mock-ups for every single element to ensure that its representatives and the lady owner were completely satisfied that every last detail, from the best finish to the sofas or dining chairs, was perfect. “Art Déco is made up of endless details,” chips in Chichi at this point. “And to make the project work we had to make everything, from the door handles to the lamps.” While the colour scheme on the upper deck tends towards the dark, the lower deck features blonde Myrtle wood on the walls, Macassar ebony (a real classic Art Déco material), parchment and steel inserts on the trim panels. This sense of sophistication reaches a pinnacle in the owner’s stateroom amidships which spans the entire 12 metres of the beam. Its wardrobes are kid-trimmed while the bathroom is a delight of ebony and black and white Tarquinia marbles. Each one of the four guest staterooms is dedicated to a different star of the golden age of cinema: Marlene Dietrich, Humphrey Bogart, Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin. In each one, the sophisticated, sumptuousness of the 1920s is recreated to perfection aboard a megasailer that ironically is also very much of her time.
(Yacht Capital, n.10/2007)

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