Say what you like about Philippe Starck but I think he is a very good designer and architect.
He is extremely talented in many fields and of those talents, making something as potentially beautiful as a yacht look as ugly as they do with slab sides and angles, is quite something.
Think about the other A and or about Venus.
It is clear he is no sailor and when it comes to yacht design he is still very much at the apprentice stage but he is still young.
Indeed he is doing a lot better at yacht design than that fellow Foster. As anyone who has looked at Lord Fosters designs for the series of yachts he designed for YachtPlus will attest to. No wonder they only ever built three of the ten they set out to.
Foster is no sailor either, and Starck has clearly never stood an anchor watch why else would he give his latest sailing yacht design one single anchor and then place it on the port side?
I say this having looked at a couple of videos that have found their way on to YouTube (See be
low)
The videos show project White Pearl now known as A on some sort of trials in the waters close by the Kiel Canal in Germany.
Tugs are fast fore and aft which suggests that someone somewhere is adopting a sailor like approach to safety and knows only too well how likely it is to have engine or steering gear failure at these early stages of completion.
Among items to cause consternation among those who have seen the videos is the fact that the yacht appears only to carry one anchor and that it is carried well aft of what might be considered a seamanlike position. Traditionally seamen have used the starboard anchor as first choice in the northern hemisphere and the port side hook when down under.
What are views? I would love to know.