February, 2001
by Roger Lean-Vercoe
If you ask one of the Internet search engines to look up ‘Cakewalk’ it produces about 100,000 hits, most of them regarding ‘music sequencing software’, whatever that may be. Delve deeper and you discover a small number of pages that relate more closely to the name of Feadship’s most recent launch, which also regales in the name CAKEWALK. These pages are not discussing yachts, however, but the hottest African-American dance and rhythm of the late 19th century. This music had grown around a dance, more accurately and exaggerated high-stepping walk known as the ‘Chalk Line Walk’, which poked fun at the ultra-formal high society of the day. So popular was the dance that it was often performed competitively, when the most commonly awarded prize was a cake - hence the evolution of its name to ‘The Cakewalk’.
CAKEWALK’s American owners are equally enthusiastic about Cakewalk music as they are about yachting, so it was natural to combine the two in the name of their first major yacht. This was the 40.40m Feadship built in 1987 by Van Lent as FIFFANELLA, which they purchased in 1995, renamed CAKEWALK, and extended to 44.10m during a total refit. This first CAKEWALK was much loved by her owners, but was really too small for their expanding family, so the decision was taken to build a new yacht using much the same team that had been responsible for the original vessel, with the notable addition of interior designer, Andrew Winch Designs. Their instructions were concise - the new CAKEWALK was to be traditional and timeless, and she was to espouse the latest techniques in construction, engineering and electronics, while the team was also directed to do what it takes to get it absolutely right.
With regard to looks, layout and decor, the ancestry of this new 62.30m CAKEWALK can be traced to her classic displacement predecessor. A sleek vessel with a well balanced profile that is not overburdened with superstructure, and an attractive main deck sheer line that, just forward of midships, steps up to deckhead level to create a high, seaworthy bow. However, the scale, technology and detail of this latest vessel not only reflect 13 years of yacht building advances, but also the owners experience of their previous yacht.
Perhaps the most significant improvement to the new yacht’s facilities is the huge increase in deck spaces available to the owners and their guests. On the first CAKEWALK , the decks were relatively small and dominated by her tenders - aboard the new yacht, it is only when under way that any tender is stowed on deck, and this is only the small orange safety boat required by MCA regulations. Concealing tenders below decks to increase available space is not a new option. However, few such stowage solutions have the elegance of that seen aboard CAKEWALK, whose tenders are kept forward on the main deck, within a full beam bay built into her high bow just forward of the master suite. Of the two substantial tenders located here, the first is a semi-custom 7.9-metre powered by a pair of 200hp Yamahas. The second, a fully customized, carbon-fibre hulled 8.2-metre based on an Egret hull, is powered by twin 250hp Yanmar diesels and will carry 15 guests and two crew in shelter and comfort. These are launched and recovered by beam cranes that extend outboard from the bay’s deckhead after a pair of gull-wing doors are opened from her hull sides. While this is a highly practical and aesthetic solution, one of its other advantages is that the tender bay is positioned just above the crew space to which it is conveniently connected by a stairway, allowing maintenance to proceed without any disruption to the owners and their guests. At the same time, it creates a useful workshop in the fore part of the yacht, as well as a refrigerated rubbish store, and emergency escape route from the master suite, and a convenient crew route to the open foredeck.
Without the need to stow tenders on deck, Feadship’s in-house design team, De Voogt Engineering, were afforded a great deal more freedom in the design of CAKEWALK. They were able to conceive a classically sleek profile forward and a remarkable triple-tiered cascade of deck spaces aft, without the yacht’s profile being disfigured. Aloft, the sun deck has been created around the owners very practical requirement for an elevator to unite all four decks. This has resulted in the sun deck being divided into two by a central enclosed landing, which houses the stairwell, elevator and an elegant, mosaic-decorated day head. The forward sun deck, shaded by a substantial awning that is good for 30 knots of breeze, provides a bar with adjacent food lift, a pair of small tables for casual dining or games, and four pedestal seats lining the windbreak - an ideal viewpoint when the yacht is under way. Its aft portion, again beautifully laid with teak, offers an oval spa pool, a pair of sunpads and, down a few steps, room for eight of Summit’s teak sun loungers - pure heaven for sunbathers.
Two other rarely seen features have added to the practicality of the deck. The neat stowage of deck cushions when they are not in use can be a nightmare for crew, but here it provides no problem as they can all be fitted into a store within the deckhouse that forms an ante-chamber to the emergency generator room. The second point addresses helicopter operations. While the ability to accept a helicopter did not form a vital part of the yacht’s operational capability, the possible need to land one in an emergency without compromising the deck layout was addressed by making the central section of the aft bulwark removable. This means that the helicopter’s skids can touch down in the sun lounger area, leaving ample space to accommodate its blades aft of the deckhouse.
The remaining two deck areas are also designed with specific functions in mind. One deck down, the shaded bridge deck aft, with its cane settees and easy chairs grouped around a low mosaic-topped table, provides an agreeable setting for outdoor relaxation, while the main deck aft offers alfresco dining for 14 around a magnificent oval table. Without doubt, this will be the yacht’s most frequently used dining area - hardly a surprising prediction when one soaks in the splendor of this totally uncluttered deck with its panoramic views and immaculately gloss varnished teak woodwork. Not least of its attractions is the ease with which guests may arrive at the deck, using the elevator, internal stairs or the cascade of external stairs that directly unite the three aft decks without the usual need to zigzag along side decks.
In the same way that CAKEWALK’s exterior layout as dramatically improved by the enclosed tender stowage forward, the yacht’s interior was transformed by another extraordinary design feature. Positioned at the centre of the yacht is an extravagantly proportioned stairwell, almost large enough to be termed an atrium, through which a wide circular staircase winds to unite the lower deck guest accommodation with spacious lobbies on the main, bridge and sun decks, a route that is also paralleled by and elevator. At one time, it was considered that the fire regulations embodied within the MCA code would effectively prohibit large vertical spaces penetrating the yacht’s decks, as these are a vast chimney through which fire is able to spread rapidly. The fire regulations stipulate that any such shaft must be able to be sealed off from the decks through which it passes, and as a part of the yacht’s comprehensive fire-fighting system, which incorporates Hi-Fog mist-spraying nozzles throughout the yacht, Winch and the Feadship designers created a series of automatic fire doors to meet this need. Made from steel and, skillfully encased with wood veneers, they are totally unobtrusive.
Amazingly, CAKEWALK’s tightly integrated interior is not the work of a single designer, but the highly successful collaboration of three companies, although they are unanimous in pointing out that this was a true team effort, unhindered by hard and fast boundaries of responsibility. Laid out by De Voogt Engineering, the interior and architectural design as well as the detailing fell to Andrew Winch Designs, while Elizabeth Dalton of Dalton Designs chose the fabrics, loose furniture and artwork, all three liaising closely with the owners, who have considerable interest in and knowledge of design. The result is a tasteful, beautifully colour-matched, comfortable, eclectic style that, if seen in a stately home could only have resulted from several generations of selective furniture collecting. In essence, the layout is also very traditional. The lower deck has guest staterooms aft of the engine room and crew quarters forward, the main deck offers a combined lounge and dining saloon aft and the master suite forward, and the bridge deck provides a second lounge, a gymnasium, pilothouse and captain’s cabin. Traditional it may be, but at the same time CAKEWALK’s interior is quite outstanding in view of its superb decoration, detailing and functionality.
The main deck salon, a lounge and dining room divided only by a chest of drawers, is particularly breathtaking. Set upon a stunning custom wool carpet that, incorporating 29 separate colours, was specially designed for the room by Elizabeth Dalton and woven by Lacey Champion of Atlanta, is a cluster of long-seated settees and easy chairs. Among these are two antique barrel chairs from Argentina, which form the heart of the saloon, their dissimilar but carefully color co-ordinated silk fabrics create interest and variety. These are overlooked by what appears to be an antique ormolu-decorated cabinet of madrona and burr. Like several of the pieces of furniture aboard the yacht, however, this was a custom-built copy - made by Van Lent’s talented joiners - of an original piece seen by Dalton in an antique shop and designed for the room by Matthew Chatt-Collins, the Project Manager for Andrew Winch Designs - far better to make a new cabinet to conceal the room’s audio-visual entertainment centre than to modify an antique piece. The room divider is another Winch-designed and Van Lent-built cabinet - this time a splendid chest of drawers made from cherrywood, dark-stained to an ebony finish, whose drawers are fitted with elaborate custom-cast gilt handles that depict a mermaid. Beyond, a ring of cupboards topped with distinguished marron imperiale marble follow the curve of the dining table and store the Christofle cutlery and 14 sets of china in easily accessible drawers, while glass-fronted display cabinets show off a fine collection of antique silver. At the centre of the room, set beneath a domed trompe-l’oeil ceiling treatment and fringed by 10 blue-covered chairs, the ebonized cherrywood dining table is overlooked by an oil painting of the Grand Canal in Venice. Unusually, the table’s surface has an uneven finish created by the slightly domed tops of the diamond pattern of planks from which it is made, a device intended to reduce the formality of the area.
The yacht’s second lounge lies on the bridge deck, aft of the stairwell. This is a more relaxed saloon - a place of entertainment that is fully in keeping with the owners love of music. A Yamaha Disklavier grand piano fills one corner, card tables fill two others and the forward bulkhead is fitted with an enormous classical cabinet. Despite the latter’s ancient appearance, this is yet another modem masterpiece from the Andrew Winch Designs/Van Lent team, housing a huge plasma-screen television that forms the heart of the seriously impressive hi-fi and home-theatre system installed by Intelect Integrated Electronics. This draws its input from local DVD and video players, or from a technical room in the bowels of the yacht racked with satellite decoders and a massive hard-drive based audio/video system with the capacity to store 75 full-length films and 500 CDs. The audio signal is then fed through a surround-sound amplifier and a battery of artfully concealed B&W speakers which reproduce excellent sound quality, while control of the entire system, together with the lighting and air-conditioning, is accomplished through the discreet hand-held Crestron touch screens throughout the yacht. Once sampled, this is a system few will forget.
Beyond the lobby and its pretty day head, the master suite fills the main deck forward to the tender bay. It is entered through a private lobby, which is decorated by a delicate stencilled guilloche frieze around the ceiling and hung with a splendid gilt-framed oil of Monaco harbour - painted by the famous English marine artist, William Whyllie in the late 1800s before its enclosure by today’s twin jetties. Forward, a pair of delicately arched double doors open to the full-beam stateroom, past an attractively book-lined study to port where all modern equipment is concealed behind paneled doors. A few paces onward, the stateroom itself is revealed - a breathtaking room. Brightly lit by wide windows on either side and tastefully furnished with an antique chaise lounge to starboard and a pair of easy chairs to port, the room’s half-tester bed is set between marble-topped bedside tables. At the foot of the bed is an octagonal rotunda from which the twin bathrooms and a walk-in wardrobe radiate, the latter affording an escape route to the tender bay. Beneath the centre of the rotunda’s dome, a pop-up television is cleverly concealed in a circular classical chest, which rotates so that it is visible from either bath. The modern technology discreetly complements the gold fittings and the luxuriously cool greys and whiters of the breccia damascate marble that decorates both rooms.
All six guest staterooms open from a lower deck passageway at the foot of the central staircase and elevator, four aft of an automatic watertight door and two forward of it. Here, the raised and fielded panels above the wainscoting are replaced with pale silk damask for a lighter effect, while below this line, the paneling is made more interesting with circular mouldings. Inset doorways relieve the tedium of length, as does a rotunda set between the aftermost four cabins in which a pair of ‘Winch/Van Lent antique’ cabinets, finished with a difficult-to-achieve patina of worn gold, house a refrigerator and bar, so that guests may help themselves to drinks and snacks at all hours. Stowage is also an important asset of the passageway -a store room for guests suitcases lies at the aft end, while linen cupboards that make clever use of space beneath furniture inside the cabins are concealed behind the passageways paneling - the only clue to their presence being tiny circular keyholes.
The individual guest staterooms are named after seas, decorated with a touch of that region’s particular style, and lie behind heavy paneled doors. All of a similarly generous size, these staterooms were primarily designed with the owners family in mind, so each is provided with a single bed and a Pullman berth in addition to a queen-sized bed - to accommodate two generations when necessary. All are flooded with light from twin portholes and beautifully decorated with a colourfully co-ordinated palette that results in a cheerful, calm atmosphere. This is duplicated in the en suite bathrooms, which are distinguished by the use of espresso creme marble and have his-and-hers washbasins and a bath incorporating a shower. Practical detailing is also a feature; secret compartments hidden within the paneling store the reserve of toiletries, a leather container is provided as an overnight resting place for jewellery; the bedcovers store in specially built compartments beneath each bed; and the custom designed bedside tables incorporate a tray that is ideal for use on the bed. Televisions are discreetly housed in corner cabinets with woven metal and fabric panel doors.
Leading forward from the bridge deck lobby, a corridor passes a well-equipped gymnasium on its way to the pilothouse. Here, despite it being a working area, elegant design has not been overlooked. As in the remainder of the yacht, cherrywood paneling provides the backdrop, while instruments are mounted on a black fascia panel, trimmed with a double line of padded cream leather that also covers the visitor’s settee. In layout, the room follows the fashion of most larger yachts, where the compartment is centered around a free-standing navigation desk, fronted by the settee, while a combined office and communications room opens aft on the port side and the captain’s cabin fills this space to starboard.
No expense has been spared on equipment, although at first sight some major components seem to be absent. In fact, this results from the philosophy of Captain Bill Zinser, who oversaw the build of the yacht, in an attempt to keep surfaces uncluttered by equipment that does not need constant tending. At sea, for instance, the stabilizers require no attention, so they are positioned behind a panel that is tilted out when necessary. Similarly, the controls for Feadship’s successful passive roll control system, which damps roll at anchor by the counter-movement of water within a flume tank in the bilge, are also hidden. Other notable equipment includes a Transas plotter, with a picture that can be overlaid with a radar image, a stand-alone computer dedicated to the downloading and display of weather pictures from the internet, and a masthead-mounted night vision camera.
For the foreseeable future, CAKEWALK’s destiny lies in world cruising, and the briefest glimpse of her engine room reveals that, for this task, she is unlikely to be let down by her machinery. Divided into four compartments - the engine room, generator room and pump room, all overlooked by the air-conditioned and sound insulated control and switchboard room - this is a spacious, logically laid out and immaculately built area. Three Caterpillar generator sets (exclusive of the 55kW emergency set) deliver 510kW of electricity, with their dry stack exhausts cleaned by the STAR (soot trap and regeneration) system, while her main engines, 2,000hp Caterpillars, provide a combined cruising and maximum speed of 16.8 knots at which she has transatlantic range. Her extensive monitoring system is by Servowatch, while ships management software, which keeps an eye on servicing schedules and spare parts requirements, ordering and stowage, has been newly written by Scott Strand of Great Circle Systems.
CAKEWALK’s owners wanted her to be the best, and they have certainly achieved their aim. To use an expression first coined for prize-winning dancers of the Chalk-Line Walk – she certainly ‘takes the cake’.
