March, 2001
By Reg Potterton
Late last summer Gallagher took delivery of the 205’ M/Y CAKEWALK from the Van Lent yard, exhibited the boat to great acclaim at the 2000 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show and embarked soon afterwards on a cruise through the Eastern Caribbean. We caught up with her in Antigua, where she lay stern-to at the Antigua Yacht Club in Falmouth Bay, over-shadowing both literally and metaphorically her closest neighbors.
Most large new yachts impress because of their size and opulence, but these observed elements can be misleading, for they sometimes reveal only what builders and designers create when their client is not fully confident that he knows what he wants. Charlie Gallagher knew what he wanted and spelled it out in what he calls his Three-T philosophy of Timelessness, Tradition and Technology.
Timelessness on CAKEWALK is expressed in the raised bow and the long line of sheer, which combines a businesslike and even aggressive entry with an overall profile of classic simplicity. Tradition is found outside and in, partly because Gallagher coaxed Frits de Voogt out of retirement to put his unique stamp on the exterior styling and partly because Feadship’s approach to design and building derives from traditions inherited and advanced over five decades of striving for perfection.
The third element of the Gallagher philosophy, Technology, is found not so much in what is visible but what isn’t. He wanted two tenders, a sports/utility 25-footer and a 27’ “limo”, stowed in bays on either side of the boat. To house these, Feadship designed hydraulic dropaway doors with concealed overhead cranes for deployment of the tenders. It looks simple on paper, but the bays had to be located in the forward section of the yacht and the bay doors had to be watertight; they also had to conform to the hull’s curve and flare, which demanded engineering skill of a very high magnitude. When closed the door seams are about 5cm in width and cannot be seen unless viewed from up close.
Other examples of craftsmanship abound, from CAKEWALK’S central staircase to the Bridge Deck’s foyer dayhead, which has a concave door with raised panels. Both the staircase and door are made of stained cherrywood, the predominant wood used in all public and private areas.
It is worth taking a closer look at this palatial stairway. It connects all four decks and has a green-black ironwork balustrade with metal acanthus leaves in gold-accented verdigris. To see it from any perspective is to be reminded of a fashionable mansion interior from an earlier age. What catches the eye when glancing down from the uppermost level-in the atrium deckhouse of the Sun Deck-is its perfect spiral, which descends four stories to the Lower Deck foyer and its six adjacent guest staterooms. Looking upwards from any one of the three lower foyers the visitor sees the cherry-beamed and white painted tongue-and-groove ceiling in the topmost deckhouse.
The elegance of the cherrywood stairs is deceptive. To comply with MCA regulations about fire retardation they are built over a steel base. The formal grace of the foyers is equally misleading. Automatic fire doors can be closed at all foyer entries to isolate the stairwell and the adjoining elevator shaft that also connects CAKEWALK’S four decks. It was the need for code compliance and the complexity of the design and construction that explains why it took two and a half years to install the staircase.
Such is the Feadship way when it comes to getting things right. In certain areas of the marine industry at home and overseas there are those who take a more cynical approach to job completion. We’ve all heard such knowing jibes as.”Good enough for government work” or “A blind man galloping past on a horse at night wouldn’t notice a thing wrong”. Maybe it’s a cultural thing about work ethics, but it’s not the approach taken at yards where they care about a reputation for quality.
Of the six guest staterooms on the Lower Deck, the two most forward are slightly smaller than the rest. All have individual decor themes based on the seas for which they are named and each has a double bed, a sofa that converts to twin beds and a fold-down Pullman bunk, writing desk and wardrobes, en suite head/tub/shower and twin washbasins with marble splashbacks. All staterooms have a Crestron touch screen for access to the yacht’s libraries of videos/DVDs/CDs; the screens also control cabin lighting and climate. Oblong windows provide natural light and fresh air when anchored or alongside.
A central corridor with a wainscot of dark cherrywood under white panels connects the staterooms. Rather than mount the doors flush to the walls, the carpenters recessed these by almost a foot to give guests privacy when opening the door and to prevent them from running into fellow guests in the hallway. There is a luggage room at the end of the carpeted corridor-an obvious boon for families and guests with large wardrobes-and forward of this a decorative open area and pantry known as the Rotunda, which has a floor of oak parquet tiles rather than carpet, counters of blue marble on either side of the corridor, matching cabinets hand-painted to emulate 18th century Italianate pieces, a coffee-maker and a fridge for late-night snackers.
The huge engine room, aft of the guest accommodation, occupies three deep levels, each with ample headroom and service accessibility, and, in addition to the space for CAKEWALK’S two massive Caterpillar engines and other service installations, contains four separate and sound-insulated compartments for the ship’s air-conditioning chiller unit, master switch room, engineer’s control room, and three 170Kw generators. The overhead gantries are capable of hoisting a dismantled engine or other heavy fixture, which can be removed from the yacht without cutting into the hull structure.
Crew accommodation, at the forward end of the Lower Deck, is equally generous, reflecting the owner’s intent to provide maximum space and comfort for a crew of up to 16 when embarked on a lengthy delivery or world cruise. It consists of a double for the ship’s engineer and six over-and-under berth cabins, all with heads and showers. Aft of these are the crew’s galley and lounge/mess with two side-by-side refectory-type dining tables. There is a separate internal service stairway from here to the three upper decks, again with automatic doors that isolate the stairway in case of fire. Stairs lead down to an audio/visual control room, refrigeration (including a compartment for fresh flowers), freezers and dry storage; another stairway from the crew area leads to the tender bays one flight up on CAKEWALK’s Main Deck.
The Owner’s Suite is full-beam and has three large windows on either side of the bedroom, which is reached through a carpeted ante-room consisting of a study and library paneled in the ubiquitous dark-stained cherrywood. Arched double doors lead from here to the master bedroom and a setting of regal luxury: an antique chaise lounge to starboard, nightstands topped with Breccia Damask marble, a secondary sitting area to port, and an emperor-sized bed with a pop-up TV mounted in a cabinet at the foot. There is a walk-in wardrobe or dressing room and to the right and left of this are separate entranced to the bathrooms, both tiled and floored with pink and sand-toned Breccia Marble. Each of these has a tub and shower, with a conventional tub in the Her bathroom (which has a coffee-maker on a side table) and a whirlpool spa type in His. Faucets here as in all bathrooms are gold-plated.
Fiber optic lighting is used extensively aboard CAKEWALK and the bathrooms in the Owner’s Suite also benefit from the presence of large windows immediately outboard of the tubs. Thick Cherrywood plantation louver blinds are fitted to these as in the Main Salon and elsewhere.
First Officer Fred Lemon, our congenial escort for the tour of the yacht, described the Salon as “a gentleman’s club.” which in many ways it resembles, since its furniture and appointments are notable but not excessively masculine in tone and include a sturdy model of a three-masted barque in unpainted wood. There is an elongated ovaloid dining table placed athwartships with upholstered chairs for ten and a matching pair of silver candelabra on the table top. Crystal and silver cabinets with beveled glass doors and marble tops flank the table ends, and on the bulkhead forward of the dining table is a spectacular oil painting of a sunlit Venetian canal.
Some owners prefer to make a distinction between dining area and salon by installing a separate dining room. This is not the case on CAKEWALK, perhaps because the Gallaghers and their extended family of 18 members like the salon and dining area layout as it is, since both spaces are symbolically divided by cabinetry to port and by an intervening ceiling beam at the threshold of the salon itself. The pictures that accompany these indicate clearly that the salon’s rich fabrics, huge sofas and soft gilded armchairs make their own statement about differences between the two areas. Double doors lead aft from the salon to an outdoor dining and lounging area that’s protected from sun and rain by overhang of the Bridge Deck.
Captain and crew areas are often the first to sacrifice interior space when designers seek to maximize owners’ and guests’ accommodation, but CAKEWALK’s captain must surely be grateful for the generous size of his stateroom, located just aft of the wheelhouse.
Fitted with three large windows and the same cherrywood louvered blinds found in the owner’s suite, salons and other public areas, the captain’s private quarters are big enough for a double bed, desk, sofa and an adjoining head/shower. It leads off from a cherry paneled and oak parquet-tiled corridor running aft from the wheelhouse, past a gym, ending at the Bridge Deck foyer.
The wheelhouse itself is the most spacious, best equipped and most comfortably furnished in recent memory. It has a separate radio room with SSB, two satcoms, printer and fax, and a nav station with chart table and instruments on a central island athwartships and immediately aft of the watch crew’s elevated settee which is made of supple ivory leather. The helm and control station facing this includes a Nightsight thermal imaging system and twin sets of radar with a range of 96MN, twin autopilots, gyro compasses and propulsion controls. Doors port and starboard in the wheelhouse lead to wing control stations.
A Data Acquisition System aft of the nav station receives information from all parts of the ship, monitoring among other things mechanical and electrical performance, fuel, water, and waste systems, bilges, climate and security. Proximity sensors on hatches, fire and external doors are also monitored by the DAS for signs of malfunction.
As already noted, the corridor leading aft of the wheelhouse ends at the Bridge Deck foyer, beyond which is CAKEWALK’s second salon. This one has two gaming tables, a black Yamaha baby grand piano, a 50” plasma TV, and an L-shaped arrangement of sofas around a large soft ottoman made of two shades of brown leather. Doors lead to the Thirties style aft deck arrangement with fluted wooden pillars and attached lamps in a setting of teak armchairs and cafe tables.
It has become routine for the industry media to write reverentially about every new Feadship as if each excelled its predecessor, and most in fact do excel because experience in design and construction advances with the advent of new tools, materials and techniques. But it is not a sure thing, not even at Feadship, though this is usually due to the fact that inexperienced but insistent clients sometimes make demands that ultimately detract from performance and interior comfort. Such clients may be influenced by their own hand-picked designer and by project teams who find themselves locked in hot disputes and personality clashes with each other over priorities about the proper use of interior space or the need to balance styling with function.
Judging by the harmony that typifies CAKEWALK’s design and by the practical use of space in public and private areas, inside and outside, it seems clear that this project ran smoothly from start to finish, and this is as much a tribute to interior designer Andrew Winch and designer associate Liz Dalton as it is to Charlie Gallagher, whose no-compromise Three-T philosophy made it all possible. Details large and small reflect the commitment that superior ideals require. On CAKEWALK these include a refrigerated compartment for fresh flower storage in the bosun’s locker. Rich blue and yellow-piped cushions contrasting with the varnished teak furniture and the matching wood surrounding the Sun Deck’s elevated spa bath. Forward, on the same dek, a delightful verandah open to the skies and sea views on all sides. White awnings protect both Sun Deck areas from the sun and the afterdeck’s bulwarks can be removed to provide an emergency helipad.
In the lazarette on the lowest deck there is an internal gantry use to hoist the boat’s four jet ski boats overboard aft of the swim platform. An adjoining compartment houses a compressor and all necessary gear for divers.
But what caught our eyes among these details were two pairs of soft white terry slippers and matching robes laid out neatly on a bed in one of the guest staterooms. They had an intimacy which is sure to appeal to charter guests when CAKEWALK makes her debut in the charter trade next season.
