THE ART OF SPARTA
On board Heesen's 67-metre superyacht Sparta
RUBEN GRIFFIOEN
From the chill January quayside of the Rotterdam harbour where 67-metre Sparta is undergoing her last checks, there is little hint of what lies in store. In the light of a watery dawn, Heesen’s largest steel yacht is keeping its secrets to itself.
The Venetian red stripes that flash across her topsides just look black, and I will have to wait until the sun rises much higher before I can appreciate the fetching “swoosh” that knits the decks together and the purposeful reverse bow.
Sparta is a winner at the 2024 World Superyacht Awards
You can view the rest of the winners below
We enter via a crew area painted in businesslike beige. Only then, with our shoes safely removed and coats stowed, do we push through a heavy service door onto the main lobby – and into a wonderland of decorative design.
This is a boat that’s all about unabashed beauty and artisanship. The name Sparta, with its implications of asceticism and a disdain for the artistic, is a misnomer that has utterly wrong-footed me from the dockside.
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
Around the figured sycamore dining table, the chair backs are embossed with real palm leaves (top); the main saloon features a relaxing sofa and custom-made wool-silk carpet by Tai Ping (bottom left); the lighting above the main deck dining area (bottom right)
The magic of Winch Design’s interior begins to unfurl as soon as we come upon the main staircase, which almost pulses with organic life. Winding through three decks, it is panelled from top to bottom with a carved oak frieze from Hull Studio.
The motif changes from ripples in a sandy seabed on the lower deck to the spume of a breaking wave and on up to the playful currents in a gust of wind. Earth, water and air – the three elements characterise the whole interior.
“The staircase is carved in three different ways to tie all of these elements into one, rather than letting them be seen in isolation,” says Joost Roes, Winch’s lead interior designer on the project. “This is something fluid yet connected.”
ALEX HULL'S STAIRS
“We started literally with trees,” says Alex Hull of Hull Studio. “Five oaks were supplied to us air dried and cut into 18mm-thick planks. They’re from a sawmill in France, all grown in the same area to manage colour consistency.
“At the workshop we went through a lengthy process of selection, trimming all the timber down into smaller cuts – 120mm wide and 12mm thick. Then it was like a great game of Tetris – we laid everything out on the workshop floor and moved it round for a couple of days until we could see how it would work.
“Every panel had to be shaped on the back face first, because the staircase is curved. There’s a substrate panel that all that oak is glued to, then the oak pieces are cut to that exact diameter.
“All of the back facing was run by a machine, but the gluing is all by hand. It’s really important for the quality, because you want a seamless joint line. I’m obsessed with maintaining a natural look – not an oak floor stuck to the wall.
DAVID CHURCHULL
DAVID CHURCHULL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL
WINCH DESIGN
WINCH DESIGN
“Meanwhile, our team was busy doing the digital design. The whole artwork was first carved digitally by hand, using a digital pen and tracker pad to achieve the different weights and textures.
Instead of the traditional 3D modelling technique, we used an approach seen in special effects design for games.“The original concept came directly from Winch as a series of images. We did a lot of sketching around it to create a full-scale flat drawing.
“We developed a flow line where waves lead into the staircase at the bottom, the theme follows up through earth to the air texture, which levels out and leads you out of the staircase.
There is a lot of development work to achieve the texture we wanted from the milling machine and get the clarity and definition. Then there’s a long process of hand sanding. We worked from Heesen’s production drawings, so all panels were trimmed to size beforehand; they had to fit seamlessly.”
A few steps further and we are into the main saloon, where my feet sink into a custom-made wool-silk carpet by Tai Ping. Built up in layers from a woollen base, you feel the carpets on Sparta every bit as much as you see them.
Looking around this large room, which combines a relaxing sofa area with dining for 12, I am struck by the fact that there are no hard edges to be seen – from chairs to cabinetry; trunking to tables, everything is rounded.