Blohm+Voss Magazine Issue 2 9/2015 by Blohm+Voss Germany

EXPLORATION | INNOVATION | ENGINEERING | CRAFTSMANSHIP

Looking to nature Discover the engineering trend that is looking to nature for the next big breakthrough

Six stories under Meet the divers who are exploring the corners of our seas without technology

Growing cities Cities are finding innovative new ways to introduce green into their urban sprawl

No. 2

Introduction

The tide waits for no man. Nor, so it seems, do the amazing people who are bringing our future ever nearer. They innovate and craft, solving the problems that our modern ways of living have created. They explore, push on and engineer - each time bridging the gap between reality and their dreams. Such people excite us because their philosophy is singular and pure. They believe that only ‘the best’ will do, but they realise that ‘the best’ requires as much hard work as it does good ideas. These people motivate us to challenge the norm and look beyond the boundaries of conventional thought. In a world that seems increasingly obsessed with the superficial and the temporary there is a lack of recognition for the achievements of extraordinary people. The thinkers, the explorers, the researchers and the craftsmen. This journal is dedicated to them. It is a stage for those who rarely seek one, throwing a spotlight on the incredible and paying homage to the outstanding. It celebrates the accomplishments of amazing people.

Fred van Beers, CEO, Blohm+Voss

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At Blohm+Voss, these are the people we admire. We hope you enjoy reading their stories.

Published by: Patrick Coote Sales & Marketing Director Blohm+Voss Shipyards GmbH Hermann-Blohm-Str. 3 20457 Hamburg, Germany T: +49 (0) 40 3119 1200 blohmvossyachts.com Created by: The Superyacht Agency thesuperyachtagency.com Editor: Daniel Humphry Designer: Stefanie Hedermann Sub: Anna Hamilton Printed by: Park Communications Many thanks to all of our contributors: Kathrin Weßling, Brian Berusch, Luke Dormehl, Andrew Johanson, Don Hoyt Gorman, Pete Brown, Angela Audretsch, Amy Wislocki, James Nestor, Tom Ravenscroft, Anika Väth Cover image by: One ocean One breath Eusebio & Christina Saenz de Santamaria © Copyright Blohm+Voss 2015 All rights reserved

Selected contents

08 Looking to Nature The future of engineering is being sought in nature's history. Luke Dormehl, author of The Formula, explores.

36 In search of something new The sharing of technology is saving years - and millions - in engineering RnD, and leading to some novel innovations at sea. 20 Hummel, Hummel Hamurg is fast becoming Europe's hidden jewel, so we asked local writers to show us around.

62 Leave nothing but footprints B+V speaks with explorer and environmental activist Johan Ernst Nilson as he sets up basecamp in the Himalayas.

71 Into the Great Beyond You no longer need to be a member of the explorer's club to adventure to the furthest corner of our planet.

78 Better with age Leo Hillinger is the wine world's enfantterrible and he's turning tradition on its head.

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28 Six stories under The limits of human endurance are being tested as divers plunge hundreds of feet to the sea floor without breathing equipment. James Nestor, author of Deep, goes in search of their limits.

42 Evolving tradition Polo is having to open the doors in order to save its heritage. Brian Berusch finds out how the old guard are embracing the new.

54 Growing cities Architects are employing cutting edge technologies in an effort to get back to nature. But can our cities ever be green again?

B+V = evolving heritage

Building with confidence Since the founding in Hamburg in 1877, Blohm+Voss has cultivated a personality of innovation, of capability and with its yachting endeavours, of remarkable quality.

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Words by Don Hoyt Gorman

Late last year, Blohm+Voss unveiled the latest project in a long line of remarkable superyachts: BV80, as it is called, looks like nothing before it. The campaign to promote the Hamburg shipyard’s first platform build in its history is the definition of sleek. Reflective surfaces against a monotone background only hint at the superyacht’s lines. It was like nothing the yacht industry had ever seen, in size, scope, ambition, beauty and capability. BV80 instantly became the superyachting world’s emblem of desire.

Left page top: 1926 Blohm+Voss manufactured the world’s largest engine: the MAN D9Z 86/150 for a Hamburg power station. It operated until 1965. Left page bottom: Interior of the pleasure yacht Savarona, delivered by Blohm+Voss in 1931. This page: The stunning design of the Blohm+Voss motor yacht Enigma (formerly Eco and Katana) Right page bottom: Palladium, one of Blohm+Voss’ most lavish and recent yacht deliverys.

Image: Guillaume Plisson

The newness of the BV80 is only the latest iteration of a pioneering spirit to emerge from this shipyard, which has remained at the forefront of German shipbuilding since it was formed over 138 years and 1,000 vessels ago. This is a shipyard whose story begins in 1877 with a daring investment in Herman Blohm and Ernst Voss’ own ideas and capabilities. The British had advanced iron shipbuilding and so Blohm and Voss decided to invest in an iron vessel of their own on spec, without a buyer. Their gamble paid off. The ship was sold and within 30 years they had 20,000 workers on the payroll. Blohm+Voss delivered their first pleasure vessel in 1900, the motor yacht Prinzessin Victoria. At the time the only vessels one would encounter at sea were fishing boats, cargo vessels, passenger liners and warships. But at the turn of the century, cruising at sea for pleasure began to develop alongside the emergence of the leisure classes, and Blohm+Voss were among the top shipyards in the world for quality of construction.

The yard’s next yacht wasn’t delivered until 1987. But in every way, Katalina was the prototype superyacht of her day. At 65 metre, she had a helideck, dive centre, several sport boats and a pair of 2,200kW engines. By 1990, two more private yacht projects were being delivered—Golden Odyssey, with her glass sided swimming pools and fish tanks in the walls of the dining room, and Lady Moura. The captain of Lady Moura—today, one of the iconic jewels within the lavish yachting crown of Port Hercule, Monaco—will tell you, if asked, that he still has engineers from other shipyards approaching him to inspect how Blohm+Voss

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Then came what may well be considered the world’s very first superyacht – the 134 metre, 4,581gt Savarona, delivered in 1931 to the Cadwallader family in the United States. She

was an enormous, yet elegant and incredibly lavish private yacht with a huge steam turbine propulsion system. The interiors were lovingly appointed in the style of Marie Antoinnette, and everything from her bollards and cleats were customised for the project, something the yard was tremendously proud of. After a maiden voyage, Savarona made only a few excursions and was eventually sold to the people of Turkey and offered as a gift to Ataturk. She sails proudly to this day, with an upgraded propulsion system and a lovingly restored interior which includes, 65 tonnes of marble in her hamam—as the presidential yacht of Turkey.

designed, built and delivered it. Lady Moura is a vessel that exudes the virtues of a pioneering superyacht – unique design combined with advanced engineering. A year later, Blohm+Voss delivered Eco, with her diesel turbines, seaplane, curved mirrored glass windows from a Martin Francis design. Once again, Blohm+Voss was at the forefront of yacht innovation. In the mid-2000s, a spectacular series of orders emerged for A, Palladium and a 163 metre vessel – a triumvirate that demonstrated how utterly undaunted the shipyard was with the prospect of delivering previously unimaginably novel, complex and gorgeous sea-going vessels. One of the great ironies the shipyard has to contend with is that while in the past decade, they’ve delivered some of the most iconic, beautiful and largest superyachts on Earth, they have all been to highly private clients— virtually none of the yachting media have actually been aboard A or Palladium to inspect the yard’s workmanship and tell the world about it. To those who have been aboard, in

large part because of the kind of client the yard has attracted, it’s clear Blohm+Voss is at the very forefront of the art of yacht-building. Today, there’s BV80. As we go to press, the first build slot has been reserved while the final details of the lavish interior are being attended to. The yard has invested in the machinery and the steel, and based upon its novel approach to yachtbuilding, is beginning construction prior to the contract being signed, in precisely the same way Blohm and Voss did with their very first vessel. Because of the level of customisation available, BV80 represents a more attractive proposition for clients seeking competitive prices and shorter delivery times. Blohm+Voss can now deliver a BV80 to a client just 30 months from the point of sale, despite the high level of customisation. It’s this spirit of self-belief, and confidence in technical capability that sets this yard apart. While the yard will always be available for fully custom projects that require the highest levels of ingenuity and discretion, BV80 presents an approach to yachting that is nothing short of bold. You’d expect nothing less.

Image: Michael Maynard & Bugsy Gedlek

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Above: The Blohm+Voss steamship Europa ready for launch in 1928.

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Looking Looking to to Nature Nature Words by Luke Dormehl Words by Luke Dormehl

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With its ability to draw ideas from the natural world as a way to solve complex human problems, Biomimicry is the new face of design. From termite-inspired architecture to breakthrough developments in airplanes, Luke Dormehl – author of The Formula – looks at the techniques that are driving us toward a more sustainable, innovative future.

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In 1992, the architect Mick Pearce was facing a conundrum. He had been commissioned to design a new office block in Harare, Zimbabwe – only he was determined that it wouldn’t replicate the soulless, air conditioned highrise office blocks seen in every city around the world. While he was agonising over a way to solve the problem, Pearce turned on the television. On the screen was David Attenborough, the English naturalist and broadcaster, presenting a documentary with the appropriate title The Trials of Life. For the program, Attenborough had travelled to Africa to get a closer look at what he described as one of nature’s architectural marvels: a termite mound.

Right: Council House 2, Melbourne, designed by Mick Pearce.

The termite, Attenborough explained, is one of the natural world’s more accomplished builders; able to erect the tallest structures on the planet when compared to the size of their builder. Astonishingly these structures can maintain a constant temperature inside, despite the dramatic rises and dips in temperature outside. Mick Pearce was riveted.

This interest in termite mounds began an obsession in Pearce for incorporating the processes of the natural world into his designs. “What the termite builds is an extension of its metabolism,” he says. “It’s not a separate thing. I wondered if we could do the same.” These ideas can now be seen in two of Pearce’s signature creations: the Eastgate Centre in Harare, and the Council House 2 building in Melbourne, Australia. Despite having no airconditioning whatsoever, both are able to stay cool using only ten per cent of the energy of similar sized buildings. “Today I’m constantly on the lookout for metaphorical processes I can incorporate into my work,” says Pearce, speaking in his home in Zimbabwe, where he is surrounded by stacks of biology textbooks and New Scientist magazines. “I’ve tried to retrain myself to think more like a scientist than an architect.” Currently, he is applying his knowledge of termite building to the field of low-cost housing. “When I finished the Eastgate tower I was looking up at it, when a journalist tapped me on the shoulder and asked where I got the inspiration for its huge chimneys from,” he grins. “It was the termites which inspired me,” Pearce answered, simply. “Almost 25 years later that hasn’t changed,” he says.

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Image: City of Melbourne 2010

Passive cooling of a termite mound To maintain a constant temperature, a termite mound is built so that the largest sides face the morning and evening sun, while midday sun hits the smaller sides and is less absorbed. At night, vents are closed and warmer air is contained.

A fluted shape has more surface area than a smooth mound, catching more breeze

The vents are continually opened and closed by the termites to control the amount of heated air that escapes

Cool air enters through holes in the wet mud

Fungul gardens are a temperature sensitive food source

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The eggs and larves in the nest galleries require a constant temperature

Warmer

Cooler

A Brief History of Biomimicry Mick Pearce isn’t alone in thinking that biology can solve many of the challenges that designers face on a daily basis. The concept that we may be able to use innovative solutions from the natural world is one that has long appealed to unorthodox creatives. In Victorian England, for instance, one of the most spectacular attractions of its day was London’s Crystal Palace, a castiron and plateglass building originally erected in London’s Hyde Park. In stark contrast to the Industrial Age monstrosities seen elsewhere in the country, many serving as testament to man’s apparent superiority over nature, the Crystal Palace was designed by a landscape gardener named Sir Joseph Paxton. Echoing the philosophies that would one day be referred to as biomimicry, Paxton based the structure of his enormous glass conservatory on the leaves of a water lily. “Nature was the engineer,” he said. “Nature had provided the leaf with longitudinal and transverse girders and supports that I, borrowing from it, have adapted in this building.”

The humble water lily has inspired architects for centuries, including as a blueprint for London's Crystal Palace.

On a day like any other in 1941, Swiss inventor George de Mestral decided that he required a break from his work. Strapping on his boots, he took to the alps for a day of mountain hiking. As he walked, he became increasingly frustrated by the repeating problem of burrs attaching themselves to his socks and his dog’s fur. He decided to examine the burrs under a microscope and was confronted with a neat hook-and-loop structure, which allowed them to stick to material. When George de Mestral returned home, he used the same concept to invent Velcro, a portmanteau of the French words velours (velvet) and crochet (hook). This ‘conscious emulation of nature’s genius’ would be given a name in 1997 by a natural science writer called Janine Benyus. She called it biomimicry, and today is one of the field’s most vocal advocates. “There’s a wealth of information available in the natural world, and some designers are beginning to realise just how direct that relevance can be when it comes to solving a host of problems,” says Erin Rovalo, an authority on the subject at Biomimicry 3.8, a design consultancy co-founded by Benyus. The ‘3.8’ in the company’s name comes from the 3.8 billion years of evolution which have occurred up until now – a period Rovalo describes as “3.8 billion years of research, development, refinement and iteration.” Rovalo explains that there are around 100 million species on our planet and that each of these had adapted numerous different strategies we can learn from. “The possible number of solutions is staggering,” she says.

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“There’s really no limit to where you can apply the philosophy of biomimicry,” says John Paulick, an industrial designer and certified biomimicry specialist. “How would nature design a building? How would nature organise a company? How would nature produce packaging? These are all the kinds of questions we look to answer.”

B+V = breaking moulds

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A New Era For Humanity So too are the number of applications. Airbus, for example, has adopted the philosophy of biomimicry as one of its most important design concepts. The company has taken inspiration from the grooved skin of sharks as a way to reduce wing drag as air passes over their planes, it has adopted the serrated feathers of owls to help cut aircraft noise, and even developed the so-called ‘lotus effect’ to help onboard fabrics shed dirt more easily. Looking further into the future, it is possible that airplanes will travel in birdlike V formations to take advantage of slipstreams and reduce fuel consumption by 15 per cent.

Other researchers have taken the concept of biomimicry yet further. Airplane windows designed to prevent bird collisions have benefited from the UV r eflective qualities of spider webs, while new generations of trains have achieved record breaking speeds by mimicking the design of bird beaks.

Ever evolving processes and materials are making this dream increasingly attainable. A technology like 4D printing takes the basics of 3D printing, but adds the ability to create structures that can react to different stimuli in pre programmed ways – perhaps flexing when a particular temperature is reached or expanding when tremors are registered. If Mick Pearce’s Eastgate Centre was limited only by the fact that, unlike its termite mound inspiration, it had to stay fixed in place when it was completed – who is to say that tomorrow’s biomimicryaided office block can’t constantly adapt to different seasons or new types of weather? The most important adoption of biomimicry, however, is in society’s drive toward sustainability. As Erin Rovalo says, “Life has had to evolve in a way that is both innovative and sustainable at the same time. Those are two ideas that are completely interlinked and which drive one another. It makes total sense that design should be the same way.” With the number of pressing issues the world faces here in 2015, ranging from pollution and overpopulation to wealth inequality, biomimicry could be the answer to many of the most pressing questions we have.

“I truly believe that biomimicry is the way of the future, and people are waking up to that. In a matter of years we’re going to be asking ourselves how we ever thought about design in a different way?” John Paulick

Airbus’ membrane-like fuselage will mimic natural organisms to create stronger, more open aircrafts. Image: Airbus

“Clients are increasingly keen on sustainability,” says Thomas Knittel, a senior principal designer for the architectural firm HOK. In 2013, he was honored with the Excellence in Biomimicry award. “Buildings that consume less energy and maintain good air quality are positive on a macro level, but there’s also an increasing amount of research demonstrating that spending large amounts of time in indoor artificial environments can be harmful. These conversations are finding more and more interesting entry points. This is no longer a niche field.” That certainly seems to be the case. Biomimicry patents, scholarly articles and research grants have all increased by more than five times since the millenium, and estimates suggest the field could account for $1.6 trillion of total global output by the year 2030. What was once a concern for only a few different-thinking designers is now a global concern. “I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology,” said Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs: a man who successfully predicted many of the major tech paradigm shifts of the past half-century. Jobs referred to this conflation of biology and technology as a “new era.” John Paulick doesn’t disagree. “I think people are realising just how closely biomimicry is tied into sustainability,” he says. “They’re seeing that it is about far more than just borrowing some cool design concepts from the natural world. I truly believe that biomimicry is the way of the future, and people are waking up to that. In a matter of years we’re going to be asking ourselves how we ever thought about design in a different way?”

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The craft beer revolution

Right: The Bamberger brewery in action. Image: Archives of the Bamberg Tourism & Congress Service

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There’s a revolution sweeping through the world’s drinking habits. Beer – long considered a poor, simplistic relation to sophisticated wine – is rapidly becoming the most interesting, flavoursome drink on the bar.

Words by Pete Brown

“We had the same approach to massmarket beer that the original punks had to pop culture. We were frustrated at the lack of choice and quality. We wanted to put taste and flavour back into people’s beer glasses.” James Watt, BrewDog

Forget the frosty liquid you see on tv ads and chugged at football games. Mainstream lager produced by huge global corporations has lost its fizz. Instead, both traditional beer drinkers and those new to the beverage are increasingly turning to craft. While no one can quite agree on a universal definition of what craft beer is, most of its drinkers agree that it’s made by small brewers using artisanal processes and a broader array of ingredients than your regular pint. It also means more hops, lots more. Indeed, although American craft brewers account for just ten per cent of beer volume in the US, they account for 50 per cent of all hops used. This means craft beers are packed with flavour, with some rivalling the strength and complexity of wine. But what’s driving people to give up routine jobs and don overalls and wellington boots and start making beer for a living? “Everything we do is completely selfish. We don’t care what anyone thinks.” As business philosophies go, this one is unlikely to be quoted in management textbooks any time soon. Language aside, it runs counter to everything regarded as effective business practice, with the consumer at the heart of every focus-grouped decision. But this selfstyled ‘punk’ philosophy is working perfectly well for James Watt and BrewDog, the Scottish brewery he co-founded with school friend Martin Dickie back in 2007.

While BrewDog went at their task with a little more attitude, their drive was very similar to that of the American craft brewers that inspired them. By the 1970s, the United States was dominated by three companies that produced almost identical tasting beer. In 1979, when Jimmy Carter finally repealed a ban on home brewing that had stood since prohibition in the 1920s, a network of hobbyist brewers quickly sprang up across the country. Soon, the most talented were going professional. These brewers sought inspiration in the great brewing nations of the world – Britain, Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic. In 1980, California’s Sierra Nevada Brewery made an English-style pale ale using hops grown in the Pacific North West, and created something new – a punchy beer with zingy aromas of pine and grapefruit instead of the more reserved grassy, earthy character of European beers. Countless others copied the style, beefing it up and creating ever-hoppier beers, reinventing the almost defunct British ‘India Pale Ale’ style (IPA) – that was first brewed for British colonists in India. IPA captured the imagination, redefining what beer could be. It’s now brewed everywhere from Australia to Scandinavia, even in India itself. But craft beer is celebrated for its breadth of flavour and style and not everyone followed the ‘hophead’ route. The Boston Beer Company was inspired by pre-prohibition lager recipes to create Samuel Adams, now America’s number one craft beer and Boston founder Jim Koch is regarded by many as the godfather of craft beer. While Samuel Adams is now considered mainstream by many a beer aficionado, Boston continues to innovate. Its 25 per cent ABV beer Utopias, released only once every two years and costing upwards of $100 a bottle, resembles fine port or exceptionally mellow whisky more than beer. “Brewing has been developing over five thousand years,” says Koch. “How arrogant would we have to be to say that in the early 21st century we’ve done all there is to do in beer, that we know everything there is to know?”

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In 2014 BrewDog posted its sixth year of record growth, with turnover up 69 per cent. This supposedly niche brand now exports challenging, flavourful beer to 55 countries and has its own branded bars in six countries, with many more on the way. Watt and Dickie, both still only 32 years old, turned the British brewing industry

on its head when they unleashed their take on American-style craft beer. “BrewDog has the same approach to massmarket beer that the original punks had to pop culture,” says Watt. “We were frustrated at the lack of choice and quality. We wanted to put taste and flavour back into people’s beer glasses. BrewDog beers are a modern day rebellion against the bland, tasteless and mass produced.”

Right: Craft beer is now being served in tasting sessions and matched with individual courses at restaurants.

Craft beer thrives on this juxtaposition of traditional and modern. And nowhere is this better expressed than in the beers of Delaware’s Dogfish Head Brewery, founded in 1995 by Sam Calagione, and living by the slogan ‘offcentered ales for offcentered people.’

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“Our belief has always been that beer can have as much flavour, complexity, diversity, food compatibility and ageability as the world’s finest wines,” says Calagione, who has been credited with the invention of ‘extreme beers’ thanks to the strength and ingredients of some of his brews, which include recreations of ancient recipes. “Ancient brewers put exotic ingredients in their beers for thousands of years,” Calagione argues. “They made the most of the ingredients they had on hand. So, in a way, when we put things like chicory, honey, cranberries and other exotic ingredients into a beer, it turns out we’re the ones making traditional styles.”

Boston, Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head and even BrewDog are now regarded as established players. In their wake, hundreds of new craft brewers take their experiments as the norm, and push the boundaries of beer ever further. The more extreme and varied craft beer becomes, and the more some people insist that it’s a mere fad, the more popular it becomes.

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Craft is increasingly capturing the imaginations of thirsty fans all around the world, both in countries long famous for beer and those more readily associated with other drinks such as wine. At the Brussels Beer Challenge in 2014, craft brews from Belgium and the USA were given stiff competition in the medal stakes from countries such as Portugal and Italy.

There is a tradition of shipbuilders and breweries working together— shipping, barrels and an afterwork tipple—and for the last two years Blohm+Voss has proudly supported the local Hamburg Ratsherrn brewery by providing their excellent beer at numerous events worldwide.

But perhaps the most surprising new entrants were from Brazil. Cervejaria Bamberg, which took its name from a famous German brewing town, surpassed the beers that influenced it by winning a total of three medals for its takes on German beer styles such as Altbier and dark lager. Founded in 2005 by three brewers who first toured the world’s great brewing regions, Bamberg is one of the most highly awarded breweries in the southern hemisphere, and is rapidly becoming famous across South America and the wider beer drinking world. Head brewer Alexandre Bazzo typifies the craft aesthetic – make beers you love, with love, and hopefully others will love them too.

“I do what I like, but I know that I carry a great responsibility,” says Bazzo. “Bamberg has a great story in a short space of time, I know I'm the captain, but not the only one responsible for this, but I also know that I have to push the pace for us to continue on this path.” 10 years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine the excitement, creativity and mainstream appeal of craft beer today in the UK or US, let alone countries like Brazil. But as BrewDog’s James Watt says, “With a healthy disregard for the impossible, you can achieve anything.”

Hummel, Hummel*

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A spotlight on Hamburg – Germany’s second city 20

Words by Anika Väth and Kathrin Weßling

There’s a coming ofage occurring in Germany’s second city. Nothing has changed in Hamburg, and yet everything has. Constantly. Quietly. B+V Magazine asked two of the city’s top young reporters to show us around.

Hamburg’s recorded history dates back to the beginning of the 9th century AD. Founded as a base for the conversion of the Saxons, Hamburg has risen to become one of the most significant trading posts in Europe thanks in large part to the city’s tactically advantageous harbour on the river Elbe and its centuries-long political independence.

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* Hummel, Hummel! is a traditional Hamburg greeting. The reply is Mors, Mors! Image: mediaserver.hamburg.de Ingo Bölter

Hamburg might not be Germany’s largest city, but it's certainly undergoing the biggest change. For over one thousand years, ships from all over the world have carried new things into the city, day-after-day, forging a melting pot of modernity and tradition, craft and progress, change and composure.

In many ways the struggles in St. Pauli reflect the evolution of Hamburg. The ideals of counterculture and creativity living side-by-side side with successful business and growing gentrification.

A city of a hundred towns.

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To discuss Hamburg as a single city is to miss its charm. Like London or New York, the city is comprised of dozens of individual towns – the wild Reeperbahn, the chic shopping district of Eppendorf and the exuberant Eimsbüttel – all coming together to create one beating heart.

Right: 'Die Speisung der 5000' performed by Kommando Himmelfahrt at Hamburg's Kampnagel theatre.

One of Hamburg’s most famous visitors was the notorious pirate Klaus Störtebeker, who carried out his nefarious deeds in the Baltic as well as the North Sea, before eventually facing justice in Hamburg. At his public execution in 1401, Störtebeker uttered a final request: he wanted to be decapitated, but that every one of his men he could run past after being beheaded should be pardoned. As the story goes, Störtebeker made it past eleven of the pirates, before the executioner tripped him up.

One can’t imagine Hamburg without its harbour. One of the three largest ports in Europe, it covers nearly a tenth of the city’s territory and requires some 1,800 staff to keep the steady flow of ships ticking over. Despite its business success, Hamburg is much more than a well-organised merchant city. In the district of St. Pauli, labeled a ‘danger area’ in 2014 by the municipality government, burning bins and smashed windows make up the gritty, urban landscape. Come 1st May radicals, students, artists and punks gather to invoke May Day protests clashing with police around the streets of St Pauli. But the area is no wasteland. In recent years the neighbourhood has seen some of the city’s most exciting developments. Now punks and advertising agencies share the same alleyways, and while friction hangs in the air the atmosphere is abuzz. At the heart of the Schanze, one of St. Pauli’s trendiest neighborhoods, lies the Rote Flora. A former theatre once occupied by squatters in protest against the city renovation plans, today the Flora is one of Hamburg’s most important centers for alternative culture. In many ways the struggles in St. Pauli reflect the evolution of Hamburg. The ideals of counterculture and creativity living side-by-side with successful business and growing gentrification. The result is a stimulating, ever evolving atmosphere that sweeps all in its tide.

A city of creative residents.

Hamburg’s diversity comes from its incredible spread of both high and pop culture. Underground music and independent cinema intertwine in spaces throughout the city with performance art, dance and theatre. Locals hop from one to the other, mixing cultures as they go. The city’s jack-of-all-trades is the Kampnagel International Centre of fine arts, which is situated in the district of Winterhude. The former crane factory of Kamp & Nagel, their cranes can still be seen in harbours all over the world, is today Germany’s greatest performance facility for national and international artists. Kampnagel was restructured in 1984 and now houses six stages, a movie theatre, nine rehearsal studios and a restaurant. The real strength of the Kampnagel is the manner in which it looks out beyond its own walls. Past its own programme, the centre collaborates with other players from the Hamburg cultural scene, such as the Deichtorhallen

Hamburg, an exhibition hall for contemporary art and photography, the award-winning Thalia Theatre and the Elbphilharmonie – renowned for director Christoph Lieben Seutters excellent program. As with many second cities, size is not everything. Hamburg’s most important cultural player, in the heart of the port, is also its smallest. And it has to be seen to be believed, says Amelie Deuflhard, director of Kampnagel. “If someone asked what characterises Hamburg, I would send them to the Pudel. I think, something like the Pudel doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s such a crazy club, this shack, at the same time it’s so famous and when seeing the place for the first time, one just thinks that it can’t possibly be this.” Pudel is the wild, subcultural heart of Hansa City. It has become something of a right of passage and sums up all that is great about Hamburg’s creative scene, explains Hanna Klimpe, digital editor at Thalia Theater. “Hamburg is a good place for culture, because the people regard art with the same mix of open-mindedness and realism as they do life in general. It’s a place for art that doesn’t need to be as sensational as possible, but has a message.”

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Image: Julia Kneuse

Local focus. International reach.

For a city that places such focus on its own evolution, Hamburg had bred a quite staggering number of innovative, international companies. Yet despite their global reach, even the most successful remain tied to their

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city heritage.

The traditional gift for a graduating student in Hamburg, besides a hangover, is a Montblanc pen. Which is unsurprising given the company was founded in the city over a hundred years ago. Just as the historic warehouse district seamlessly merges with the city’s modern Hafencity District, Montblanc pens represent traditional values that stand firm despite a world that has modernised to computers. Talking of time – or ‘Zeit’ as the locals say – one of the world’s oldest and most influential weekly papers calls Hansa City its home. Every week 1.52 million readers look forward to delving into Die Zeit , and what is probably the most unwieldy paper in the world. Local tip: never try to read Die Zeit on a train with someone sitting next to you. Similar to Montblanc, Die Zeit values its heritage, to the point that it has never left its headquarters at Speersort. As with the paper itself, the interior of their headquarters might be renovated, but the exterior has remained the same. In 2014, after nearly 70 years in print, Die Zeit recognised the importance of its home city by adding a regular, 10 page Hamburg focussed newspaper, within its regular pages. This was an important step said Giovanni di Lorenzo, the paper’s editor-in

chief. “The history of Die Zeit is inseparably connected with the history of Hamburg. We wish to create an offer for all readers who would like to learn the main points about their city, even if they do not wish to be confronted with this every day.” While many companies have started life in Hamburg and later expanded across the world, one local company tried their hand at the opposite. In 1853, two years after emigrating to America, a German pianomaker named Henry E. Steinway founded a small workshop in New York City. Within 20 years, his sons would return to their homeland with over 125 patents, a booming company and the motto ‘To build the best piano possible’ – to found a piano factory in the free city of Hamburg. The company was Steinway and Sons, and today it is recognised as one of the originators of modern piano manufacturing creating handcrafted, bespoke pieces as they did over 150 years ago. Steinway has stamped the legacy of Hamburg’s musical history across the globe, with concert pianists including Harry Connick Jr and George Gershwin proud to have declared themselves Steinway Artists.

“It started out as a really crazy idea, but with the help of our supporters, like Blohm+Voss, the festival grew to be an international event.” Tina Heine

While we’re on the subject music – it is something that can’t be avoided in Hamburg. You’ll bump into it on every corner and as with business and the arts, tradition and modernity are not separated. Large summer festivals encourage fans of classical music to meet electronic music enthusiasts, and blues men to meet bass worshipers. With the support of the city and local industry, small ideas are given the opportunity to gain international success, and none more so than at Elbjazz festival. Located in the harbour, the festival has come to reflect the spirit of the city, says Tina Heine, CEO of Elbjazz’s organisers. “You can feel the city’s entrepreneurial spirit at Elbjazz. It started out as a really crazy idea, but with the help of our supporters, like Blohm+Voss, the festival grew to be an international event. Hamburg, the harbour and live music are a perfect fit when it comes to the Elbphilharmonie.”

Likewise Alex Schulz, general director of Reeperbahn Festival, an event where all genres of modern music come together in Hamburg’s wild countercultural district of the same name, can’t imagine a better place for the event. “Even if Reeperbahn Festival had a different name, there was no other place that would have enabled the event to grow and succeed as it did. Both music professionals and a public audience from around the world found a new home in Europe: to listen to new international music and to network. There is no other place like it that offers such a vibrant atmosphere of door-by door venues of all kinds within just a few streets, such as around the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.” If you think you might have heard of Reeperbahn before, there's a good chance you have. On August 17 1960, St. Pauli big shot Bruno Koschmider was in search of a British act to play one of his nightclubs the Indra. He turned to his Liverpool-based partner Allan Williams, who sent him a young group lacking experience... the Beatles. The rest is, as they say, history.

Below: Revelers at Hamburg's Elbjazz festival in the city's docks. Image: Stefan Malzkorn

Local talent. International reach.

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Right: A Hamburg panorama showing the Elbphilharmonie concert hall and Queen Mary 2. Image: mediaserver.hamburg.de Jörg Modrow

So what is Hamburg? A city that questions itself, that changes and moves. That’s how the ‘Hamburgers’ fall in love with their home over and over again: the Hansa City that today is different from yesterday. It’s exciting and it’s attractive, for investors as much as visitors, for inhabitants as much as newcomers. The wealth of Hamburg derives from its self perception – to be a city that isn’t static. Its rivers, lakes and harbours mirror its state. Hamburg is in motion, always.

Blohm+Voss

B+V = evolving heritage

Above: Hamburg Town Hall by the Alster. Image: mediaserver. hamburg.de / Christian Spahrbier Right: Hamburg's red-light district, the Reeperbahn, by night Image: mediaserver.hamburg.de Jörg Modrow

Blohm+Voss

Six u stories n d e r Freediving: a form of underwater diving that relies on divers' ability to hold their breath until resurfacing, rather than on the use of scuba gear. Words by James Nestor

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Free diving enthusiasts speak of the deep connection they feel with the underwater ocean and its inhabitants. Previous page image by Annelie Pompe, this page and right images by Frederic Buyle

“Freediving is freedom. You're floating weightless, in harmony with the sea. It's just so calm, so peaceful. It's an incredible experience you can have just by diving naturally into the ocean.” Guillaume Néry

B+V = new frontiers

I can't hear anything. I can't see anything. My head throbs. The last breath I took was a minute ago and I won't be breathing again for at least another minute. The air in my lungs, shrunk to half their normal volume, is pulling my stomach inward and upwards toward my spine. The cavities inside my ears feel as though they are about to explode. Something beeps. It's my dive watch. I look down and notice I've just hit the seafloor, six stories below the surface.

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Ancient cultures understood human's ability to dive and exploited them for thousands of years to harvest shells, coral and food from the deep ocean floor. Archaeological evidence of ancient freediving cultures goes back as far as ten thousand years, while Homer wrote of divers who latched themselves to heavy rocks and plunged below 100 feet to cut sponges from the seafloor. In the 1st century BC trade between the Mediterranean coast and Asia exploded, in part because of red coral, a favorite cure-all in Chinese and Indian medicine. Most red coral grew at depths below 100 feet and could be collected only by freediving.

Then there were the pearl divers, who flourished in the Caribbean, South Pacific, Persian Gulf, and Asia for more than three thousand years. When Marco Polo visited Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the late 14th century AD, he witnessed pearl divers plummeting more than 120 feet on dives that lasted up to four minutes.

Depth in feet

How freedivers compare with creatures of the deep.

650

Coral

Bull Sharks

700

Freediver

1000

Dolphins

By the beginning of the 20th century, new pearl farming and fishing technologies had made freediving obsolete. Historians rejected the historical accounts of ancient freedivers as exaggerations and by the 1940s, scientists predicted that the deepest a human could dive was 100 feet. Any deeper and the lungs would suffer a fatal collapse. A stocky Italian air force lieutenant named Raimondo Bucher decided to test that scientific theory. In 1949 he bet a friend that he could hold his breath and plummet to the seafloor of Capri, Italy, a depth of over 100 feet. Bucher won the bet, in the process becoming the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first ever competitive freediver. Within a decade, freedivers were diving to depths of more than 250 feet. By the 1980s, those records were doubled. Today, the human body's potential in water appears to be practically limitless. The world record breath-Âhold is 12 minutes and 10 seconds, while the deepest freedive recorded is some 700 feet. But freediving is more than just a competition. For the millions of recreational divers around the world, diving naturally, without machines, is the most direct and intimate way to connect with the ocean and its inhabitants. For them it's a deeply transcendent underwater meditation. No one has more brilliantly demonstrated this lucubratory side of the sport than Guillaume NĂŠry, a French diver whose otherworldly videos Free Fall and Ocean Gravity have been viewed by over 50 million people.

2,500

Electric Rays

Sperm Whales

28,700

Xenophyophores

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10,000

“The greatest advantage of freediving is that you are silent, you become part of the environment. That gives you access to oceanic animals that nobody else has.” Fred Buyle

“Freediving is freedom,” says Néry. “You're floating weightless, in harmony with the sea.” He mentions that his dream has always been to fly in space, but realises that dream everytime he takes a breath and floats weightless in the ocean. “It's just so calm, so peaceful.” Néry hopes the videos, which he produces with his freediving wife, Julie Gautier, give nondivers a view into the calm, alien, and limitless world of freediving. “It's an incredible experience you can have just by diving naturally into the ocean.” You don't need to dive 100, 200 or 300 feet to feel this connection. Diving to just 20 feet will place you at the cusp of the calm, zero gravity zone that Néry highlights in his videos. Right after this depth the ocean stops tugging you to surface and starts gently pulling you towards the seafloor.

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To many, this will sound terrifying. The human body may be capable of descending to incredible depths, but that's not to say it's always easy. Dozens of freedivers have died attempting world r ecord dives, and hundreds more have been seriously hurt. While there has never been a fatality at an AIDA organised competition, enough freedivers have drowned in outside sanctioned competitions to rank freediving as the second most dangerous sport. Of the 10,000 active freedivers in the United States, about 20 will die every year... some 1 in 500. Indeed shortly before this magazine went to press, 41-time world freedive record holder Natalia Molchanova tragically failed to surface during a planned 115ft dive near Ibiza.

Right: Freediver Hanli Prinsloo swimming alongside a Whale Shark.

But freediving needn’t be dangerous says Fred Buyle, a Belgian former worldchampion freediver. He points to the Ama, a tribe of Japanese women who have freedived for food for more than twenty thousand years off the coast of Japan. In the 18th century, the Ama were considered the world's largest fishing fleet – more than 10,000 dived the Japanese coasts. In no historical account (and there are many) was there any mention of an Ama getting injured or dying while freediving. “It's because they were responsible, they knew the ocean, and they knew their place within it,” says Buyle, who was born in Belgium and now lives in the Azores. “To me, freediving was always about exploring the ocean, being a part of it,” he says. “When competitive freediving became just another sport, I quit.” That was in 2004. Since then Buyle has become one of the world's foremost freediving photographers. He's also helped spearhead a new practice of freediving scientific research. “The greatest advantage of freediving is that you are silent, you become part of the environment,” says Buyle. “That gives you access to oceanic animals – sharks, dolphins, whales – that nobody else has.” Buyle now works with French freediving engineer, Fabrice Schnoller, on the DAREWIN project, which is using freediving research in an attempt to understand cetacean click communication. Unlike scuba, which disrupts the underwater environment and scares off oceanic animals, freediving is silent, maintains Buyle. “Freediving is really taking us where nobody has gone before, allowing us to document cetacean (marine mammal) behaviour for the first time.” In just four years of parttime diving, Buyle and Schnoller have captured more cetacean behaviour and communication than anyone – any institution, any organisation – in history. “We're at the beginning of some amazing discoveries,” says Buyle. “And it's all because of freediving.” The ocean is where all life on the planet came from, and where all things will eventually end up. There's more than twice as much of it to explore than there is land to stand on. The next time you're anchored out, try cutting the motor, grabbing a mask, taking a deep breath, and diving in. That calm and meditative awareness that takes over the second you submerge in water – that's the feeling of our million-year-old amphibious reflexes kicking in. It's your body reminding you that you've made it back home.

Freediving world records No fins: 331 feet, William Trubridge, New Zealand With fins: 419 feet, Alexey Molchanov, Russia No-ﾂｭlimits (weighted sled): 702 feet, Herbert Nitsch, Austria Underwater laps in a pool: 921 feet, Goran ﾄ経lak, Serbia

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Image: Jean Marie Ghislain

Designing furniture for the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most luxurious superyachts

davidsonlondon.com DESIGN CENTRE - CHELSEA HARBOUR

In search of

Blohm+Voss

new 36

something Words by Andrew Johansson

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Blohm+Voss

Innovation is all around us. In every industry new technologies are paving the way for incredible feats - and for those who know how to look, the opportunity to transfer groundbreaking ideas from one sector to another has never been richer.

Previous page: Carbon fiber is an example of a technology now being utilised extensively on superyachts. Below left: The M/Y X R-Evolution with its self-righting system. Below right: X-Lego stability system concept.

The story of development is a timeless one. Larger industries pave the way, breaking new ground thanks to public interest and investment, while more niche industries find ways to follow. For centuries, inventors have leapfrogged years of R&D by adapting technologies from into their own. In shipbuilding, this is a trend that is injecting innovation into every pore of the industry; taking technologies from other markets such as Formula 1 and architecture to help reduce the time and resources that building a superyacht can require. From kite systems designed to pull vessels and reduce fuel consumption, to air assisted hull forms that minimise drag by creating a cushion of air underneath the yacht, innovative solutions are being developed from sister markets to improve the efficiency of superyachts. But the process of adoption is slow in a market where cost and risk ultimately fall on one individual: the client.

In 2006 the superyacht industry witnessed the launch of Perini Navi’s The Maltese Falcon, a project that catapulted the industry forward. The yacht boasted dozens of innovations, most notably its DynaRig – an automated system that deploys sails in vertical sections in a way never achieved before. Commissioned by Tom Perkins, the rig of the 88 metre sailing yacht was based on a design for commercial freight sailing ships by German hydraulics engineer Wilhelm Prölss. It took naval architects Dijkstra & Partners years to research and develop the system, an expense the client had to bear. Yet despite its heralded success, the DynaRig has yet to be taken up by any other yacht. Architect Ken Freivokh suggests a psychological barrier. “There is no question that Tom Perkins was a risk taker,” says Freivokh, whose studio was responsible for the styling of The Maltese Falcon. “He thought it would work and he proved it. When I’ve discussed this design idea with clients subsequently, their response has either been that they didn’t want to copy Tom or that it was not proven. After 10 years of sailing, successful racing and having travelled across the Atlantic several times without using the engine, it is safe to say it works! As for copying Tom: if they aren’t copying one, they are copying thousands of others.”

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Images: Pastrovich Studio

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Perhaps the most exciting development in shipbuilding over recent years has been inspired by the automotive sector. Modular building allows for whole sections of ships to be custom built and then inserted into existing vessels, adding entire new rooms or floors. When building a new yacht, it means different teams can build different sections at the same time – later slotting them together, greatly reducing construction build time.

It is an argument shared by Marnix Hoekstra, director at yacht design and trend forecasting company Vripack. “We benefit from being in an industry with a very rich and entrenched heritage, which makes us slow movers,” he says. “This is coupled with the fact that we have a low volume output and an equally low margin, so owners ordering a yacht have to pay for the R&D directly to develop ideas.”

“We’ve seen a number of advances in the automotive sector,” says Hoekstra. “For instance the chassis of a car is no longer made to simply carry the wheels but it is made with holes and notches to better accommodate all the systems and equipment needed, such as the battery or oil filter and so on. It all connects to the chassis in a much smarter way.”

Of course, as with any industry, there will be its risk takers, those willing to operate on the very bleeding edge of their craft. Last year saw the launch of Comanche, a 30 metre racing yacht from US shipyard Hodgdon Yachts built to break records. It is a project that could not have been realised without the introduction of carbon fibre into ship building. “Carbon fibre, a material that really originated and was utilised in windmill farming and aviation, was used to improve performance and resulted in an extremely seaworthy vessel,” explains Hoekstra. “The yacht could not have been executed if carbon fibre had not been invented and refined in industries outside our own.”

In 2014, concepts for the X-Kid Stuff and X R-Evolution yachts were presented, which incorporated a self-stabilising hexapod system originally developed for offshore industrial boats, to reduce heave motion when transferring passengers from a floating structure such as an oil rig. When applied to the X R-Evolution, it allowed the yacht’s deck to move independently of the hull and significantly reduce sea sickness by counteracting roll motion at sea.

While these are plausible ideas that are based on existing technologies, Hoekstra believes that the future will be focused on delivering something less tangible. “We predict that the perception of time is going to be crucial in the coming years,” says Hoekstra. “Customers of the future will be highly influenced by their fast moving environment.” The naval architect reveals that research conducted as part of VriThink! – his company's trend forecasting programme – shows a shift towards more refined, simple products is occurring. “We’ve been following certain motorbike and pushbike manufacturers and we are seeing these products being made more plain and simple. Instead of having hydraulically operated brakes, which was once popular on mountain bikes, we’ve returned to back pedal brakes. We are also seeing new motorbikes being rather bare and simple, and we predict that we will see this in yachts as well.” Whatever the new trends and no matter where they originate, ultimately it will be the shipyards who will be relied upon to make the clients' dreams come true.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We predict that the perception of time is going to be crucial in the coming years. Customers of the future will be highly influenced by their fast moving environment.â&#x20AC;?

Blohm+Voss

Marnix Hoekstra

Evolving tradition

Blohm+Voss

Polo: The Sport of Kings. What evolved over centuries from a military exercise to an elitist social endeavor, attended by the well足-heeled, has slowly crept its way into the hearts of enthusiasts from all backgrounds.

Words by Brian Berusch

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Right: Up-and-coming amateur player Grant Ganzi. Image: Aspen Valley Polo Club

Polo has evolved. Today 16 countries around the globe now boast professional polo set-ups and, within them, hundreds of polo clubs have blossomed. There has been a resurgence from the youth who are leaving the hunter jumper garb behind, instead opting for knee pads and a mallet. And, where there’s youth, there are brands eager to align with them. Unsurprisingly, corporate sponsorship in polo is on the rise. But to understand the ‘new’ polo scene, and its constant pull between old and new guard, is to know the long, storied history of this graceful game. And its defiance of change. The first hooves to hit turf The thunder of riders swinging mallets and hooves hitting turf was first heard in Persia, between the 6th century BC and 1st century AD. As with many innovations in sports, it is believed that polo developed through the military; namely for equestrian riders during periods of non-war to engage in field games that would keep their steeds sharp and healthy. It wasn’t until sometime in the 13th century that polo migrated to India and China. The first official polo club is said to have been established in Calcutta, India, in 1862 in a location where polo had allegedly been played since the Middle Ages. A decade later, British officers took the sport to England, where it was ushered into the age of modernity. The first set of rules were drawn up in Hurlingham in 1874, with many of them still employed today.

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Soon after, British expats stationed in Argentina took polo to South America, where the vibrant gaucho culture adopted its practice and spread it from Buenos Aires to rural farmlands as far as the United States. By the 20th century, the Argentines had won gold in two successive showings—at Paris (1924) and Berlin (1936). Polo had become a truly international event.

B+V = individual pursuit

“The thing about polo is, once you have watched it or tried it, and had a taste of the adrenaline rush you get from horses travelling at 30+ mph, riding off against other players, there is no turning back,” says Dominic James, a British born photojournalist who travels the world documenting polo camps. “It is no longer just about the money, it’s an addiction, you want to drive and achieve better skills. And I see that passion just as much in a local California chukker as I do in Thailand, Great Britain or the highest 40 goal polo in Argentina.” While polo isn’t the official sport of Argentina, this South American country has taken it to heart and emerged as a powerhouse for the world’s most skilled players. Mariana Castro, a native Argentinian and media executive who has worked alongside the United States Polo Association (USPA) circuit governor Christopher Dawson (in Hawaii) as well as with Peter Brant’s Greenwich Polo Club tells of how polo is a passion, a way of life, for many Argentines. “Argentina is likely the country where the most people are involved with the sport. Crowds at Palermo can regularly reach 50,000. It goes hand in hand with the horse culture there,” she says.

Blohm+Voss + Polo

Now in it’s second year, the Blohm+Voss polo team took first prize at the annual Champagne & Chukkas tournament hosted by the Riviera Polo Club at Montauroux in the South of France in July. Sales and Marketing Director, Patrick Coote, led the team on the field to their wins over two opposing teams.

A whole new market Typically, polo teams are organised by patrones, wealthy men who might surround themselves with toptier players; while top teams such as Ellerstina and La Dolfina can find themselves backed by major international organisations such as Citibank or Hope Funds. Lately, affluent brands have been paying more attention to the polo marketplace, eager for the opportunity to attract the wealthy spectators who make up the sport’s audiences. The sheer space for branding doesn’t hurt corporate interest either, with polo fields being the equivalent size of nine American football fields. In September 2015, Hearst’s Town & Country magazine, which has been printing continuously since 1846, will make history when it co-sponsors the East Coast Open at Greenwich Polo Club. The event will be one of the first to be broadcast in entirety on national, network television. “As Town & Country takes our storied publication into an exciting new era, we're finding a valuable and loyal trend with a new generation that recognises the style, grace and excitement of the polo events,” says Jennifer Levene Bruno, the Town & Country’s Vice President and Publisher. “There's such a timeless elegance with these events—the horses, the heritage, the revelry. It's no surprise that many of our partner brands are seeing the value of these connections as well.”

Right: Top U.S pro Nic Roldan of team FlexJet works the ball.

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But while the Ganzis can well afford the polo life, they’ve been determined to make money no obstacle for any would-be players. Professional players mentor young enthusiasts, while the club provides equipment and horses are brought in free to newer players, who can make a donation to their upkeep if they so wish. Helping to cover some of these costs are lucrative corporate deals, with brands such as Audi, Louis Vuitton and Piaget sponsoring the club’s teams and tournaments. Above: Peter Brant charges the field. Image: John Ferris Robben

In America, the USPA is the governing body that acts on behalf of supporting affiliated clubs nationwide, as well as with funding for mentoring young players. While the organisation is nonprofit, it does maintain a licensing offshoot that turns earnings into national youth programs, which help bring new blood into the game. “There are relationships with brands throughout the country,” says Christine Vermes, Chief Marketing Officer for USPA. “We’ve worked with Four Seasons, Lamborghini and Ferrari and caviar companies. But we’ve also worked with Tesla, which speaks to a much younger generation.”

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Key to opening polo for a wider audiences, says Vermes, has been breaking down previously imposed gender barriers to the game. Indeed one of the USPA’s proudest statistics is that 40 per cent of their national membership are women; while 25 per cent of the members are below 30 years old.

Modern heritage “My grandfather launched the Menlo Polo Club 94 years ago,” says Lyn Cobb, President of the Menlo Polo Club, who first played when she was 13 in Northern California. “My father took polo up after WWII and ran it for 50 years. We’ve got trainers and instructors who have taught here for 25 years.” “Out of the 30 or so players, 80 per cent of them are beginners. We’ve built this audience, organised an incredibly safe program where everyone plays alongside a pro. And it’s paying off: one of our new players took our trainer with him to Argentina and they came back with six new horses.” Cobb cites the technology business boom in Silicon Valley, which surrounds her Menlo Polo Club, as a crucial development that has brought women to the sport. “The wealth that’s here right now – a lot of these women grew up riding, but wanted something more from their lives. Now in their late 30s or early 40s, they are getting back into it. The fact that it involves riding – but there’s a sport around it and we teach them to be comfortable – it’s been a big part of our success story.”

In Colorado, Polo players Marc and Melissa Ganzi run a club with a twist – games are played in the snow. The Aspen Valley Polo Club was started with the explicit aim to make the sport more accessible to the masses, say the pair who also own the Grand Champions Polo Club in Florida.

Around the world, polo continues to be played by families with the means to keep ranches and horses trainers. Yet there has been a palpable surge in the last decade. Younger generations, especially with young women, interested in taking their riding skills away from the more staid styles of horsemanship, and into the polo arena, have flocked to the game.

“We love Aspen,” says Melissa. “It’s a very relevant venue for polo because of its draw to nature and the outdoors—the white water rafting, kayaking, rock climbing and mountain biking—as well as the need-for-speed crowd, the skiers. It’s a natural for polo.”

And while the old guard may not agree with continued marketing efforts or televised events, the opportunity to bring new players with varied socioeconomic backgrounds into the mix will ensure the sport endures yet another century of play.

B+V = stepping out

The Cousteau Legacy Blohm+Voss

Words by Angela Audretsch

The granddaughter of legendary ocean explorer and filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Alexandra Cousteau’s passion for water conservation is in her blood. While her grandfather’s life was spent uncovering the ocean’s secrets, her life has been dedicated to its conservation – travelling the globe with scientists and researchers to better understand the issues that our oceans face. Now Cousteau talks to Blohm+Voss about her legacy, motivation and the future of our oceans.

Alexandra Cousteau was raised as an ocean warrior. She could swim before she could walk, was taken on her first expedition when she was four months old and was taught to dive by her grandfather, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, when she was just seven. “I guess you could say that my path in life was inevitable in a way,” she admits. “But I have always been completely driven by passion and conviction.”

“When my grandfather started telling people the story of the oceans all those years ago the issues were very different to what they are today,” says Cousteau. “Since my first dives and childhood expeditions, there has been a shift. The oceans are in dire straits, the problems have evolved and there is a lot to lose if we don’t act now.” The very name Cousteau is synonymous with the natural world and Alexandra has done her best to pick up the family mantle. She, her husband Fritz Neumeyer and daughter Clémentine share their time between Berlin and

Washington, DC, the headquarters of Oceana, an organisation that Cousteau has been a senior advisor for since 2012. “There are a lot of great conservation organisations but the one that I chose to work with is Oceana,” says Cousteau. “They are the world’s largest international organisation dedicated solely to ocean conservation and have extraordinarily ambitious projects that are all rooted in data, science, research and policy, with very specific measures for progress and success.” For her, Oceana’s emphasis on science in identifying solutions for the oceans is key. The organisation channels its resources towards strategic, targeted campaigns and its scientists work closely with teams of economists, lawyers, communicators and advocates

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The world’s oceans are in need of a passionate champion. Covering almost three quarters of the globe, oceans hold the key to much of the planet’s life, playing a central role in the world's natural systems; from regulating the earth’s climate to absorbing carbon dioxide. Up to 80 per cent of all life on earth can be found in the oceans and over a billion people, including

some of the world’s poorest, rely on them for survival. But overfishing, pollution and climate change mean that our oceans are in crisis.

We are at a time when small little attempts at solving issues isn't going to be enough.

to ensure that results are both measurable and tangible. This has given Oceana major celebrity support, including James Cameron, Pierce Brosnan and Sting, as well as politicians like Bill Clinton and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. On the surface, the world of superyachts may seem fairly removed from that of marine conservation, but Cousteau believes superyacht owners are more connected than most to the cause and have the opportunity to make a real contribution. “My grandfather always used to say that people protect what they love and they love what they know,” she says. “Anyone in the superyacht industry is lucky enough to know the oceans in a way that a lot of people don’t. I think we can help them translate this knowledge into loving and protecting.”

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Cousteau isn’t simply advocating financial contributions, there are countless ways for superyacht owners to get involved, the most practical being the donation of their yacht. “When you aren’t using your yacht, put it and your crew at the disposal of the scientists, explorers and filmmakers who often struggle to find the platforms that they need to do their work,” she suggests. “A superyacht is the ideal platform for

carrying out essential research and expeditions across the world for an organisation like Oceana.” Even better, owners can invite the team on board while they are using the yacht. In return they will get to learn from some of the greatest minds in marine conservation. “These are passionate, knowledgeable and adventurous people,” says Cousteau, for whom some of the most treasured memories of her life are times spent with scientists and explorers on expeditions. “Spend any amount of time with them and you are going to learn a lot and do things that you have never done before. I don’t think anyone, no matter how wealthy they are, is immune to the excitement of making a difference or learning about our planet from these people.” The passion in Cousteau’s voice as she discusses the plight of our oceans is unwavering, but at times it is tinged with a hint of frustration. “I have moments all the time where the state of the oceans hits home for me,” she admits. “Places that used to be full of life, but have been visibly affected by overfishing. Reefs that have been damaged. It is hard to witness these changes. But there is still time to turn these tides and go in a new direction.” The latest push by Cousteau and Oceana is on an initiative called ‘Save the oceans, Feed the world’, which combines the twin objectives of marine conservation and ending world hunger. The UN predicts that the world population will grow from seven to over nine billion by 2050 and according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, to cope the world will have to produce 70 per cent more food. Cousteau stresses that just 30 countries control more than 90 per cent of the world’s seafood catch.

“My grandfather always used to say that people protect what they love and they love what they know. Anyone in the superyacht industry is lucky enough to know the oceans in a way that a lot of people don’t. I think we can help them translate this knowledge into loving and protecting.” Alexandra Cousteau

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Oceana is campaigning hard in countries throughout Europe as well as the US, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Philippines to win policy victories that can increase biodiversity in the oceans and deliver more seafood in the future. “If we have vibrant, diverse, abundant oceans, then that abundance can feed more people each day,” says Cousteau. “It can also stop sea lions washing up on shore because they are starving, or reverse the increase in shark attacks on humans because they are coming close to shore to find food. There are so many consequences of us overfishing that we can stop.”

Since her grandfather's day, when he first co-directed his pioneering ocean documentary Silent World, the mechanisms for storytelling have changed. The Internet, big budget documentaries, celebrity spokespeople, global conferences, they are all platforms that help inspire, inform and call people to action. “We need big ambitious ideas,” says Cousteau. “We are at a time when small little attempts at solving issues isn’t going to be enough. We need big, ambitious, kick ass goals.” While she admits that the window for reversal is getting smaller, she says that we are lucky enough to still have time to make big changes. “Nothing is more thrilling for me than sharing the adventures of our planet with my daughter,” she says. “We all need to do what we can so that the next generation and the generation after that can be as inspired and in awe of the ocean as we are – and have something wonderful to protect.”

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Curation

Guillaume Plisson has left the building… When he’s not dangling from a chopper to capture yachts in their finest light, the French photographer is shooting everything else he sees. Words by Don Hoyt Gorman

The superyacht world is replete with a cadre of celebrity photographers. They’re found dangling from choppers over Costa Smeralda shooting the thundering bows of sailing yachts as they tack at the windward mark. They’re also found tucked into gold and marble master stateroom ensuites, illuminating the handiwork of craftsmen that marry seams of mineral and stone into a tableau of staggering beauty. These are the artistic workmen of the yachting media and advertising worlds, the visionaries whose eyes see the lines and shadows and colours in ways that exalt. Among this rare breed of specialised photographer is Guillaume, the Frenchman whose work has graced magazine covers, advertisements and the walls of residences and offices around the world.

He sees angles in ways others don’t. It’s sculptural. His use of light is instantly recognisable. We recently spoke to Guillaume as he was preparing to head to Australia to shoot yet another of the world’s most striking new-build superyachts. He was in Barcelona. “I love this city: The food is incredible, and design, it’s crazy, even in the little shops there is so much detail and intention,” he says, ever aware of visual complexity and the potential to capture beauty. “There’s good colour, good shape, and of course the people are really great. This city is pure inspiration.” Guillaume is convivial, hectic, alive and always on the move. His approach to photographing the sea and boats is high-energy, highdrama. Together, the sun, sea and sky makes for a chaotic set for a shoot, constantly changing and moving, sometimes violently. He is in his element. “As I learned to shoot, it was really important for me to have a different approach from other photographers. Today (he makes an explosive sound, like a jet-ski launching) I’m in love with full power. I run everywhere to find a good angle, good light... I love it.”

In Australia, he’s a welcomed guest aboard the sleek new Silver Fast with the owner and designer Espen Øino. On assignment, he continues to push boundaries and to hone his thinking and his craft. “We’re trying to do a new shoot with a different style,” he says. “I’m trying to organise pictures from under the sea, but it’s just full of sharks and box jellies. It’s really dangerous. The owner said, ‘No, we’ll never do that!’ So I am thinking of new ideas. What I would really love to do is shoot underwater from within a yacht’s wake, looking up. I have to push, you know?” he asks, drawing you into his vision. “Every time I shoot, I have to find a different angle. It’s how I work. I always need to evoke a new sensation of the sea.” Guillaume is busy. He brought his cameras to the Monaco F1 Grand Prix where he shot the races from the offices of Espen Øino. His style is in demand from leading shipyards around the world. “I’ve worked with Philippe Starck, we’ve known each other for years,” he says. “It’s great working with him because of how precise and controlled his ideas are. I remember when we did the photo shoot for the Blohm+Voss motor yacht A. She left port at 2am with all of the lights switched off other than the required running lights and cruised for five hours out to sea, which is incredibly

Previous page: Helicopter shot in 145km/h winds above La Pointe des Poulains à Belle-île in Brittany, storm of November 26, 1998

far away for a photo shoot. It took us three hours in the helicopter to get to the yacht; we actually had to land on a small island to refuel so we could get out far enough to shoot her in the morning light. We shot for maybe 15 minutes before we had to head back.” Guillaume’s work is perhaps most enabled by his intimate relationship with helicopters. Like many yacht photographers who require platform choppers to capture images from as many angles as possible while cruising at sea, Guillaume has spent untold hours in them. “I love flying in helicopters, but even more, I love good pilots,” he says. “With a really good pilot, I share the experience of getting the right angles,” he says. “I’ve had pilots who intimately understand what I mean when I say, ‘stop,’ for instance. They’re able to hold the angle and distance to the yacht, even when it’s underway, so that I can frame the vessel for the shot. I frequently shoot pictures of yachts travelling quickly, the last set was of Enigma (formerly Eco). We were flying along at 32 knots, half a metre above the sea and 10 metres off the bow, it was... (he exhales heavily, suggesting the amount of breath he’d needed to hold in order to squeeze through yet another of his career’s tight moments)… “Crazy.”

Left page: Goodwood Revival, a must for all vintage car enthusiasts, taken September 14, 2012 just before race start This page: Above the Hudson River, New York City at 7am for the maiden arrival of the Queen Mary 2; notice the Concorde, which paradoxically no longer flies

Prince Albert II of Monaco on board the flagship of the Monaco Yacht Club, Tuiga, built by William Fife in 1909

Left page: An extraordinary helicopter flight to the Nividic lighthouse on l’île de Ouessant in the far west of Brittany in 180km/h winds that have kicked up waves to 15 to 20 meters in height. This page: the superyacht Enigma, which Guillaume describes as, “one of the most beautiful that I know.” Designed by Martin Francis and built by Blohm+Voss. Photographed in May 2015 in Palma with “a helicopter pilot who is an artist.”

The bow of Blohm+Voss superyacht A in the Baltic Sea

Above: Paris: A star seen from the sky. “This image was made for the application framework for the Paris Olympic Games.” Bottom: Flight over the Île de Ré bridge on the west coast of France

Diving platform on Carnac beach in Brittany. Today, there are no more of these platforms in France. Picture taken with 30 minute exposure

Family Business Despite its international reach, the family ties that founded Blohm+Voss in 1877 still run deep within the company.

Blohm+Voss was founded by my great-grandfather Hermann Blohm in 1877, in partnership with Ernst Voss and with financial backing from his family. Both his sons followed him into the business, my grandfather Rudolf joining in 1914 and carrying on as honorary chairman until his death in 1979. His brother Walther expanded the firm into aircraft building and this business continues to thrive as one of the founding partners of Airbus. Again and again over the last 138 years, our heritage gave us the opportunity to shape our future as one of the world's great shipyards. My earliest memory of Blohm+Voss dates back to 15 July 1967 when I was eight years old. I was allowed to accompany my grandfather

Hermann Blohm’s vision for Blohm+Voss was, to put it in one word, big. He wanted to build big steel ships using the most innovative technologies for ship and engine design, as well as for manufacturing. He wanted to cover the full depth of maritime engineering and was courageous in taking on the big British shipyards, which at that time dominated what little competition they had on the continent. At the heart of Blohm+Voss’ success was also Hermann Blohm’s belief in partnership and long term continuity. He believed in bringing together the right mix of entrepreneurship, capital partners and longterm family ownership. For close to 140 years Blohm+Voss has weathered many a storm with this formula and continues to thrive as an independent shipyard. There are now dozens of ‘Blohmers’ who work at Blohm+Voss in the second or even third generation. The concept of continuity extends through the whole Blohm+Voss family. Experience shows that the right balance of innovation and entrepreneurship, family continuity and partnership builds strong businesses over time. This experience my partners and I are passing on to the next generation of ‘Blohmers’ so that we continue, for a long time, to build exceptional yachts that are beautifully engineered.

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Top right: Ernst von Freyberg, Chairman Blohm+Voss Group. Above: Rudolf Blohm, his daughter Brita von Freyberg and her son Ernst at the christening of Polar Ecuador on 15 July 1967.

Ernst von Freyberg, the great grandson of Blohm+Voss founder Hermann Blohm, became Vice Chairman of the company in 1996 and Chairman in 2012. We asked Ernst what family, business and heritage mean to him.

and my mother to the christening of Polar Ecuador, at that time the largest and most modern reefer ship under the German flag. Two moments stick in my mind: a feeling of incomprehension and happiness when the champagne bottle broke onto the side of the vessel and a feeling of magic when the ship gathered speed and hit the water.

Growing Cities

Blohm+Voss

Words by Tom Ravenscroft

Over the past century the unstoppable force of development has gradually squeezed green space out of our worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s major cities.

Fortunately, in recent years there has been a turning of the tides, as architects and urban planners have begun innovating to reintroduce green into our cities. They are creating a new generation of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;naturalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; landscapes, which, ironically enough, means artificially engineered green spaces. Developers are taking advantage of cutting edge technology to bring green bridges, green towers, and super-charged greenhouses to some of the world's largest and densest metropolises. Contact with the natural environment is a fundamental requirement of human well-being. Ever since urbanisation first took hold in the 19th century, the most desirable locations in a city have been alongside green land. Whether the private squares of London or the public parks of New York and Paris, closeness and contact with green space has always been at a premium. In the modern city, organic opportunities to experience green space have been dramatically reduced, leaving residents yearning for nature.

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Left: London's proposed Garden Bridge, as envisioned by designer Thomas Heatherwick.

B+V = engineering change

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Going green It started in New York. An abandoned elevated train track in central Manhattan provided the ideal opportunity to insert a sliver of green back into the concrete jungle. The raised railway track, now known as the High Line, was saved from demolition in 1960 and again in 1991, and has since been transformed into a 1.45 mile long urban greenway. Conversion of the track began in 2006, and the final section opened to the public last year. It was through clever design and progressive planning that a redundant section of the city's transport infrastructure has been re-engineered into a park; to the obvious benefit of the city. Now, this public space provides a green escape for five million locals and tourists every year.

The extraordinary success of the High Line, undoubtedly driven by its inhabitantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hunger for green, has led to cities across the globe seeking to recreate the success. Lucky for New York, the city had a space to colonise. The reality, however, is that most urban areas do not have a disused railway ready and waiting for conversion. Rather, city planners, architects and designers have had to drive innovation in an effort to find unique ways to engineer green spaces into the dense fabric of their existing city.

Green on top A tried and tested method of engineering nature into a city is through green roofing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; effectively transplanting the outdoor space lost at ground level onto the roof of a building. This concept has been around for centuries; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are a wondrous early example. The scale and ambition of modern roofs has grown substantially since its beginnings in Germany some 40 years ago, when the technology that allowed grass to be seriously considered as a viable roofing material was developed. What began on smallscale homes was quickly adapted for larger buildings, such us Norman Foster's seminal High Tech work, the Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters in Ipswich, England (1975). Here, a grass covered roof acts as a private recreational space for the company's employees. Green roofs are now popular all over the world, with progressive tech companies such us Facebook, keen to provide their employees with the best working environments available. The social media giant's new Silicon Valley HQ, designed by starchitect Frank Gehry, opened in March this year is topped with a 3.5-hectare rooftop park. On it youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find a halfmile walking trail and over 400 trees.

Left: The Highline walkway, built on disused train lines across New York. Image: Friends of Highline Below:The Bosco Verticale in Milan. Image: Paolo Rosselli

Onward and upward Along with advances in the scale of green roofs, which are mostly utilised on low rise buildings, architects are becoming ever more ambitious in addressing the mounting concerns about loss of green space in cities. They are now looking upward. As there is no building more synonymous with the dense modern city than the skyscraper, it is perhaps fitting that this building type is now providing the greatest opportunity to engineer green back into the city. Throughout the early 2000s, futuristic visualisations of tall towers covered in trees were appearing on eco-blogs, and now the once improbable concept of a ‘green skyscraper’ has become a reality. Technology evolved from green roofing is being utilised to allow large-scale planting to be incorporated into tall buildings around the world. The latest skyscraper in the City of London, 20 Fenchurch Street (nicknamed the Walkie Talkie), is an example of these next generation green towers. Designed by Rafael Viñoly the skyscraper is unique in the city as it topped with a ‘sky garden’. The 37th floor of the tower is a park, comprised of trees, plants and other soft landscaping. This freely accessible space is an asset for the city, where the building’s employees and London’s public can escape to a calm green space far above London’s busy streets. In another of the world's densest cities, Singapore, architects WOHA have built a tower that doubles the green-growing potential of its site. Three towers of the Park Royal Hotel are connected by massive curvaceous sky gardens, cantilevered off the building at every fourth level. These green terraces are draped with tropical plants and support swathes of frangipani and palm trees. Perhaps the most ambitious of this new generation of green skyscrapers is Stefano Boeri's vertical forest, which is nearing completion in Milan. The twin towers measure 80 and 112 metres high, and have been developed with the aim of combining high-density residential development with extensive tree planting in city centres. The building incorporates an astonishing 900 trees on balconies, covering all four sides of the towers. Boasting as many trees as could be planted in a hectare of forest, along with 2000 plants from a wide range of shrubs and floral plants, this truly green skyscraper will allow its residents constant contact with the great outdoors.

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The urge for green means trees are finding their homes in environments where they have never grown before.

Green urban sprawl Efforts to bring green into the city are not only happening at height. In London, plans for a public garden that will stretch across the River Thames won planning early this year. Intended to be an oasis in the centre of London, the Garden Bridge is being designed by the architect of the 2012 Olympic cauldron, Thomas Heatherwick. The £175 million bridge will be covered with 270 trees as well as shrubs, climbing plants, hedges and flowers supported in deep soil filled trenches. As demonstrated by the Garden Bridge, green skyscrapers and Facebook’s rooftop, the urge for green means trees are finding their homes in environments where they have never grow before. Engineering is allowing us to control environments, growing plants where they wouldn’t naturally thrive. This is an idea that first started in the 17th century winter gardens of UK country homes and has now developed as far as ‘the super greenhouse’. In a bid to grow plants that could never naturally survive in its hot and humid climate, Singapore has recently built two great climate-controlled glasshouses. A reversal on the traditional greenhouse, these glazed enclosures are cooled to create artificial environments where new, migrant plants thrive. Designed by London-based architects Wilkinson Eyre, the cooled conservatories are the centerpiece of a 100-hectare park, built on reclaimed land, named Gardens by the Bay. Two distinct environments have been recreated in the glasshouses that cover a combined 20,000m2. In the first glasshouse a dry Mediterranean climate has been replicated, while in the taller of the two structures the moist environment of a cloud forest has been reproduced complete with an artificial mountain and a 35 metre high waterfall. An integral part of Singapore’s drive to become a ‘city in a garden’, the glasshouses are not only an asset to the city as a public amenity, but also a victory over nature.

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Not a city to be outdone, Dubai plans to challenge nature even further by attempting to recreate a rainforest in the desert. Housed in a dome, if the proposed water-hungry scheme is ever built, it may be the largest demonstration of engineering a natural environment yet.

Right: The 50m tall Supertree Grove in Singapore. Image: Gardens by the Bay

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Green scaling Germany, the original home of the green roof, is now responding to the green challenge on an urban scale. In Stuttgart, the city is burying its central station and miles of track underground to release 100-hectares of land to be developed and used as parks. Interestingly, Stuttgart is not the only German city to be burying its infrastructure. In Hamburg, a two-mile section of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main highway is being covered to create a series of parks that will become a sprawling river of green running through the city.

From Seoul to the States, in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest cities architects across the world are responding to the same need, the same desire to reintroduce nature into our urban landscapes.

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Below: A green waterfall in the Park Roal at Pickering Hotel, Singapore. Image: Patrick Bingham-Hall

This drastic action echoes developments on the other side of the world in Seoul, South Korea. Here, an elevated six-lane highway built during the 1970s has been removed, and in its place, a historic river was reinstated to create the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newest linear park. From Seoul to the States, in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest cities, architects across the world are responding to the same need, the same desire to reintroduce nature into our urban landscapes. Whether on bridges, skyscrapers or in glass houses, architects are adding green in ways that have never been seen before. Although the trend to introduce green into the city was originally driven by sustainability concerns, with environmental impacts of green walls and green roofing heavily promoted and even tax incentivised, it has been overtaken by a desire for interaction with nature. City dwellers are demanding physical and psychological space, and architects are revelling in the challenge and engineering solutions that allow nature to exist in the most unnatural locations.

PERHAPS THE LAST TRUE HIDEOUT IN THE CARIBBEAN You’ll find plenty of hustle and bustle around the marinas on our neighbouring islands, but here, the tranquility and beauty are still unspoiled. Come and experience the warmest welcome you can imagine, ultra-fast Wi-Fi at each mooring, in-slip fuelling, 24/7 dockage access and maybe the best beach bar on Earth. We’re not just any Caribbean marina, we’re Christophe Harbour.

T H E M A R I NA AT C H R I ST O P H E HA R B OU R 1 7 ° 1 4 ’ N , 6 2 ° 3 9 ’ W · + 1 8 6 9 . 4 6 5 . 9 7 5 5 · W W W. C H R I ST O P H E HA R B OU R . C OM / M A R I NA SU P E RYAC H T B E RT H I N G F O R V E S SE L S U P T O 3 0 0 ’

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Leave nothing but footprints An interview with Johan Ernst Nilson We humans have never been further removed from our hunter, gatherer, explorer roots. Working from offices and eating food that has been prepared for us, we have forgotten the need to keep searching for new, more habitable ground. Yet some still strive for a life of adventure. Whether it be at the top of a mountain or in dense jungle, they feel most alive in our planet's more hostile landscapes. One such man is Johan Ernst Nilson, an explorer with over 20 years and 40 expeditions under his belt. Now given the moniker of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;environmental explorerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Johan uses his expeditions to raise awareness of green issues and in 2008 was the first man to climb the seven summits carbon neutrally. B+V Magazine caught up with Johan as he rested from a dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s adventure in the Himilayas, just two days before the tragic events in Nepal. Blohm+Voss 63

Have you ever regretted taking that initial bet? I don't believe in regretting anything in life. I believe that everything you do in life is a form of knowledge, and even if you would like to have done something differently, you will still learn from it. So no, I don't regret that bet. On the contrary, I have seen 150 countries and the bet has taken me to places only few people have seen. Hi Johan, where are you this morning? Right now I’m in the Himalayas at 5,400 metres. I have been returning here since 1997, doing everything from arranging cleaning expeditions on Everest to building hospitals and supporting local schools. How has this expedition been going? Great so far. This time we’re here to do reconnaissance for a big expedition next year. It takes time to plan them, especially if you are going to scale previously unclimbed peaks, as we’re trying now.

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Twenty years ago you accepted a bet from a friend, that you could not bike from Sweden to Africa. Do you feel like your life as an explorer has been a series of bets? Well, it all started with a bet. But after 20 years, 40 expeditions and 3,000 nights out on adventures my friends have stopped betting with me! Now it's a lifestyle. If I’m not doing my own adventures, I’m taking executives from companies out on small adventures.

Have there been moments when you wished that you were at home rather than on expedition? Danger is a part of every expedition and there have been many moments when I wished that I was home. One time I fell through the ice on the North Pole. Another time I had falling rocks around me at 7,700 metres on Everest. Once I was stuck in a tent in Antarctica for four days. I’ve even had a shark biting my kayak! Shall I continue? How do you overcome such moments? Are you in some way attracted to the danger? Fear is a safety net constructed by evolution to show us that something is wrong – that we should go back, learn more about the situation and then advance. We should listen to fear, we should respect fear and never ignore it. Once a guy stood up in one of my lectures and said that I should bring him on my next adventure because he is not afraid of anything. I told him that I would never bring someone who is not afraid sometimes. Is adventure a mindset or a physical undertaking? Exploration is not a geographical journey, it’s an inner discovery of our own true potentials. Most of the time adventures are very physical, but what separates either reaching your goal or not isn’t always physical... it’s mental. Reaching very difficult goals is a question of mindset.

2015 Pole2Pole new expolaration Geographic South Pole Trans America bike expedition Sailing Arctic & Antarctica Greenland crossing Geographic North Pole Kite over Greenland Mt. Vinson Mt. Everest Mt. Carstensz Mt. Blanc Mt. Aconcagua Mt. Kosciuzco Mt. Elbrus Mt. Kilimanjaro Sweden to Africa (Flying boat) Borneo photo expedition Arctic dogsled race North West passage Antarctic research expedition Mt. Shishapangma Sweden to Africa (Kayak) Alaska walkabout Mt. McKinley (Denali) Sweden to Africa (Bike)

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B+V = breaking ground

“My message to fellow explorers is clear; take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.” Johan Ernst Nilson

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Is there an element of adventure in everyday life? My everyday life is an adventure. I live a very extreme life. One day I sit at 8,000 metre on Everest and another I fly to Singapore to give a lecture. On Monday I could be meeting President Clinton and on Friday I’ll be having dinner with the Chief of a cannibal tribe in Papua New Guinea. I don't remember what it's like to have a normal life.

When asked why he wished to climb Everest, the English mountaineer George Mallory famously answered: ‘because it is there’. Is that something you identify with? There is something mystical about climbing a peak for the first time. I must agree. The feeling of going to places where very few or no people have been is quite thrilling.

Historically, adventure had a more scientific purpose to map, chart and collect samples. What is the purpose of adventuring today? Yes, that's true. But not only scientific. If you look back in time, who was financing the early explorers and more importantly why? It was monarchies, merchants and even the church. A lot of the early exploration was based on spreading religion, finding new ways for shipping and new business models. Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama and Columbus all had strict missions from the people financing the expeditions. So it is only recently that an explorer can set out with the sole mission of becoming the first on a peak or of breaking a record. That said, science has become a particularly important part of exploration. Especially in the polar regions. Your expeditions have been used to campaign an environmental message, and you’ve been dubbed an Environmental Explorer. What does that mean to you? Environmental Explorer is something that the media started calling me after the first climate neutral climb of Everest. While they have a point because I do care about the environment and I have been involved in many climate change projects to be honest, I would rather not have that title. Instead I’d rather people see that all expeditions should have the same responsibility.

Are you frustrated by the slow response to environmental issues? I'm actually quite positive. Tesla is taking a good stance and succeeding in the market with cool new electric cars, and other brands are following the trend. Solar energy is developing pretty quickly and people are starting to recycle properly. But with that said, there is a lot to do out and we need to move fast in order to save our planet. I must think positive and I must have faith in humanity. I can't focus on the idea that we’ll fail. Why do you think environmental issues aren’t higher on the priority list for many people? People are afraid of change. They are ready to climate compensate when flying, but they are not ready to walk instead. People are not ready to pay more for organic food and they still want to change their clothing every month. The big industries and governments must start taking responsibility.

In 2008 you finished climbing the seven summits completely carbon neutral. What message do you hope that sends to not only fellow explorers, but also to the everyday man? My message to fellow explorers is clear; take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints. To the everyday man I want to communicate that in every business we must take responsibilities, no matter what business we are in. If you could show people just one thing that you’ve seen on your adventures, what would it be? Antarctica has nine months of darkness and around two months of daylight. In between there is a two week long sunset that is out of this world. I was there for almost four months in 1997 and at the end I experienced the sunset. The whole ice was shimmering in gold, yellow and brown. What is there left to explore? The biggest exploration left is within ourselves. If you would ask Sir Edmund what his biggest exploration was on Everest, if you would ask Amundsen about the South Pole or Armstrong about the Moon, the answers would all be the same; the inner journey. Pushing the limits of exploration has always been a mindset. In terms of geographical exploration, the biggest discovery is still out there; the oceans. We know more about the space around Earth then we know about our oceans. It's just a question of determination. When JFK asked NASA what it would take to put a man on the Moon they answered; “the will to do it!” So what we need now is explorers willing to discover the last frontiers on our planet. And I'm up for it!

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Into the Great Beyond In all walks of life there are those who prefer the comforts of home, and then there are adventurers. In yachting, the majority of enthusiasts are drawn into the high society of the sea, a kind of elevated cadre of schmoozing and entertainment, still visible to the hoi polloi, and definitely within walking distance of the shops. But there are others who simply want to discover the world. And for those who do, there are yachts designed with expedition in mind. Words by Don Hoyt Gorman

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Image: Neil Rabinowitz B+V = stepping out

Think of superyachts and many people's first idea will be of luxury vessels, sat neatly in glamourous ports in Spain or France. But now there are a new breed, designed not just for marinas – but to venture out into the great unknown. There are dozens of yachts in the world that have been thought of as ‘explorer,’ though in truth, few of these are in fact true, go-anywhere vessels with the capacity needed to be selfsufficient from port.

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The first and most important characteristic of a true explorer yacht, is the composure and determination of the vessel’s owner, crew and guests—the vessel should be defined by the ambitions of those aboard. Once the ambitions are set, what quickly becomes key is storage of fuel and food: the ability to remain self-sufficient for weeks or months at a time. In the past several years, a number of yachts have emerged that redefine what an explorer yacht can be: Big Fish, Galileo G, Pegaso, Enigma XK, SuRi, and Yersin.

Opening page: Mighty Antarctica, a place of spectacular beauty and rich wildlife, accessible to properlyexquipped explorer yachts Above: The magical sharktooth mountains of Moorea, just a short sail across the Sea of the Moon from Tahiti.

McMullen & Wing’s Big Fish, designed by Greg Marshall, was designed for her owner to provide a sleek, modern platform from which to explore the farthest reaches of the world’s oceans. Proven systems and technology was paramount to the planning – everything that went into Big Fish, from gearboxes and navigation systems to water makers and electrical components, were selected for trouble-free cruising and independence from shore-side repair facilities. Her main engines were selected for their reliability, being long lasting, fuel efficient and low-maintenance models. Their oil system needs changing twice a year, and with 92,000 litres of fuel (about 40 per cent more than most vessels of equivalent size), her cruising range at eight knots is well over 9,000nm, which means she can remain at anchor off remote islands for up to three months at a time. The build team even calculated storage for the required volume of oranges that would provide guests with fresh orange juice each morning for weeks.

What the Explorers say

Richard Beattie, owner of Big Fish

When we set off on the mission to build Big Fish, I said “I want a boat that can be six months out on station and not have to rely on refuelling anywhere we are.” We wanted this huge 8-10,000 nautical mile range. But the range wasn't top of mind, for me it was being out there without having to worry about fuel.

Below: A helicopter on board allows for areal expeditions and awe-inspiring vantage points for photography.

Perhaps one of the most obvious badges of exploration-readiness a yacht can carry is an ice class notation in its classification documents, which establish strict criteria with which to categorise and insure vessels. Of the handful of yachts that have voyaged to Antarctica, Greenland, Svalbard or through the Northwest Passage, few have actually been ice class. Galileo G, the 55 metre Picchiotti Vitruvius is Ice Class 1B, which despite the nomenclature, does not qualify her as an ice-breaker. Yet the yacht is winterised with reinforcing in the hull for navigating comparatively thin, first year ice. She carries ice-detection sonar, has ice knives on the rudders, specialised props, a powerful bow thruster for manoeuvring between ice floes and heated gaskets for hatches, doors and other exposed equipment like life rafts. Her watermakers have their own heat exchanger to warm up the water to 5°C before it is circulated around the yacht, while her distinctively large satellite dome houses a dish that connects the yacht to the global communication grid up to and beyond 70° North and South.

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What the Explorers say

Owner (anonymous), of Enigma XK

So much of the world has been explored, and so I’m keen to get into places that other yacht owners have not been able to travel. I really want to explore the world’s large tropical rivers and remote locations that are not otherwise accessible unless you have a yacht built and designed like we have with Enigma XK.

Blohm+Voss

The question of explorer yachts looks a curious one. Take for example the 2012 research vessel Pegaso from Freire Shipyard in Vigo, Spain. A massively capable, go-anywhere boat, styled to look not out of place alongside any of the 70 metre gin palaces in Cannes. Her looks go against the perceived notion of what a research vessel should be – she’s sleek, white and resplendent with cascading aft decks, festooned with awnings and lounge furniture: the very opposite of a commercial trawler or ocean-going tug. Lone Ranger is perhaps the most memorable example of this other approach to explorer styling. She is a 77.5 metre salvage tug built by Schichau Unterweser AG in Germany, converted into something of a camouflaged luxury yacht, in the mid-90s, for her owner who simply had a penchant for rough-and-ready looking boats.

Pegaso is proof that in yachting, form does not always have to reflect function. Much of the appeal of explorer yachts lies precisely in their rugged styling and the promise of adventure in the same way a Porsche Cayenne or Range Rover hints at off-road capabilities. But a rugged looking explorer yacht has one advantage over its white boat cousins – they manage to avoid recognition of what they really are because they still look like fishing vessels. And in the realm of the explorer, keeping a low profile and running figuratively below the radar is crucial. One of the best examples of hard-edged explorers that still manage to convey a splash of luxury include Enigma XK, a former Scottish fisheries research vessel that was lovingly rebuilt to accommodate luxury guests on worldwide tours to remote regions. She retains her workaday interior deck heights—no lofty staterooms here—but has been redesigned both inside and out with a modern twist that elevates the experience of the vessel to something distinctly considered and beautiful. Plans for two former offshore supply vessels, code-named Leviathan and Goliath are underway at an undisclosed location in the Middle East, and provide another angle on how former workboats can be reconceived as autonomous and luxurious pleasure platforms. The conversions will include a change in the vessels’ profiles to more stylish and contemporary looking plumb bows and twometre extensions on the transoms to create broad, open swim platforms and access points to the water. Most of the lower deck tankage will be removed, providing enormous volume for fuel and other storage, thus giving the vessels range exceeding 10,000nm—nearly twice across the mid-Atlantic. Again, the focus is on independence, with design considerations given to huge food and refrigeration stores. Deck hatches have been incorporated to allow supplies to be craned

down on their shipping palettes. Leviathan and Goliath will have refuelling capabilities for both the helicopter and the sport fisher boats. The layout provides in excess of 1,000m² for 12 guests, while space for 30 crew is planned, including service staff cabins arranged for those who will form part of the entourage which will arrive and depart with the boss. The client is a tremendous fishing enthusiast and when he realised that remote, deep ocean locales provide the greatest opportunity for exhilarating sport, he sought vessels he could leave on station for a couple of months, then join with friends as his schedule allows. In the case of a new build, as with a conversion, the choice of shipyard is paramount. New build clients must feel the yard they choose has the technical capability to deliver the project they’ve envisioned with a level of technical superiority that invokes total confidence. The recently delivered Yersin, built by Chantier Piriou in Concarneau, France, is an example of a relationship between an owner and shipyard based on close interaction and an understanding of price, quality and performance.

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Above: Up-close encounters with most large marine creatures happen only in relatively secluded, remote locations.

Yersin is an innovative 76.6 metre vessel designed to operate safely and comfortably in ambient temperatures of between –20°C and +50°C, which is a first for a private yacht. A diesel-electric drive train is coupled to Schottel

What the Explorers say

François Fiat, owner of Yersin

Just as I wouldn’t wear a T-shirt and shorts to visit Notre Dame cathedral, nor do I want my yacht to have a visual or environmental impact on the places we want to visit, many of which are in developing or ecologically sensitive regions of the world.

twin-propeller pods for full dynamic positioning capability, augmented by a powerful pump jet instead of a bow thruster. The relatively shallow draft hull for navigating shoal waters is reinforced to Ice Class 1C criteria. Passenger ship-certified with two laboratories, a media room, an infirmary, landing craft and an array of other winterised tenders, the result is a multipurpose vessel that combines the comfort of a superyacht with the go-anywhere vocation of an explorer and the scientific facilities of a research ship. Along with the ambitions of the owner, crew and guests, true explorer yachts should also have added capacity for personnel such as guides, scientists, ice pilots and expedition leaders who can join a voyage and enhance the experience for the owner and guests. Another upgrade is a top-shelf, go-anywhere tender with long-range capability and rugged, easily repairable machinery. But in truth, the styling, capacities, and tools a vessel has aboard are merely extensions of a true sailor or seaman’s approach to going to sea in search of adventure. Self-sufficiency, ingenuity, preparedness and courage are the most important attributes of a true adventurer— attributes which ideally, lie at the heart of all true yachtsmen.

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Below: The Amazon river can now be safely navigated up to at least Manaus, 900 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

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Better with age Words by Amy Wislocki

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Winemaking is changing. In a bid to adapt to wider markets and a younger generation of drinkers, wineries are shedding tradition and finding innovative new ways to not only modernise their image, but the wine itself. Decanter’s Amy Wislocki caught up with the man at the forefront of this renaissance – Leo Hillinger.

The tasting room is housed within a white floating cube, resting on a narrow V-shaped beam. Huge glass walls allow uninterrupted views across the surrounding vineyards. The winery owner, tall and toned with blond hair and surfer good looks, pours a sample of his top wine from a sleek bottle designed by leading architect Zaha Hadid. It’s only when he details the blend, a mix of eight grapes which includes Austria’s Blaufränkisch grape, that it’s clear we are not in California, or another New World wine region where innovation and free spirits are the norm, but in one of Europe’s sleepiest and most traditional wine areas – Burgenland, near the shores of Austria’s Lake Neusiedl. From here, Leo Hillinger has established a successful wine empire. As well as producing 500,000 bottles annually under the Hillinger name, he oversees the production of four million bottles by local co-ops which are sold through supermarkets. Along the way he has opened seven ‘lounges’ throughout Austria and Germany, where wine lovers can discover, taste and buy the Hillinger wines in a relaxed and contemporary upmarket atmosphere from knowledgeable staff. The lounges are an achievement he is particularly proud of – by comparison, the fact that in 2012 he won EY’s Austrian Entrepreneur Of The Year in the retail and consumer goods category (for the seventh time) doesn’t even merit a mention. “We’re the only winery in the world to have seven lounges,” he says, explaining that profit is not the driving force. “If you do it in the right way, the margins are fairly low. The lounges are first and foremost a marketing tool, enabling us to speak directly to wine consumers, to promote a dialogue. Most wineries are far too removed from their customers.” It is this vision, this willingness to innovate, and this emphasis on marketing that has propelled Leo Hillinger to success from modest beginnings. Born into a wine family in 1967, Leo did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth like many other younger generations in the European wine world, but went on to inherit an established and successful estate. His father was a wine dealer, buying wine in bulk. Blohm+Voss 79

Previous page: Leo Hillinger in the Hillinger vineyard and, left, among the company cellars.

B+V = true collaboration

practices. At no point, however, was he aiming to make an identikit, New World style wine. “You can make jammy, concentrated wines anywhere. But people want a sense of place. In my wines you can taste the spirit of the soil, the climate – the taste of Austria, of Burgenland. And that makes me proud.” When he passed the business on to his son in 1990, it was with 0.85 hectares of vineyards and debts of nearly half a million euros, repayable at 17 per cent interest. “I started from zero, with no brand and no customers – the existing customers were drinking only the bulk wine. When I look back now, with hindsight and the experience I have, I can see how naive I was. But I did have a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve.”

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Leo had followed the traditional route, studying winemaking and gaining experience in European wine regions. And then, aged 19, he won a scholarship to travel to California, working at the respected Schug winery. He has since visited other New World wine regions including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, but that time in California was a formative experience. “California back then was the way ahead,” Leo declares. “They were set on making a quality product, they recognised the importance of marketing, of talking and selling to customers at the cellar door – and they were open to the world, to other ideas.”

So when he took over the family business four years later, Leo set about making radical changes, buying good vineyard land and overhauling viticultural and winemaking

Quality is the bedrock of successful marketing, believes Leo, who has moved to organic production for the Hillinger wines, and favours a hands-off approach in the winery, to let the fruit speak for itself. “Organic has to be the future,” he declares. “You can’t buy organic food for your own family, and then go out and kill everything with chemicals in the vineyard. It’s not about profit, or about marketing – it’s about values.” And yet quality is not enough, he says, hence the attention to design – of the labels, of the lounges and the elongated, black glass Zaha Hadid bottle, which has been used for the top wine, Icon Hill. In old school European wine circles, this could be viewed with suspicion. “Shouldn’t the wine speak for itself?” some may mutter. “Is it a case of style over substance?” Leo disagrees passionately. Indeed, the company motto is ‘Hillinger: more than wine’. “The wine industry is so competitive that quality alone isn’t enough to sell your wine in a crowded marketplace,” he asserts. “You have to stand out, be recognisable on the shelf at a distance. What’s more, people eat and drink with their eyes as well as their other senses, aesthetics are important. If you can bottle your wine in something beautiful, why wouldn’t you?”

“The bottle makes the whole experience of buying, storing and drinking the wine more special. It’s about giving it the respect it deserves.” Leo Hillinger

An admirer of Hadid since he saw a project of hers in Long Island, New York as a youth, Leo initially dreamed of having a house designed by the architect. Instead she has helped bring recognition and acclaim to his icon wine. “The bottle makes the whole experience of buying, storing and drinking the wine more special,” he explains. “It’s about giving it the respect it deserves.” Predictably perhaps, his innovations have not won universal respect among some conservative winemaking peers, where the prevailing attitude tends to be: ‘This is how we’ve always done it, so why change?’ “Sometimes it makes me want to weep,” Leo confesses. “I can’t understand the mentality, why others would waste their energy on being jealous. Surely they should be proud of success in their region?” Wine expert and consultant Jason Turner, who is based in Vienna, draws comparisons with the wine giant Gallo, whose founders were unafraid to challenge the status quo in California when they started making wine. “Leo’s open-mindedness, focus on quality and sheer determination are key to his success,” observes Turner. “He revolutionised the shape and design of wine bottles in Austria and his success abroad has been positive for Burgenland.” If Leo’s innovating, can-do attitude helps to bring wider recognition to his native wine region, he will be happy. In bringing a New World mentality to an Old World wine region, he represents a blurring of boundaries, a wine world moving forward with each generation, expressing an unchanging terroir in new ways, and bringing it to an ever-wider audience.

Blohm+Voss

Hillinger wine bottle design by architect Zaha Hadid, who in 2014 created the concept for the groundbreaking 90m Project Jazz superyacht for Blohm+Voss

Social diary B+V Polo, The Champagne & Chukkas Tournament Blohm+Voss took first prize at the annual Champagne & Chukkas tournament, hosted this year by the Riviera Polo Club at Montauroux. Under the searing heat of Saturday afternoon, the B+V team began the tournament with a convincing win over the Riviera Polo Club's own team and then went on to beat Scapa Sports in the second game. B+V's Sales and Marketing Director, Patrick Coote, led the team on the field to their wins over both opposing teams.

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Images: Mike Colquhoun

SuperyachtDESIGN Week, London

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This year's SuperyachtDESIGN Week ran from 23-25 June and rotated around three key themes: Smart Engineering, Living Architecture and Planetary Protection. Some 450 guests attended, making the most of networking opportunities late in to the night. The overarching message of the event, of which B+V were the golden sponsor, was best summarised by Dutch naval architect Marnix Hoekstra, when he showed a video of the construction of a 57-storey tower in China. “This whole building was assembled in 19 days on site,” he said. “It is not a dream, it is fact. It is happening in architecture and it bothers me that we can’t even mimic this in our industry, with all our financial and intellectual resources. The point is we all have to start thinking holistically, which has been the message over these three days.”

Social diary

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The Superyacht Design Symposium

Sponsors Blohm+Voss were joined by over 350 yachting and design enthusiasts at the Bio-Hotel Stanglwirt, Austria in February to hear speakers such as Sacha Bonsor, Editorial Director of Boat International, and Philippe Briand discuss the issues facing superyacht design. Picchiotti-Perini Navi Groupe’s 73m Grace E picked up four awards at the ShowBoats Design Awards, and the indoor swimming pool aboard Blohm+Voss’ Graceful was awarded the Judges’ Commendation for Outstanding Feature.

B+V Ski Cup, Kitzb端hel Presented by Foil, the B+V Ski Cup saw 76 entrants contend with thick snowfall as they raced down a perilous mountainside in search of the fastest time and the prestigious B+V Cup. Yacht Designer Lorenzo Argento managed the quickest time of the day, with a phenomenal run backdropped by onlookers ringing cowbells and sipping hot wine.

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