Amaury Guichon - The Pastry Academy

What sets the Van der Valk Explorer range apart from expedition yachts from other brands?

Their distinctive round-bilged hulls mean the Explorers are designed and built to withstand the toughest environments. They also have a large fuel capacity that makes long ocean passages easy. But the real standout of the Van der Valk Explorers is the flexibility offered by the yard and the way that opens up a whole world of choices for the client. There is no other boatbuilder offering anything like this degree of customisation, which is nice for me as a designer as I get to work with owners to create genuinely one-off explorer vessels within a luxury yachting template that has been proven in practice.

What are the key elements that clients can influence?

Firstly, they get to choose between a steel or aluminium hull and for a fast pace or normal hull speed. We have also designed two types of Explorer, with the choice between a wheelhouse and raised pilothouse model. The latter facilitates owners who prefer to have their stateroom on the main deck and has already been illustrated in practice with Venera.

The size of your design can range between 20 and 40 metres, with the current fleet including Explorers from the 23.50-metre ‘Project Capella’ currently in build to the 37-metre Santa Maria T. What is exceptional is that these two projects have such similar looks despite the wide size differential, showing how the concept can be stretched or shortened while retaining the same distinctive Van der Valk Explorer appearance.

How have you made them distinctive in terms of looks?

The essence of any explorer yacht revolves around what people are looking to do with their vessel. Van der Valk Explorers are designed for volume so that owners can go on long trips. Form follows function in my design so that all the facilities and comforts required when travelling afar are in place, including the toys, crew accommodations, storage space (including for compacted waste), sewage disposal units and so on. This by nature creates a look and the styling comes after we have decided with the client what is essential to have onboard.

We are talking functional designs in general, with the wheelhouses being quite far forward to optimise the space behind. The hulls have quite a lot of volume, we utilise all the space on the bows and the flybridges are very large, stretching all the way aft from the wheelhouse. That said, once we do start styling, we make sure that the Explorers are still very goodlooking boats and look equally at home in St Tropez as in the far north. These are yachts for all places as well as all seasons you might say – and ideal for clients looking to clock up some serious mileage in considerable comfort.

Is this why the first Explorer, Santa Maria T, was such an instant hit?

The owner of Santa Maria T played a big part in getting this concept off to a great start. He was determined that his yacht should not look like a toy but resemble ‘a Land Rover for the sea’. The fact that Santa Maria T was among the finalists at the World Superyacht Awards in 2017 was superb publicity for the new line and the owner’s vision served as an inspiring theme for later models. So too did the way the yacht is used, having been designed for living onboard for lengthy periods of time six months a year. Santa Maria T is like a house on the water, with a huge owner’s suite and very large guest cabins. She also had the first two-axis fin antiroll damping system in the world, a lovely art nouveau interior, and twin Volvo Penta D16 MH 651 hp engines that can perform 24/7 at full throttle. The second Explorer was the 27-metre Seawolf. Built in aluminium for optimum corrosion resistance, this full displacement vessel has higher speeds and reasonably large engines to get places quicker, good interior spaces and a large aft deck and flybridge. There are again some very bespoke features on this Explorer such as the large lazarette to house the owner’s three race bicycles and two Gocycles. We also fitted an Opacmare Transformer, a multifunctional pantograph platform that serves as swim platform, tender launcher, gangway and heavy luggage lifter. This solution frees up the flybridge for leisure activities.