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“The boat” says Fincantieri “is now a platform that interacts with the sea. In the past the heavy boat structures made the owner feel protected but separated from the sea (somehow even prisoner). Today the lighter boat structures become a tool to get more in contact with the sea and experience and live it with all the senses.”
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The brief, to designer Camillo Costantini, was “Go out of the box, find innovative lines by melting together modern and retro styles and create a boat that is not a ‘containing’ tool but a ‘showing’ tool.” The result was the 102 metre Marco Polo.
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Costantini fulfilled his brief to get out of the box, for the Marco Polo is a yacht like no other, but its curves are decidedly 1930’s. That rear attrium, was clearly inspired by some modern cruise liners, is certainly, an example of “melting together modern and retro styles”, but the rest of the yacht’s lines seem decidedly more retro than modern.

The round port holes in the superstructure are old style, the bow was, clearly, inspired by a World War II warship and the quarter stern view reminds one of the sweeping rear wings off exotic 1920’s cars.

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Marco Polo
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Inside the Marco Polo is a mix of retro and modern, with the sort of round vaguely retro tables, you get in modern ferries, in some saloons and distinctly modernist seating and furniture in others. It is only in the wheelhouse that the two seem to meet, except perhaps in the abundance of teak and holly flooring throughout the yacht!

Camillio Constantini

If you want something radically different, going outside the mainstream is a good way of guaranteeing you’ll get it, so Fincantieri made a good choice for this yacht. Constantini graduated from Rome’s Faculty of Architecture and then worked with a prominent interior designer for 14 years, before forming his own design office. Since then he has created interior designs for a number of large yachts and, although still very active in civil architecture, is developing more and more involvement in the yachting scene?

Will they buy it?

Maybe, maybe not. It is very “different”, maybe too different for owners in the 100+ metre bracket who, so far, have given every indication of wanting the same, with just a degree of one-upmanship.