Frank Gehry designs first sailing yacht

Frank Gehry, a celebrated architect who is famous for creating some of the most unique buildings in the world, has designed his first ever yacht: A race-ready sailing sloop that is to take part in the world regatta scene.

Working together with Argentinian naval architect Germán Frers and developer Richard Cohen, the Beneteau First is a 44.7m vessel named Foggy. Launched this year from Brooklin Boat Yard in Maine, USA, she has already been turning heads since she started competing in regattas such as the Round the Island Race in Martha’s Vineyard this summer. 

Known simply as ‘Frers 74’ during her build – code named after her architect – her name Foggy derives from an acronym of Gehry’s full name; Frank Owen Gehry, who is an avid sailing enthusiast himself owning a fibreglass-hulled Beneteau First 44,7 that is about to be renamed ‘Foggy 1’. 

Unlike the traditional racing yacht, which is designed to be as lightweight as possible, Foggy is lined entirely with larch wood. She is as unique as the buildings that Gehry has designed, combining cold-moulded construction, carbon fibre technology, titanium detailing and hundreds of individual glass inserts in a latticework design. 

Commenting on Foggy’s largest skylight during the build stage, Steve White, president of the Brooklin Boatyard said, “There’s a little over 300 pieces of glass that will be installed in each of these cut-outs, and the surface of the glass will be flush with the surface of the teak deck.” 

There are a further 800 plus glass pieces found in the top of the deck. Carbon fibre panels support the glass blocks that shine on the water, making her completely unique to other sailing yachts currently on the water.

Eric Blake, project manager at Brookline Boaty ard commented, “Something like this is really pushing the envelope for us in that it’s a real meld of carbon fibre, laminated wood, cored composite structure – it’s what Steve is known for, pushing that cold-moulded, wood composite one-off envelope and this a challenging project as we’ve ever been involved in.”

For more information, visit Gehry Partners or Brooklin Boatyard.

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