Inside the My Song Luxury Yacht
A life spent sailing the open seas appeals to many people, but only a few manage to ever make it a reality. After all, yachts are vessels most commonly associated with the rich and famous, or with thrill-seekers of means who enjoy plowing through the ocean on transatlantic odysseys. Most of us will perhaps never set foot on an actual yacht, but that doesn’t mean we can’t foam at the mouth a little over the luxurious cruisers and high-speed boats we see online.
One such gush-worthy vessel is a hybrid cruiser and racing yacht by master boat builders Baltic Yachts. The boat is called “My Song” and, according to the company, is nothing less than “a state of the art, multi-role custom superyacht combining performance and light displacement with a stunning contemporary interior [to provide] an immensely comfortable cruising platform.” First launched in 2016, My Song has gone on to win many prestigious accolades, including that of Best Yacht at the World Superyacht Awards.
The beauty of My Song is that it combines the best of both worlds, simultaneously acting as a powerful high-speed racing beast and a luxurious, impeccably designed cruiser. For that reason, designers Mario Pedol and Massimo Gino affectionately refer to it as a “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” boat. The yacht took almost two years to build and was a collaboration between naval architects Reichel/Pugh and Nauta Yachts, who were respectively responsible for crafting the exterior structure and interior cabins.
Some of the boat’s most impressive specifications include “interchangeable mainsails for cruising or racing and Baltic’s latest retractable propulsion system, which rotates through 180 degrees to double as a stern thruster and a keel fin more akin to maxi raceboat design. The Baltic 130 custom’s plumb bow and wide transom exploit the speed benefits of a long waterline and powerful stern sections to meet the owner’s demands for a really effective race boat.”
Above all else, My Song’s designers were concerned with keeping the boat as light as possible so that it would be able to serve both functions — a mean feat in the world of sailing. This was accomplished using lightweight materials in the finishings of the open-plan interior, including linen composite floor, wall, and ceiling panels and carbon cable trays, heads, and countertops.
The boat’s owner, Pier Luigi Loro Piana, says, “My vision for the latest My Song was for a yacht that would be extremely lightweight, fast, and easy to handle: a real superyacht regatta contender [with a] welcoming, comfortable, and luxurious interior.” The lifting keel of the yacht further improves performance by shrinking the surface area of the boat that ever comes into friction-inducing contact with the water. The design of both the interiors and the upper deck were closely monitored by the owner, who insisted on seeing full-scale mock ups of all the finishings before deciding to incorporate them into the actual yacht. The result is clearly a labor of love, pride, and talent.
