Who says yachts can’t inspire childlike wonder?
Not Lürssen, which is showing off a whimsical new superyacht concept dubbed Alice at this year’s Monaco Yacht Show. As the moniker suggests, the emission-free vessel is heavily inspired by Lewis Carroll’s 1965 fantasy classic, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland.
Measuring 322 feet, the Alice will feature five fantastical decks. But in a twist right out of Carroll’s book, a main deck won’t be one of them. In a YouTube video previewing the concept, the German shipyard’s designer Jim Robert Sluijter said that the idea for this came from talking to yacht owners, many of whom said they didn’t get much use out of their boat’s main salon. So, he decided to get rid of it and try something completely different.
The small nature park Lürssen/YouTube
Instead, everything a main deck would normally provide—dining, entertaining or lounging around a fire pit—has been shifted to the smaller upper decks (the top of which also has a helipad). Because of this, a wide-open exterior deck which stretches from one end of the boat to the other can be used for whatever its owner desires. In Sluijter’s model, this means there’s a paddle tennis court in the rear, a semi-enclosed bar and dance floor in the middle beneath the elevated decks and, most impressively of all, a soothing nature park filled with greenery and its own pond in front.
The main deck isn’t the only convention Lürssen has dispatched, either. There will also be no diesel engines used to propel the boat. Instead Alice will use emission-free fuel cell technology to power its engines. Its tenders and water toys will be fully electric as well.
The wide-open exterior deck Lürssen/YouTube
Of course, for now Alice is still just a concept so there’s no guarantee it’ll end up being built. Still, those who appreciate both eco-friendly yachting and a pronounced sense of whimsy can dream. In the meantime, you can view a scale model of the ship at this year Monaco Yacht Show, which runs through Saturday, at booth JS8.