Images show a distinctive 150-ft x 124-ft yacht known as a WHY.
The unusually shaped (and luxurious) yacht shown in the above-displayed images is a conceptual rendering of a 150-ft x 124-ft (58m x 38m) WHY (Wally Hermès Yachts) watercraft touted as a 'floating island':Everybody's dream is to live on an island, in complete freedom, without constraint, with the independence that only self-sufficiency can provide. A piece of land with a beautiful villa partly fulfills this aspiration because it is static. A yacht offers the freedom to move, but does not have the space of a property. WHY has it all: space, stability, movement, independence, peace. WHY goes even further. This revolutionary concept of the moving island is developed with the latest and most advanced sustainable technologies, recycling thermal energy, as well as any organic and inorganic waste. The architecture of the whole project fits perfectly in the environment - there are no excesses, nothing is superfluous, the impact on the sea is minimum. A new and unique way to live on the sea while caring about it, protecting it, and loving it.A February 2010 gizmag report on the WHY observed that:Prior to the launching of the outrageous Wally Island megayacht two years ago, Monte Carlo-based Wally Yachts was probably best known for its millennium-award-winning Wallypower 118, but with the launch of Wally Hermès Yachts (WHY), a joint venture with French high fashion house Hermès, it will almost certainly be known for its first WHY Yacht - it's a multi-story 58 metre-long, 38 metre-wide floating personal holiday resort with almost an acre of floorspace, an ultra-stable Norwegian Ramform hull, and an energy efficiency so high and carbon footprint so low that it can be sailed to the location of your heart's desire. It aint fast, but it can cruise at 12 knots in a Force 4 gale and has enough range to cross the Atlantic four times without refueling. WHY is a joint-venture created in June 2008 between Paris-based luxury goods designer Hermès and similarly-positioned yacht constructor Wally Yachts, to develop a new type of motor yacht redefining the art of living on the sea. The venture was conceived as an equal partnership whereby each company becomes fully involved in all aspects of the concept and design of each project.However, although a full-sized model of the WHY has been exhibited in Monte Carlo and Abu Dhabi, no working version of the mega-yacht has yet been sold, built, or launched; thus, all the pictures displayed here are conceptual images or models of a design, not photographs of a fully realized product. Additionally, the possibility of the WHY's actually making it to market suffered a setback in March 2010, when Hermès announced that it was withdrawing from the joint venture:French luxury brand Hermes is exiting a luxury yacht joint venture with shipbuilder Wally, saying it is not experienced enough to complete the project, its chief executive said. 'We are currently in the phase of carrying out the project, which is technically complex and which requires on-the-spot decisions,' said Hermes CEO Patrick Thomas. 'It seemed a good idea to us to have only one decision-maker and we naturally decided to hand the reins over to Wally.'Additional images of the WHY can be viewed on the Wally Hermès Yachts web site and in a promotional video.
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