New radical boat kitchen?

I would consider a middle size boat, something from 50-100 ft would benefit but I prefer the 100 ft anytime. Although , I believe this kitchen will in the future dot the sence for motoryacht.

I dont see a problem as the kitchen offer light equipment on one side for cupoccino gadget on the side while rolling away all the heavy cooking equipment. Marine kitchen does need trick to make the pans and pots at one place, I have seen a container carrier kitchen at a storm. the partition their kitchen with steel homemade mesh. Marine kitchen can be tricky.

Student

 

Wei - as Tom eluded to - as an (almost finished!) Westlawn student - whatever you do, don't send a drawing in to the school with place marked "kitchen"! err - galley I believe is the correct term....

 

Could I suggest that our young enthusiastic westlawn student spends a weekend on a sailing yacht? Of course, once the owner learns about his cooking, I'm sure he'll become aquainted with the Galley. In particular, he'll find that it's too small in harbour, but hopefully the right size at sea.

Tim B.

 

Opps.! your right Willallison, I was taken away and forgot the IMO word for it. Well, i just I still smell of land.

As for the galley, now if you make a custom yachts them the power of the buyer acting within the design is godlike unless you are buying stock model then you gonna be a salemen bait food.

 

The salesman, you in this case, are not lacking on custom boats. Actually they increase from one to dozens for each custom piece of equipment. Also, did you say capuccino? My galley's blackened coffe pot just had a fit. What's wrong with boiling the stuff?

 

U could try premix stuff but I am a TEA kinda person.

Student

 

I think you should get some experience cooking in rough weather. Of course, large yachts have all kinds of stabilizers and usually the speed to stay out of the weather. They have no problem changing course to stay in smaller seas.

 

That's what they do best drinking and cooking. I seen cook with red face, and thought they gonna throw up, but then, we are not hungry anyway.

 

Curves are not a waste of space... look at many of the modern yachts these days, and you will see that the good use of curve forms can result in less wasted space.
I think a lot of the people on this forum are sail yacht or small boat fans - nothing wrong with that - but there are a lot of people spending good money on 40+ foot motor yachts which do not make such a big demands on fixing everything in place (alas, some motoryachts these day completely ignore the possiblity of rough seas).
If I look at this kitchen, I would say it has, with good placement, a good chance of using less space than a traditional long or L shaped galley layout, without the space behind the curves being left unused. One of the pictures shows a nice eathing counter filling the space. A TV could also fit in there, or a door to the outside (no, not the outside patio, but I have pondered the why or why not of grass, bushes, and other plants are not more often considered in yatch design...).
I say we stop finding the negative of this different idea, and look for the potential... (as some of you do)...
Cheers,
Grant

 

Interesting concept of course. I think it'll prove to be the domain more of the trendy designer-loft types, though, rather than boaters. I see a few big problems: firstly, it takes up a rather awkwardly shaped space, and second, something- either machine or chef- has to move around a lot. Boat galleys work best when nothing moves very far and the chef only has to rotate his body to reach everything, and can brace himself against whatever is handy when the boat rolls. I think it's great for a Front Street penthouse, but I don't think such a radical idea will catch on in boating. At least not in ocean-going boating. With the current dock-queen trend we may see such a thing in the big broad motoryachts, in time.

 

I am very pleased to see that men seem to have a lot to say about a kitchen on a boat. I am planning to live aboard a sailing boat with my partner who has built, sailed and lived on a boat for 9 years. I am new to it all, but have seen many boats by now. And the interior designs of normal sailing boats of around 40ft are not showing a lot innovative thinking and I am not impressed. I am delighted to see some new ideas appear as this kitchen. I do agree with Grant that we could just look at its merits before we start pulling it apart. Even if most boats don't have round shaped furniture or kitchens, that doesn't mean that current traditional kitchens on boats use spaces efficiently and user friendly. I really like to see some more advanced and different thinking going on related to the galleys and to the rest of the boat too. House interiors for example seem to have advanced hugely over the years, sailing boat interiors seem to have not been given the same attention. And I really wonder why that is?

 

If you only consider those in the production built domain, Then I'd agree with you Wilma. But if you start looking at custom boats then you will see that pretty anything and everything has been tried at least once. The reason that production builders (and I guess most one-off's as well) stick to a pretty standard format is twofold-
1. It costs a lot of money to build a boat. The tooling for a production boat generally runs into the millions. Builders are understanadbly hesitant about trying something that's too far outside the square in case nobody wants to buy it.
2. As I said before, most things have been tried at least once. If it works, it gets used again, if not it doesn't. Spend some time at sea in a boat and you pretty quickly come to understand why most boats - particularly sailboats - share similar features. Tried and tested as they say.

Having said that, I defended poor old Wei's enthusiasm for the circular kitchen, not necessarily because I think it's a good idea in itself, but because if as designers we were never prepared to consider alternatives, we'd all be sailing square-riggers...

 

My Kitchen --oopps galley have the drawers on rollers, of course they would all shoot out at the slightest movement, looked like I had a poltegiest on board.
But a few twist locks cured that. I even have some free standing furniture with no braces what so ever.
If i ever decide to fit out a catamaran again I would use free standing furniture extensively. You can get your choice and comfort from what ever material,-- leather? You can change the furniture or store.

The options are endless. Location of the furniture can be with small turnbuckles and small delicate polished chains.

I think some boats galleys are too compact with tiny little cupbords made from chunks of wood way too big. The result can be claustrophobic, although sensible for rough seas, rough weather for most of us is not the norm. Therefore to me it would seem reasonable to have the galley designed in such a way to have use of only part of the galley for such occasions, in so much as grouping the required appliances in order of necessity.

 

Thanks for your reply, Will. I have seen one off designs and production boats and I do appreciate that production boats are what they are and cannot be changed on a whim. However have you seen how many different types of cars Toyota spits out? What I have noticed since starting to get interested in boats and their design; boats are very complex. What did surprise me when visiting boat designers, and they were well established and well known ones in New Zealand, that they were all working on their own and dealing with all the issues about hull, rigging etc AND my requests about a great interior and galley. I wondered how they would cope with all those different design issues and I think from my point of view they don't cope well with thinking about the interior/galley. And I understand that. However my question is, how come we expect that one designer can think of everything? I do harbour sailing and when hosting a party I now ask the women to comment on the galley and it is great to hear their comments and how we would like to be involved in a design team to make the galley more women friendly. I admire boat designers because of the gigantic task they have; to come up with such a complex product that also needs to be safe for people, mostly on their own. I would like to see designers working in a team to assist with weak spots they invariably have. The only person I have seen taking the design of a galley serious is Steve Dashew and he has been at it for years with the help of his team mate Linda. What do you people think about design teams involving all user groups rather than all the one man band designers?
Wilma

 

Thanks Jack, I would love to see your boat, it sounds wonderful. You are so right with having drawers and then finding ways to keep them in place in rough weather. They are extremely user friendly and I am sure you have no trouble getting the women to come on board as they will love to be on your boat too. I also think that with your free standing furniture, you don't have to demolish half the boat to get at waterpipes or other hidden features. I do think there can be more thought given to the interiors to make them more fun to be in. But I can also imagine that a solo designer cannot think of everything, so the interior I believe gets the least attention to keep the design costs normal. And I think that is a great shame as the interiors/galleys can be a lot better with a bit more thinking.