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Just after 9 at night, I was at the aft deck table aboard the popular 120-foot charter yacht Joanne , trying to be helpful as the chief stewardess cleared the dishes. Somewhere between collecting the crystal wineglasses and stacking the gold plate runners, I watched in horror as the creamer nearly full slipped from my right hand and toppled. Milk slid along the teak table and pooled atop one of the nearby off-white seat cushions.
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Much to my relief, there was little concern from Joanne 's captain or from Shannon, the charter broker who had arranged the trip. The cushions were covered in a tough fabric chosen precisely to withstand the (even well-intentioned) abuse charter guests often inflict. The captain pointed to the popular charter yacht docked next to us, the 142-foot Big Play . Its first mate was literally hosing down that yacht's cushions.
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“See?” Joanne 's captain said. “Things happen all the time.”
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Knowing what those things are, and choosing fabrics that can sustain them, is a main factor in charter yacht interior design.
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“You have to know what the boat is going to be used for and what codes it's going to come under,” says Anita Unger of Anita's Interiors Inc. in Hollywood , Florida . The main concerns are fire retardant rating, abrasion rating (wear and tear), and safety codes that vary depending on the country where the hull is built. There are too many guidelines to list here, but basically, charter yachts need to have fabrics that pass safety tests the way commercial vessels do. A charter yacht's fabrics may not require the durability of a ferry's, but need to be stronger than fabric in, say, a private home.
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“We're involved with a 140-foot yacht right now that wants to charter about five weeks a year,” Unger says. “That would be medium (wear and tear). More than that, and I might go heavy duty.”
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Aileen Rodriguez, the vice president of design for Patrick Knowles Design in Ft. Lauderdale , Florida , says all charter yachts can benefit from a process that makes fabrics less susceptible to wear and tear. Her company calls it a “fabric protection system.”
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“We have it sprayed on the fabrics so the crew is able to maintain them easier,” Rodriguez says. “We can do it with any fabric, even silk. We do a specification manual—where the fabric is supplied, what the contents of the fabric are, how to clean it, what solvents to use.”
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Unger's favorite interior fabric is travera, a type of polyester that looks like silk but is inherently fire retardant. “It's come a long, long way in the past 10 years,” she says. “Everybody used to say, ‘Polyester, oh how horrible.' It's not that way anymore.”
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Outdoor cushions, she says, are usually best covered with solution-dye fabrics. Sunbrella is the most popular manufacturer of this type of fabric, which is designed to withstand not only water and spills, but ultraviolet rays. As Unger explains, it's made by pouring dye into a chemical solution, to give it the desired color. The dyed solution is forced through an object that resembles a shower head. That creates the thread from which the fabric is made.
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“You clean it with a solution of Clorox and water,” she says. “And you use it on cushions that are reticulated foam, or quick-dry foam. When moisture gets in there, the air can get through. Closed-cell foam, it's used a lot by the Navy because it's a flotation foam, but it sits like a brick. You want to avoid that.”
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In the past five years, solution-dye fringe and cording have become available, which means owners can have pillows and trim that match their outdoor fabrics. However, the major manufacturers usually refuse to work directly with yacht owners, which means solution-dye pattern choices are limited to whatever the distributors sell. A typical manufacturer won't make less than about 500 yards of a given pattern, Unger says, but a typical 130-foot motoryacht only requires about 70 yards.
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No matter how much is aboard, Unger and Rodriguez agree that purchasing quality fabrics and taking care of them are key.
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“The owners that we've dealt with didn't compromise at all,” Rodriguez says. “There's still wear and tear, but as long as your crew knows how to maintain your vessel, you really shouldn't have a problem.”
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Kim Kavin, editor of www.CharterWave.com
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