INTERIOR PLEASURES
As superyachts increase in length and size, so grow staterooms, salons, and other rooms, allowing owners more opportunities to furnish and appoint with the same luxury trappings typically found in a sprawling estate home. High-end textiles, exotic leathers, expensive wood treatments, rare artwork, and a seemingly endless lineup of electronic amenities are rapidly becoming standard necessities, not luxuries.

With the recent availability of satellite television and radio, as well as large flat-screen TVs and multifunctional DVD/CD and MP3 and iPod players, today’s superyacht has become a floating entertainment center. Media rooms and small movie theaters are popular uses of space these days, along with conference rooms, gyms, discos, business centers, nanny cabins, and lounges.

Galleys, once the most overlooked part of these yachts, have morphed into kitchens capable of accommodating European-trained chefs with top-of-the-line stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, wine cabinets, and other amenities. More vertical portholes now give the galley area increased natural light and ventilation.

Ah, the la dolce vita superyacht lifestyle. For the open-seas luxury traveler, it gives new meaning to home sweet home.

Florida-based writer Edward Schmidt Jr. enjoyed the tours of several lavish yachts to adequately research the story.