It’s super easy to buy a new sailing boat! Open the HanseYachts Configurator, select your boat, the materials, the options, press Buy and within a few business days your dream yacht will be delivered to you; the fridge stocked with strawberries and your favourite brand of Champagne, and a very delightful customer service representative giving you the ten minute quickstart tour, handing over the keys, and happily waving farewell to you and your loved ones. “Bon voyage!”, she shouts merrily, with just the perfect amount of adventure in her tone.
Ok, actually it’s not quite that easy, but maybe someday…
Meanwhile, here’s what we put into the configurator. It’s a pity they don’t generate three-dimensional previews based on the selections, but I did take some screenshots. (Unless otherwise noted, all the pictures are from Hanse’s web site.)
The three cabin version with one toilet. It’s possible to get another in the master cabin, but we didn’t want that. The two cabin version (master cabin + only one aft cabin) has a bigger kitchen and storage space in place of the starboard aft cabin.Signal White hull, Dark Grey waterline. Hanse delivers the smaller models only in white or gray. If you can afford at least a Hanse 508 it’s possible to get the yacht in any colour of the rainbow! Since white is quite boring, though, we’re planning to wrap it in vinyl and make it gorgeously golden! Picture: Hanse’s brochure.Synthetic teak on the cockpit benches, cockpit bottom and swimming platform. This is our version and it’s called Scrubbed White. (Charlotte is a fan of white, did I mention that before?)The Lazy bag (a large bag on the boom that collects and protects the main sail when it’s not in use) and the sprayhood (an ugly contraption on the roof that protects freezing sailors from wind and water) we chose to have in Cream. (I keep trying to imagine what they will look like with bird droppings, I’m not quite sure why.)Our cockpit cushions will be Light Gray. I will enjoy my morning coffee (I love coffee) at dawn, outside, sitting on these, hopefully without spilling too much of the coffee on them.We picked Canadian Chestnut for the interior furniture. It’s the grayer one in the middle. If you’re buying a Hanse 455 or any model 548-675 you can get the high gloss version, the rest of us have to be happy (and we are!) with the non-glossy one (it’s called Satin Varnish). Picture: Charlotte.The floor will be Acacia. It’s the standard (and so also the least expensive) version. Classic Stripes is the, well, classic boat floor, and while it might be very practical to have a darker floor, it’s a breath of fresh air to not.The upholstery (all the sofas, cushions etc inside) will be Valencia Cream. I’m relieved that Charlotte didn’t want the leather version (Portofino). I’m not really into leather.The worktop in the kitchen will be white, white as that Christmas we are all longing for.
Amount Of Possible Combinations
Since I’m a self-confessed nerd I just had to roughly calculate the amount of possible combinations of layout and material selections, so here goes:
Interior layout combinations: 2 x 2 x 2 = 8
Hull color and waterline combinations: 2 x 2 = 4
Teak combinations (cockpit benches, coach roof, side deck): 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000
Lazy bag, sprayhood, bimini: 5 x 5 x 5 = 125
Cushion combinations (cockpit, sunbed, helmsman’s seat): 7 x 7 x 7 = 343
Furniture x floors x cupboard fronts x kitchen worktop x upholstery: 3 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 30 = 2160
When calculating the product of the above I end up with the mind-boggling figure of 74 088 000 000 000 combinations, or in other words seventy-four trillion, eighty-eight billion combinations.
