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The Superyacht of the Future?

Blohm + Voss teams with Iraqi-born designer to plan 420-foot concept called Jazz.

We know, we know — we’re not sure how to describe it, either.

This 420-foot concept superyacht from German builder Blohm + Voss, working in partnership with Iraqi-born designer Dame Zaha Hadid out of Britain, has been described as everything from skeletal to a bird’s nest. For some reason we see a spider’s web, or maybe a lump of linguine. But we are looking, as are a lot of other people, wondering which of the world’s billionaires might want to make Jazz a reality.

Zaha Hadid may not be a well-known name in yachting circles, but she is the brains behind the Aquatic Centre that was built for the London Olympics (and whose roof looks, from some angles, like a massive stingray) as well as the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, Scotland (whose roof looks, from pretty much all angles, like a giant metal Slip ’n Slide).

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The designer obviously has a penchant for bird’s-eye views unlike any other and sees no reason to stick with the standard sundeck featuring hot tub and wet bar in envisioning her first superyacht from a helicopter’s vantage point.

The 420-foot design is a model for five additional, 295-foot designs that are similar in style to the prototype. Blohm + Voss of course brings serious yachting pedigree to the project, being the shipyard that launched everything from the 536-foot Eclipse to the 394-foot A.

And here we thought A was hard to describe when we first saw her launch in 2008. Apparently, the past five years have led some designers to truly think space age.

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Photos courtesy of Blohm and Voss. Learn more at www.blohmvoss.com.

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