The 33,5m ZEMI is an all-carbon cruising yacht custom developed for a highly experienced and knowledgeable owning family and is designed for long distance global voyaging.

Andreas Martin-Löf Arkitekter has been responsible for the interior design and the exterior styling. Together with the boat’s naval architect, Malcolm McKeon, and later with Baltic Yachts, in the course of three years, the project developed from a design brief and an empty sheet of paper to completed reality.

A sailing yacht of this type is an extraordinarily complex vessel in which the interior features can almost be fully dismantled, and which is made entirely of light-weight materials. Given this aspect, AML Arkitekter had a strong will to create a sense of permanence, calm, and craft excellence.

By creating carefully chosen levels inside the boat with user-friendly stairs rather than steep ladders and a superstructure with its own expressive features – a giant skylight together with a panorama window, we have achieved an open feeling not just inside the boat but also between saloon and cockpit that benefits flow and a natural type of life on board in which guests and crew can both interact but also enjoy privacy. The deep window recesses in the saloon serve, for example, as daytime bunks for reading or contemplation while also creating an extraordinary open quality in the wide saloon with its low placement. The large table in the saloon is both a dining table and a workplace for distance working. While a generous TV-snug, creates yet a further sense of space as well as allowing dual use of space beneath the deck for a variety of indoor activities to take place at the same time.

The palette onboard is minimal yet crafted with a combination of walnut wood, limestone, bronze metals, flatweave textile carpets, painted walls on the inside of the hull, textile padded surfaces. The numerous sofas throughout the boat are upholstered in bouclé fabrics and have been given a bold look with seats that are upholstered almost down to the floor. Round corners and varying backrests give the saloon a soft and inviting impression. In the evening, four corner cupboards with doors made of walnut ribs and backlit rice paper transform the saloon from a model of Scandinavian simplicity to an almost Caribbean mystery as the light is filtered through the lamp-like screen doors.

The far from ordinary cockpit with its low, symmetrical design, is intended to provide a versatile and relaxed – almost Bohemian – life on board. Two folding adjustable tables provide 5 different table configurations with room for 15 to 20 people. The tables can also be lowered to provide sunbeds. Astern there are also further fixed sunbeds which are strategically positioned close to the highly advanced hydraulic beach-club. When this is lowered it is not only a good place for taking a dip but also, thanks to the two carefully sculpted steps, the obvious entrance to the boat for people arriving from the yacht’s tender.

The Zemi sculpture on board is supposed to have magical powers and to link up heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, as well as each other and our own ancestors. The name Zemi also reminds us of the fact that the yacht represents a step in the direction of more environmentally sound sailing round the world as the boat is equipped with the most modern battery-pack on the market, fully electrical propulsion and the possibility of charging the batteries with the help of water power while one sails on the journey towards zero emissions.

Status: Completed 2023
Length: 33,5 m
Client: Private
Shipyard: Baltic Yachts
Budget: Undisclosed
Photography: Kristofer Johnsson