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In fact, he was happy with most things about the 115 when she faced her public for the first time at the autumn shows, and it was easy to see why. The four-cabin layout seems conventional enough on paper, but in the flesh it's refreshingly different. The first two things you notice are how large and unencumbered the saloon is, with no bulkheads to interrupt sightlines and the galley stashed below in the crew's area. The owner of our test boat met the artist Vittoria Vanghelis as she worked on some pieces for Norberto Ferretti, boss of Pershing's parent company, and commissioned her to do some of his own: a sculpted column for each side of the saloon and some colored panels in the deck head, which are subtle but distinctive. The whole area is light and bright, with limed oak joinery, cream carpets and headliners, and white leather upholstery; a pale scheme offset by great views out the windows and a set of colorful dining chairs.
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Head down past the port side of the helm, and a surprise awaits. Instead of a companionway leading down to the lower accommodations, you find a wholly unexpected extra space on its own deck level, which Pershing designers call the mezzanine. On our boat the area was fitted out with leather chairs and sofas, a sound system, and a huge plasma TV, making it a perfect entertainment suite. It could be equally well fitted out as an office, den, crew mess—you name it, Pershing's design team will be happy to comply.
The owner's suite is directly below, a huge and well-organized space stretched across the full beam of the hull, between those tall topside windows. It is ingeniously designed around diagonals, with two MSD and shower compartments, a big chest of drawers and sideboard, a walk-in wardrobe, and a sofa, arranged unobtrusively around the edges while your eye is still marveling at the distance between the door and the farthest corner. It's like a magic trick. There is no sense at all that any of these has been allowed to rob an inch from the main cabin.
The principal guest suite in the bow also manages to seem huge. While the decorative themes in these areas echo those of the saloon, the two twin guest cabins between them were apparently styled by the owner's daughters, who decreed red leather upholstery and lots of it. It is certainly bold.
Nowhere in the accommodation areas aboard the 115 do you feel that space or volume has been compromised. The cabins are all generously sized and lack neither headroom nor stowage space. The four-berth, three-cabin crew quarters and galley area between the owner's suite and engine room are also well-proportioned, and the engine room itself is vast: deep and wide. Nothing short of a cathedral is ever going to make two MTU Series 4000 V-16s look small, but the engines have plenty of space around them, even with the gensets stacked in the middle. And in the aft section there is that domed pod, ready for the installation of a TF50 gas turbine and third jetdrive should a future owner ever feel the need.
Before I closed my notebook, I made one final discovery, up a hidden spiral companionway from the starboard side of the 115's cockpit: a secluded, recessed, rooftop sunpad that provides you with a completely private lounging area—unless, of course, you're moored next to something bigger. If you were to ask for an upper helm station to be installed, I'm sure Antonelli would be more than happy to listen.
After our test routines and handling trials in a calm Gulf of La Spezia and a 45-mile, high-speed cruise through steepening, quartering seas, we headed northwest by west to Genoa. It was while I was up here enjoying the view that I succumbed to the nagging temptation that had surfaced as we set out. As the 115's debonair French skipper eased his precious charge stern-first into the boat show's most awkward berth, I got out my calculator and started punching keys.
Just how many feet had we been traveling, at something like 40 knots, on each gallon? I checked and rechecked the sum, and then suppressed a guilty shudder: The answer was 692.
Still, I reflected—that's a lot better than the frigate.
Ferretti Group USA
(800) 695-5096
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This article originally appeared in the April 2005
issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
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