Luiz de Basto sees himself as a creative type in a world of compliance officers. When he designed the Top Deck 51 as the second model in the Astondoa line (after the 63), he took incoming fire at conference tables. “They came up with all these problems about stability and flooding, and I was able to resolve those issues one by one,” he says. “It’s very stable. It’s watertight. It’s as safe as any other boat.”
The design element that caused so much concern was the 51’s teak-sole salon, which, as shown in the rendering below, becomes like a combination indoor sitting area and outdoor beach club at water level when the yacht is at anchor. Of course, owners can’t have the boat’s salon open underway, and the builder may put alarms on the engines to ensure just that. But the 51 is not meant for long-range cruising anyway. She’s designed to be a large day boat, at sea or on large lakes in Europe and the United States.
“The salon makes it really special,” de Basto says. “We have two slide-in doors, and they slide all the way forward. Then the bulwarks go out 90 degrees so they are fully flat with the salon. There is no gap there. Not even a finger or a foot of a child could be put there. It’s an extension of the existing deck when the bulwarks are lowered.”