Le Grand Bleu story, Stefano Pastrovich
Claus Kusch has been one of the most relevant Yacht manager & builder that I met in my professional life. At that time I was employed by M.Francis and I was involved in the design of Senses, at the really beginning of my carrier. Claus was the Yacht manager.
After some time working together Claus asked M.Francis if I could go to Germany in order to design a new vessel with characteristics similar to Senses, but longer, 104 meters. Martin agreed and I went to Germany. I did a preliminary general arrangement by hand with pencil and ruler, …..portable computer were not so common at that time…After five days of work in Germany, the profile and a preliminary General Arrangement was agreed. Then Claus flew to meet with the client and he sold the project I had designed.
You can imagine the joy I had, little young architect, when this happened.
Two months after my drawing was scaled up and given to all the engineers, interior architects, window builder, etc. and it was said to built the vessel in 14th months. I was asked to design the exterior details so I flew every week during one year from France to Germany in order to work at the shipyard, Vulkan. LGB was then delivered and today my feeling is very strange about her: Hate and love. I love her because she was part of my life, I hate because I would have liked to better design some features and I couldn’t because Claus had sold the project like it was drawn during the first five days.
…very few people know the real story of LGB….very few people has known that year passed at Vulkan, all behind Claus to do this extraordinary vessel. Very few people today can say that I have been the designer. The only thing I can say is that during the early stage of my working life, I met one great man, Claus and a great designer Martin Francis that trusted me in what I was doing and gave me the possibility to work hard since the beginning of my professional life.
Thanks to these past time and thanks to other experiences I can say that today is not so relevant that all people know that LGB come from my pencil. What is important is to work with a fresh spirit and be proud of people working with me.
This few words are dedicated to Claus that today can watch me from the sky, and can see this little man grown and become a Yacht Architect.
Thank you,
Stefano Pastrovich
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