http://www.boatinternational.com | July 2018again; it was like a puzzle. We added stainless steel overhead, added
the lighting underneath. They had to do electricity, wood, metal,
leather, bringing all the trades in this tiny spot.”
And it all had to be done in a compressed time period. After the first
meeting – “a long day in Oss,” as Cardenas describes it – there followed
two months of negotiating and drawing and four months of work.
“It was extremely quick,” Radyca’s lead designer says.
To the credit of the builders, by AugustLaurentiawas on her way.
“It demonstrates the flexibility of the yard to be able to react in a quick
manner and give the owner what he’s looking for,” says Thom Conboy,
Heesen’s director of sales for North America. “It’s not ideal for the
yard; the ideal situation is to have the boat sold a year or more before
delivery so the client still gets all personalisation.” But the silver lining
is that Heesen got two 55 metre yachts sold within a few weeks –
Project Alida’s former owner decided to buy a later hull to have more
breathing room in the construction schedule. “It was luck and great
timing,” Conboy says.
What made this possible is that Heesen does nearly all of its own
yacht interiors from two large furniture shops, including one of site
near the German border, enabling the yard to keep control over its
usually aggressive production schedule.
Her unconventional story, and an interior by a design firm with a
track record as impressive as its public profile is low, madeLaurentia
intriguing but she proved elusive. It was the end of the Caribbean
season by the time I caught up withLaurentiaand her crew of 13 in
St Lucia’s Marigot Bay. The yacht was easy to spot against the
backdrop of the emerald bay and a colourful local flotilla of fishing
and excursion craft.
While resort dwellers craned their necks for a better look of the very
private beauty from the nearby Capella resort, the crew was in full
prep mode for the imminent trek north-west to Bermuda, then across
to the Azores, Gibraltar and eventually to southern France.
The captain had already broughtLaurentiaacross the Atlantic
and was looking forward to his “20th or so” transatlantic journey.
“She is designed for long-distance cruising,” he says. “She is very
comfortable, very stable.”
The naval architecture is by Van Oossanen, which made use of its
patented Fast Displacement Hull Form. The 55 metre series is the first
application of this hull to a full displacement yacht. “A traditional full
displacement hull, while eicient at cruising speed, becomes very
ineicient at hull speed,” Perry van Oossanen says. “When we tried
the fast displacement hull, we discovered we could extend the top
speed a bit without stretching the engines too much.”
This hull form resulted from an extensive parametric study that
used computational fluid dynamics (CFD), this time “aimed more at
eicient cruising than a high maximum speed”. Besides eiciency and
low resistance, the studies also focused on comfort, especially roll at
anchor. The yacht has large fins by Naiad, installed forward of centre,
but Van Oossanen prefers not to reveal the details of what makes the
hull so eicient. “There are some secrets of the trade in the fine tuning
of the round bilge displacement hull, the bow, how you distribute the
volume; it’s subtle diferences with big advantages,” he says.
Aside from fuel eiciency, there are other advantages to a slippery
hull powered by smaller engines. “Decreasing the engine power
comes with so many benefits – more space, less noise,” Van Oossanen
points out.
Below: a copper light fixture by
Donghia was custom fitted to
the redesigned staircase. Right:
the saloon reflects the spirit of a
yacht meant for relaxation