Professional BoatBuilder - February-March 2018

10 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

Compiled by Dan Spurr

ROVINGS

RAFNAR (BOTH)

Engineers, designers, and assorted

freethinkers abhor the notion implied

by the aphorism “ ere’s nothing new

under the sun.” If it were true, techno-

logical progress would come to a

standstill and they would have nothing

to do. In the boating world, this seem-

ingly boundless creativity is well illus-

trated—sometimes brilliantly, some-

times fatally—by various gizmos and

gadgets...boat cleaners, hooks, and

anchors come to mind. So, too, with

hullforms. In these pages, we have

examined numerous innovations (the

word does not necessarily imply suc-

cess), from the Hickman Sea Sled to

Harry Schoell’s DeltaConic, which found its way into pro-

duction with companies such as Larson, to Chris Rickborn’s

patent for an Ellipsoidal V-Hull (see Professional BoatBuilder

No. 166), which to date has been demonstrated only in a

prototype. Fortunately for all of us who are fascinated by

boat design, the pursuit of new superior forms is never-

ending.

Enter the ÖK Hull. From Iceland no less.

 e inventor is Össur Kristinsson, who established himself

in the 1970s as a leader in prosthetics and orthotics, surely a

science that intelligently marries form and function. He has

also been an active shareholder in a company (Hafmynd ehf,

now Teledyne Gavia ehf ) that designs and manufactures

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). In 2005 Kristins-

son founded the company Rafnar to design and construct a

series of boats with his now-patented hullform; the  rst boats

out the door were in 2015. In 2017 Kris-

tinsson demonstrated the hullform’s

qualities at the Fort Lauderdale Inter-

national Boat Show. Assisting in that

introduction was Patrick Estebe of

A airaction Corp., who gave a positive

report, saying that “anyone experienc-

ing the Rafnar revolutionary ride”

becomes an enthusiastic believer in the

ÖK Hull.

 e abstract for Kristinsson’s U.S.

patent no. 8,726,823 reads: “A boat hull

form includes a dual circular curved

outer surface area that is circular

Is the ÖK

Hull Okay,

or Great?

To demonstrate the seaworthiness of the ÖK Hull, a team from its builder, Rafnar, took an

11m (36') RIB 1,307 nm, from Iceland to Norway and Sweden, averaging 26.3 knots.

The several models are built at Rafnar

shipyard’s modern 60,256-sq-ft (5,600 m^2 )

facility in Reykjavik, Iceland. Hulls are

composite with Hypalon tubes.

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