56ft Lift Keel Fast Cruiser
This 56ft lift keel performance cruiser has been designed for a newly retired couple, who were looking for more volume and faster passage making than their 25 year old current 45ft yacht could offer. With the aims of sailing the ARC race, cruising the Caribbean, and an open mind thereafter, the couple wanted a yacht that would provide a fast, stable and reliable platform for their travels, and would cope with a variety of conditions and functions.
After 18 months of researching and planning, the couple engaged Stimson Yachts to design their ideal yacht. She is now in build at MB Yachts in the UK and is due to launch in mid 2012.
With a lightship displacement of 18 tonnes, and full load at 24 tonnes, she offers healthy performance for the longer passages. Her generous mast head cutter sailplan and high stability allows her to comfortably reach a 10 knots cruising speed in 10kn of wind and getting in to the mid-teens easily.
The lift keel will provide both performance on long passages (with a 3.4m draft and 4.5 tonne bulb), as well as shallow cruising and anchorage in the Bahamas and South American estuaries (draft with the keel raised is only 1.4m). Again, considering long ocean passages, where self-sufficiency is at the fore, we specified twin engines/shafts for redundancy, which also offer reduced draft when beached.
As well as exceptional directional control underway, the twin rudders in conjunction with the keel form a tripod for drying. To ensure flow onto the rudders from the twin engine/props was not disturbed, we employed CFD to investigate the flow and locate the components accordingly.
We conceived a primary structure out of Hi-Panels*, built upon a strip-plank timber canoe body. The concept is not reliant upon interior furniture for structural support, which gives the clients the most flexibility during the fit out stage.
The yard estimate the build hours to assemble the primary structure to primer stage, using the Hi-Panel method, to be less than 40% of conventional male former method – both saving labour costs and speeding up the time to water for our client. With a Hi-Panel kit costing approx 35% more than the raw materials, it really stacks up! Pictures of the build as it progresses can be found here...
* The Hi-Panel construction method from SP-High Modulus allows builders to build composite components more quickly and efficiently, and with less up-front investment than require for moulds. The flat epoxy or vinyl ester infused sandwich panels can be supplied up to 9 x 2m in size, with all shapes routed and labeled, held in place with tabs for ease of shipping. In this case we have combined traditional timber hull bottom with Hi-Panel decks and primary struture.