Performance legacy
Over the years the builders of Grand Soleil yachts have repeatedly been forced to enlarge their trophy cabinet... and that performance heritage still flows through their current – and expanding – selection of racer-cruisers The new
Italian yard Cantiere del Pardo have been blending performance, luxury and contemporary style in their Grand Soleil range for 45 years. With the new Grand Soleil 48 the yard aims to raise the racer-cruiser bar to a whole new level d. ‘Made in Italy’. Those three words can conjure up images of immaculately tailored suits and exquisitely engineered cars, of Pavarotti and Michelangelo, Sangiovese and bruschetta, the seemingly effortless elegance that is la dolce vita. Except, of course, it’s very far from effortless. The fine Italian thread running through the fabric of this nation is passion. Since its establishment in 1973, Cantiere del Pardo, based a few kilometres inland of Rimini, has been harnessing this emotional obsession with perfection and in the new Grand Soleil 48 it finds its latest, and perhaps most complete, expression.
She was drawn by the yard’s own design maestro Marco Lostuzzi, the third boat he has designed for Grand Soleil, and he worked closely with Milan-based Nauta Design on the styling. ‘The brief was to design a racer/cruiser that could be prepared for a racing customer or for a cruising one,’ says Lostuzzi, whose design philosophy is deceptively simple.
‘I design boats that are enjoyable and easy to sail. To achieve this I focus on the balance between sail area, displacement and stability.
64 SEAHORSE
The mix has to be powerful, but not extreme. My first consideration was displacement. For a racing boat it has to be medium or light. At the same time, on a performance cruiser the weight is increased by the long list of optional extras that today’s customer wants onboard. It was difficult to determine the ideal displacement – and consequently the right volume and shape of the hull – to balance performance and comfort. Ultimately I went for a medium-light displacement and then employed various design strategies to deliver a boat that can be both raced and cruised.’ One of those strategies resulted in the Grand Soleil 48 becoming the only production yacht to offer a choice of two cockpit layouts, but more on that later.
‘We worked with
Fluid4Engineering, a specialist CFD consultant here in Italy, to optimise the hull and appendages,’ adds Lostuzzi. ‘They were able to analyse many different hull and appendage options and combinations in various heel, trim and speed conditions, and the resulting forces and moments of each one.
‘As well as CFD, we used FEA analysis tools to improve the structural rigidity and to save weight in all the composite parts of the boat. The key stage in the design process was comparing the results of the CFD analysis and the VPP to find the best hull shape for our target wind range. This was
Grand Soleil 48 slots in neatly above the widely successful GS43 which has proved a consistently strong
performer on the race course under both IRC and ORC rating systems. Given how hard many Grand Soleil yachts are optimised and then campaigned for events like the classic IRC ocean races and the bigger ORC events in the Med and Adriatic, the option of an all carbon rig package was always going to be a part of the mix
fundamental to achieving the all-round performance we wanted. ‘The hull we chose has narrow entry lines at the bow, with round underwater sections and vertical hull sides. Moving aft the rocker becomes progressively flatter with flared hull sides at the stern. The freeboard and beam are generous, especially at the stern, to provide the volume needed for the cruising aspect of the brief. We went for a single rudder, placed quite well forward so that it’s always fully immersed, because the waterline beam of the aft sections is not wide enough to need twin rudders.’ The two-channel brief must have thrown up a lot of decisions during the design process. Did Lostuzzi and his team make many changes? ‘No, mostly refinements,’ he replies. ‘For instance, the volume was a bit too full in the stern so we moved the centre of volume forward a bit compared with the original design. Another refinement emerged when, together with Nauta Design, we built a full-scale mock-up of the interior at Cantiere del Pardo. After exploring the space we decided to increase the freeboard aft by 3cm to get more room above the two aft cabin berths. This meant we could put the headboards aft, which makes the berths easier to use. We were careful to check how this affected the lines of the hull, but it didn’t change the aesthetics.’ How is this multi-purpose hull
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