Design
When upscaling works W
Southern Wind Shipyard has been developing and evolving its own innovative construction techniques over the last 20 years, with 42 boats built (and counting) since the turn of the millennium…
hat happens when the
forensically detailed weight study for a grand prix racing yacht is scaled up and applied with equal
rigour to a 100ft superyacht? You get a spreadsheet with more than 900 rows and 140 columns, with about 2,700 cells of live data that update in real time as the boat is designed, engineered and built, fitted out and rigged. Most superyacht builders don’t actually go to that level of detail in weight calculations, but at Southern Wind Shipyard they do. In the last 20 years, Southern Wind has
built many more composite sailing yachts in the 100ft (30m) size bracket than anyone else. With 42 boats launched since the turn of the millennium, all between 27m and 35m LOA, and every
80 SEAHORSE
small detail from each of these projects meticulously logged, it all adds up to a vast quantity of data and a huge amount of boatbuilding experience. ‘We probably have the biggest library
of weight calculations in our segment of the industry,’ says Marco Alberti, CEO of Southern Wind. If I select the SW96 Nyumba, for example and type in “galley basin”, it tells me the weight, the model, the location coordinates and the moment it generates longitudinally, transversally and vertically.’ ‘An equivalent weight record for a raceboat won’t have anywhere near as much data because it has far fewer components,’ Alberti explains. ‘For us every tap, every battery, every drawer handle has to be recorded. And unlike a racing yacht build we also need to
consider different loading scenarios. Trim has to be calculated at full sailing displacement and half load displacement as well as light ship displacement.’ The upshot is that despite the immense
complexity of a Southern Wind yacht, the difference between its design weight and its actual displacement is around one per cent. And the huge library of weight calculations, from so many boats in the same size range, allows their design office to be very accurate in its estimates for future builds. That’s just one of many reasons why Southern Wind has earned its first class reputation as a yacht builder. Another key factor is the exceptional quality of its composite construction. Over the last two decades the Southern Wind lamination team, led by composite
SOUTHERN WIND
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