Baltic Yachts’ Palma-based team has a proven ability to manage complex, large-scale projects. ‘A few years back we did a completely new interior for a Magnum 70 powerboat,’ Lester says. ‘It was manufactured up in Finland, sent down here and we did the full installation on site. We are constantly asking for small, medium and large things to be made in Finland and sent here for us to install. But we also make components here in our workshop almost every day. And it works both ways. When we have extra manpower here and they need help up there, we send our people to Finland.’ Adjustments to interior and exterior woodwork are a major part of the team’s work. ‘We converted a nav station into a bar recently,’ Lester says. ‘That was a good collaboration. Finland produced the cabinet and it was shipped down here, but because of the access size it was delivered in many pieces; we put it together on site and did the final fitting. Because we have such a good resource up north I don’t currently see us producing large cabinets here, but I do have carpenters with the skills do it.’ Composite expertise is of course one of Baltic Yachts’ great strengths, in Palma as well as in Pietersaari. ‘We have in-house structural knowledge that we can very quickly apply in the middle of a job if need be,’ Lester says. ‘Our composite guys are like fine carpenters, their work is
Top right and above: Baltic Yachts’ service and refit
operation is strategically located in and around the STP shipyard in the heart of Palma. The primary workshop is in the Global Building, the warehouse is in the North Dock building and the main office is just outside the port entrance, with further facilities on the outskirts of the city. Top: Baltic Yachts is now making its own high-spec hatches in carbon and glass or teak. Flax fibre versions will also soon be available
a piece of art when it’s done, and it’s fully engineered with very close tolerances. They don’t necessarily need to have a full drawing, they just know what to do when they have something in front of them. Their work just sometimes gets overlooked because it gets painted over.’ Baltic Yachts’ composite know- how extends beyond carbon fibre, into the realm of alternative materials. ‘Back in the day there was advantage in using Kevlar in our hulls, now we see an advantage in using flax in different parts of the boat because it helps to absorb ambient noise,’ Lester says. ‘There’s a lot of that knowledge trickling through the company.’ One of their recent composite innovations is a new range of deck hatches, built in carbon fibre with glass or teak, and soon to be joined by a flax fibre variant. ‘We developed them after years of frustration, of not being able to get a good enough hatch,’ Lester says. ‘I saw a lot of that myself on the service side. We’re working with our colleagues in Finland and putting together packages for boats down here that are looking at replacing their hatches. When you change hatches you inevitably need to change some things on the carpentry side and alter the teak deck so we’re offering an inclusive deal.’
Future-proofing of older yachts is a significant part of the Palma team’s work. ‘The biggest trend right now is people buying secondhand boats and then wanting them to be reliable,’ Lester explains. ‘They want to be able to escape, to know that they can just go if they feel the need. We’re seeing that a lot.’
The innovation coming out of Baltic Yachts’ HQ in Finland stands the Palma team in good stead. ‘We know what’s coming out in new builds and that gives us an advantage,’ Lester says. ‘It means we can apply the engineering that
has already been done on new builds to some of the older boats. A big shift to high voltage is happening in the industry and we’ve pushed one of our older boats from a conventional 24-volt system into a high-voltage system. The owner doesn’t really motor anywhere, he always sails the boat so he didn’t see the benefit in changing the propulsion. Where he sees the benefit is not running the diesel generators that often. So we upgraded the generators and switched out the entire battery system for a high-voltage battery bank. They can now run the generators for two hours and then operate on batteries for 12 hours.’ Another current trend is upgrading air conditioning systems, which have become much smaller and far more efficient in the last few years. ‘We see it as a great way to reclaim space inside engine rooms,’ Lester says. ‘The old units were the size of a pallet. The new ones are the size of a desktop computer and the weight is almost nothing. We have a project right now where we’ll be able to fit a sewage treatment plant as well as a new AC system in the same footprint of the old AC system, and in eco mode you can extend the quiet times on the vessel considerably.’ There is also a lot of interest in drive leg upgrades, from owners who see the obvious benefit in being able to regenerate electrical power via the propeller on ocean crossings. ‘Switching to 48V means you can sail across the Atlantic and not have to worry about how much diesel you are going to burn because you can regenerate the whole way,’ Lester explains. ‘After the recent installs on new builds that we’ve been doing in Finland, we are now looking at possibly offering a simple turn-key solution for 90ft to 110ft yachts. We haven’t put it together in a package just yet but we have all the knowledge to do that.’
www.balticyachts.fi
q SEAHORSE 75
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124
