Design
Beyond beautiful
... but Southern Wind Shipyard’s glorious latest 100-foot sloop Morgana is blooming fast too
Above: the Reichel/Pugh designed Morgana shows just how well Southern
Windʼs ability to create world class semi-custom yachts can be translated into cutting- edge full custom
Some sailors’ lifetime goal is to cruise around the world. Others have a burning ambition to win the world’s major regattas. If you want to do both at the same time, you’re going to need a very special yacht indeed. That was the ambitious design brief for Morgana, the latest 100ft high- performance superyacht built in Cape Town by Southern Wind Shipyard. Launched on 18 October 2020, Morgana was handed over to her skipper and delivery crew just six weeks later and completed her 6,863-mile maiden voyage from South Africa to La Spezia, Italy in a creditable 30 days at an average speed of 10 knots. A top speed during that passage of 26.4 knots, logged while sailing downwind with a double-reefed mainsail and staysail, gives some insight into her potential. Southern Wind is well known for
its semi-custom blue water cruiser- racers which are available as platform builds in three sizes, from 30m (96ft) to 36m (120ft) LOA with a wide range of deck plan, superstructure and
70 SEAHORSE
interior options. However, the shipyard also takes on what it likes to call ‘smart custom’ build projects, which challenge the team to deliver innovative hi-tech one-off yachts like Morgana while maintaining the reliability and quality for which Southern Wind is renowned. Convention has it that racing yachts are designed from the outside in – starting with the ideal shape then figuring out how best to engineer it and how to use the internal space – whereas cruising yachts are designed from the inside out, starting with a set of key interior parameters like the size and number of cabins, the required amount of headroom and so on, and then drawing a suitable hull to carry it all. Morgana breaks that convention. The project started back in 2017 when the owner, an experienced yachtsman with a strong racing background whose previous yachts have included a notable mini-maxi of the same name, approached Nauta Design with a concept and sailing
superyacht build projects while still retaining the reliability of their regular output. Left: the transom garage holds a decent-size RIB tender with space to spare. The crewʼs quarters are also in the stern with separate access via the aft deck
programme for his next yacht. ‘The owner was particularly keen on three aspects of the project,’ Nauta boss Mario Pedol explains. ‘Functionality for safe and comfortable navigation, performance to enjoy racing in the most famous superyacht regattas, and sexy, appealing design to give a modern, aggressive and sporty look.’ ‘Morgana represents the latest expression of Nauta’s key milestone in sailing yacht design: to combine top performance, liveability and striking aesthetics. Achieving a perfect balance between these three ingredients, which for us are fundamental, involved not less than 3,000 hours from the initial design concept to the smallest detail of the interior and deck design.’
The interior design, deck plan and exterior styling were developed to a large extent before the yacht’s naval architect and builder were selected. In due course, Reichel/Pugh was chosen to draw the hull shape and sailplan on the strength of its success and experience in designing both pure maxi racing yachts and dual-purpose superyachts. Southern Wind Shipyard was selected to build the yacht due to its strong track record of producing widely admired yachts of a similar size and style. These were logical choices as the three companies had collaborated successfully before, most recently in the creation of Allsmoke, a full custom 90-footer whose exceptional sailing performance has delivered some convincing results at events like the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup. To
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