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Stylish (or what!)


The design studio behind the unbearably foxy Fast40 Rán 7 has teamed up with an Italian shipyard which is already legendary when it comes to good looks...


Is there a production monohull under 60ft LOA with a full cruising interior and all mod-cons that can match the pace and performance of a TP52? Not yet, but there probably will be. Paolo Semeraro, the former Olympian, America’s Cup sailor, master sailmaker and now owner-director of the Neo Yachts shipyard in Bari, Italy, is on a mission to make it happen. The design brief for the Neo 570, already in build and due to launch next year, reads like a yachtsman’s quest for the Holy Grail. It calls for a boat that can keep up with Quantum and Azzura on most points of sail and in any wind conditions but has shallow enough draught to get in and out of normal yacht harbours. Not only that, it must be competitive in both short-handed and fully crewed racing, yet easy enough to handle that an experienced amateur sailor can use it for family cruising. It must have a fully fitted interior, air conditioning, a big fridge-freezer, water maker, anchor-handling system and tender garage. Other requirements include RCD Category A (Ocean) certification and the ability to convert from cruising mode to stripped-out racer in few hours, removing some of the furniture, swapping a pinhead mainsail for a fathead one and a fixed backstay for a pair of runners, without a dedicated shore crew or special tools. It sounds like a flight of fancy but Semeraro has a track record


74 SEAHORSE


of achieving the almost impossible. ‘The story starts back in 2014 when I built a full carbon cruiser-racer 40-footer that could make high speeds (26kts recorded) and used it to win the Middle Sea Race,’ he says. ‘We elongated the prototype to make the Neo 400+, which is actually 42ft long and sold three of them. Last year we launched the Neo 350 and sold two of those, one of which was 5th overall in the 2019 ORCì World Championships just a week after her launch. On the delivery trip the same 350, with a full cruising interior, was already achieving 18kts of boatspeed in 18 kts of true wind. And now we have started the big-boat project, the Neo 570. The first boat has been sold already.’


When Semeraro approached Shaun Carkeek, head of Carkeek Design Partners, to design a 52ft racer-cruiser with similar performance and handicap to the latest TP52s, Carkeek said it was impossible. ‘So it became a 55-footer and then a 57, which is the minimum size if you want all the relevant systems onboard – and the maximum size for the handicap,’ Semeraro says.


His idea was to push the concept of a racer-cruiser to the absolute limit, building it entirely out of pre- preg carbon, including all interior doors and furniture. ‘We added a few things to enhance comfort onboard but the displacement and weight


Above:


can a yacht with so much accommoda- tion down below keep pace with a good TP52? Weʼre about to find out... The Neo 570 has been designed by Shaun Carkeek to do just that. No expense has been


spared on the build quality including full carbon hull tooling.


A great deal of effort has also been put into eliminating as much passive weight as possible, together, as youʼd expect, with careful attention being paid to weight


centralisation


distribution remain comparable to a pure race boat,’ he says. ‘That was not easy; we had to consider every single component.’


Why did he choose the Carkeek design office? ‘We wanted fresh ideas from a relatively new name. Shaun Carkeek is a young guy… but already with a proven track record and relevant experience,’ Semeraro says. ‘For example, I was impressed with the performance of his Fast 40 design, RAN and his track record in the Fast 40 class is excellent: every new boat has been significantly faster than the last one.’


Semeraro admits that it has been a demanding project. ‘It took a whole year just to define,’ he says. ‘We faced some significant “constructive discussions” with Carkeek, but the great thing about him is that he is unafraid to innovate. He is a man who fights for his ideas, for what he believes in – and that’s what we like. I am accustomed to being the one who wants to push the design to its limits, with others pulling me back. But in this project the designer and the owner of hull number one have been pushing even more. It’s been me who is applying the brakes. The owner is 35 years old, the designer is 45; at 57 I am the old guy.’ Why not build a 60-footer? ‘We didn’t because it would weigh three or four tons more and would not have the same weight/performance characteristics,’ Semeraro explains.


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