Capable of:
- Providing a comfortable user-friendly environment both in port and at sea, a boat that fulfils the expectations of being a floating home. Built for women as well as men.
- Going everywhere that a metre of water will take us. In all weathers and climates.
- Being easy to sail single-handed by a competent person of little strength.
- Hosting up to 4 guests for short stays.
- Able to stay away from port for 3 months or more, having a sufficient supply of energy and storage capacity to achieve this.
- Designed and built to last 50 years with appropriate maintenance and replacement schedules.
- Be environmentally friendly and meet the highest qualifying standards of the world.
This criteria suggests the following about the boat:
- Keeping it simple. Simplicity of operation through out.
- Using technology to replace the need to use human strength.
- All parts to have an acknowledged life and a supporting maintenance program.
- A composite hull system that provides strength, insulation, 50 year life and does not require internal bulkheads and fixtures to achieve that strength.
- Removable interiors, allowing the boat to be stripped out completely. Much as you can do currently with cars and airplanes
- Access to all parts of the boat and all systems for the purpose of maintenance.
- Shallow draft, ideally one metre, making the shallow waters of the world accessible; probably a ballasted lifting keel.
- Mono hull with wide beam to provide volume inside and stability at sea. “What about catamarans??” you may say. I know, I love cats as well, but they have to be very big to offer the load carrying capacity that most modern couples bring with them when they call somewhere “home”.
- Length 12 to 15 metres (40 to 50 feet).
- Deck house / raised saloon that will be the focal point of living on the boat.
- Lots of hatches to allow easy access, ventilation and storage.
- All functions including sail adjustments capable of being operated from inside the boat.
Your doubting voice may at this point be shouting, “That is all very well but you have to compromise and remember this is a ‘yacht’…” To which, I’d like to point to airplanes and vehicles as examples of the above. Planes especially have a challenging environment to operate in.
The Project:
Currently we are researching and attracting expressions of interest.
Do you want to contribute to the design process?
Do you want to investigate building your own sister ship?
Next year, 2009, we will embark on designing and building the first of our prototypes, documenting it as we go. Watch this space.
Some of the features of the production process will be:
We source ideas and products from all industries and don’t limit ourselves to the boat industry.
Only the hull would be built as a unique item, everything else will be sourced from already existing products and shipped to the production site.
Construction will be a system driven process that is documented and replicable.
With modern design technology (e.g. software), it is possible to build prototypes in various places around the world at the same time and benefit from the advantages of collaboration.
We are taking our time with this project realizing that quality design determines a quality result. We follow the Japanese lead with this, putting most of our effort in to the design and being in a position to build quickly and efficiently, with problems solved ahead of time. “Impossible,” you may be thinking, and I do agree it will take a different way of building boats than is commonly practiced.
Currently we are looking for expressions of interest, couples who wish to be part of a collaborative project to build their own state-of-the-art cruising home.
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