East Tamaki business Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders has launched two custom-built boats: an 18m luxury motor yacht and a 24m luxury sailing yacht.
From the pen of Auckland-based designer Dennis Harjamaa of Artnautica Yacht Design, the 18m boat was built for a New Zealand client and was launched at Half Moon Bay Marina.
The client’s design brief was to build a stable, efficient, high-speed planing monohull, set up for offshore game fishing as well as long-distance passage-making.
To achieve this, the boat was built using carbon-fibre.
Building in carbon has meant weight was kept to a minimum, which in turn allowed for the use of efficient Volvo Penta Engines with IPS [Integrated Propulsion System] drives.
The power output from these engines is substantially below that of what would be found on similar sized 18m sport fisher boats yet still produces a top speed over 30 knots (55 km/h) and a cruise of around 26 knots (48 km/h) while maintaining “very good fuel efficiency”.
Matuku’s owner was involved in her design and construction.
Project team leader Gareth Curd says having the owner involved in every step of the way was advantageous. “This has totally played into our strengths as custom boat builders,” Curd says.
“It means we have been able to include many of the small design changes and personal touches our client wanted as we have gone along.”
The 24m luxury sailing yacht, dubbed Wind Spirit, is a fractionally rigged ketch with two deck-stepped carbon masts, twin helms and the hull that is an “engineering masterpiece: taking advantage of both Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders traditional wood construction experience and their composite expertise”.
Constructed of six layers of cold moulded, longitudinal and diagonal planked yellow cedar, with an outer skin of e-glass and Kevlar, a one-metre-long sacrificial bow section allows her to stay watertight and be easily repaired if an unforeseen collision were to occur.
Lloyd Stevenson says that one of the overriding design criteria for Wind Spirit was for it to be as self-supporting as possible. To this end, some of the power generation will be supplied by solar panels and a pair of hydro generators.
These electricity generators utilise the motion of the boat through the water to charge a large bank of batteries, making a dedicated genset unnecessary.
Wind Spirit’s launch at Half Moon Bay Marina is expected to be next week.
