It takes a very brave professional to admit they are wrong.
But after 55 years in practice delivering over 7300 projects the multiple award winning yacht design, engineering and naval architect studio, Vripack have admitted that on one occasion they have been so.
The story however is far happier than it is sinister, because as a result of their doubts a brand new fully patented hull design is about to be launched on to the market.
The strange story behind this revolutionary new hull design began when the returning customer and experienced Captain Jaap de Bruijn called at the designer’s studio at Sneek, in The Netherlands. He came with an idea for a more stable hull capable of operating in heavy weather.
Peter Bouma, Naval Architect at Vripack remembers the visit well: “Basically what he told us couldn’t work. At first we didn’t believe him at all. No formula’s, algorithms or white papers supported anything that he claimed.”
Captain Jaap however is a strong minded as any Dutch Captain can be and driven by his passion for performance and comfort he tirelessly worked on the optimisation of the hull of his ship.
Literally cutting the shell and re-shaping her, over and over again for nearly a decade he created the new hull design. By trial and error he made off-book discoveries and each time shared them with Vripack’s naval architects who verified and checked his discoveries.
With those off-book findings and close cooperation with Vripack they eventually formed the basis for what is now a patented design known as the Radical Slide Hull.
After hundreds of hours of research, sea trials and empirical comfort studies working with Captain Jaap and his associate Ruud Lievaart, Vripack have managed to capture the essence of what they call the Slide Hull and have improved it even further with some 15% efficiency at fast displacement speeds.
The new hull is specifically designed for fast displacement hull speeds particularly for vessels with a large variation in loads and SC Amethyst is the first vessel to be equipped with the Slide Hull.
Operating in gale force winds taking seasoned pilots out to sea, everyone was amassed by the soft ride on board regardless of the fact that we were doing 25 knots in 2,5 metre significant wave heights.
The comfort experienced on board is described by her crew is “Like riding on cushions.” The damping in waves is beyond unique and thus prevents sea sickness. Next to that indeed the fuel consumption of the Slide Hull outperforms any other vessel in her class, SC Amethyst uses just 180 litres at a cruising speed of 21 knots which is really low for a 45-ton-ship. The lines are placed such, that when the vessel picks up speed the water flows in a way that resembles how you go down a slide, hence the name.
Thanks to the Slide Hull we outperform all other competitors in this field”, Peter Bouma smiles proudly.
Vripack reports that currently two more vessels with Slide Hulls are under construction
Established in 1961, Vripack is a full service yacht design, naval architecture and engineering studio that focuses on realising better ships in less time for private customers and yards world-wide.