AMSTERDAM – Each Royal Huisman launch is an eye-popping event. Tugs guide large vessels down rivers lacing green farmlands and past Amsterdam’s urban ferries. The latest was the transfer of the 46.8m (154ft) high-performance, sloop-rigged Nilaya from Royal Huisman’s inland build site to its deepwater location in the Dutch capital. There, the tall rig was installed.
The Nilaya is the first yacht Royal Huisman built with its new ‘featherlight’ design, a production method that the yard says can generate weight savings of up to 15%. It sees ample marketing opportunities for its ‘featherlight’ construction technique that uses Finite Element Analysis, a design methodology rooted in spacecraft technology.
Royal Huisman worked with the Reichel/Pugh and Nauta Design design companies on Nilaya’s exterior and interior, respectively.
The ‘featherlight’ technology involves continuous weight monitoring during the build process. This reduces weight without sacrificing stiffness or cutting corners on quality through various weight-saving solutions and selecting multiple construction materials.
On the Nilaya, Royal Huisman used varied Alustar aluminum plate thicknesses and frame spacing to maximize hull stiffness while minimizing total displacement. It extended the weight-saving search to lighting, insulation, mechanical systems and the interior. All interior structural members contain lightweight foam coring.
Benefiting from the carbon fiber expertise of its sister company Rondal, Royal Huisman analyzed and predicted which structural components would be best made of composites or aluminum.
Nilaya has a coach roof and cockpit cover that is 17.5m (57ft) long and made of one piece of carbon. A recessed foredeck tender well (that transforms into a seating area for cruising or a flush deck for racing) is also made of carbon composite, as are a watertight bulkhead, the crew entrance, twin rudders, the keel trunk and a cockpit bimini hardtop.
For any high-performance cruiser, a carbon fiber mast, boom, and standing rigging are critical to keeping weight as low and centered as possible for optimal balance. Nilaya is the first yacht of this size range equipped with a “structured luff sail design” pioneered by Doyle Sails, which made the entire Rondal rig lighter. Rondal also supplied a new generation hybrid (carbon-aluminum) captive winches, hatches and sail handling gear. Most deck hardware is made of titanium
Royal Huisman CEO Jan Timmerman says the innovation that went into the construction of Nilaya “paves the way to use this bold new approach for future builds. I am proud of the investment we have made in advanced engineering and of the way teams from Royal Huisman, and Rondal advanced new solutions.”
