The new Elan’s maxi yacht will be designed by a dream team and officially unveiled at the next Cannes Yachting Festival in September but put on display only at Dusseldorf Boat Show from January 22nd.
For now, only three previews have been released: it will be a big 60/65 footer, it will be designed by a dream team made up of the best designers and technicians available today, and it will have superior performance. The names are: Pininfarina, Humphreys Yacht Design and Gurit.
Pininfarina design: from automotive to yachts
The most striking news is that Elan has chosen Pininfarina, the Italian company famous throughout the world for having designed many of the most beautiful cars in history for brands such as Ferrari, Lancia, Cisitalia, Maserati, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Bentley-Rolls Royce, Innocenti and Peugeot.
Just think of the shape reminiscent of a boat in the Alfa Romeo Duetto spider that became a worldwide legend thanks to the film “The Graduate” (photo above).
Pininfarina had already tried its hand at large-scale sailing yachts in the past with the French yard Beneteau, but the results were not exactly striking, as in the case of the aesthetically questionable First 45F5 and 53F5 (photo below).
The new Elan yacht will be faster even in poor wind
The second member of the dream tram is the English design studio Humphreys Yacht Design.
Humphreys has been designing all Elan yachts for decades but, this time, the project of a 60/65-footer allows the design studio to fully express its expertise. Humpreys Yacht Design is official designer of famous yachts like Oyster (photo below) and Southerly.
Tom Humphreys unveils some interesting details about the new Elan yacht: “Based on the Elan philosophy, this will be a fast cruiser offering the 60/60 formula, which is our aspiration with this type of yacht. For the unfamiliar, we mean that both the performance-conscious sailor and the cruising sailor will perceive the balance of the boat as 60/40 in their favour.”
With the new Elan, the Humphreys team has tried to push performance more in this design. By choosing a deeper standard draft and lighter construction, the design results in a ratio with less wetted surface area, with the hull shape achieving higher speeds with a reduced heel angle. The height of the sail plan is higher and the sail area increased, resulting in a higher ratio of sail area to displacement. According to Humphreys, all this will result in “a design that will allow the yacht to ‘turn on’ a little earlier in light winds expressing a higher speed potential, but still provide effortless sailing and fingertip control”.
More resistant and lighter thanks to technology
The third, less famous yet equally important, member of the dream team is Gurit, a pioneer in marine composite technology. It has been working with Elan since 2003, building all its boats in a vacuum using infusion technology, which saves weight and makes for a stiffer, lighter and more durable boat.
Gurit will bring to the new Elan all the composite technology it uses, for example in aeronautics in the construction of wind turbines, in order to make the new model technologically advanced. But above all, it will be lighter and stronger.
For further details, please visit: www.elan-yachts.com, www.adriaship.it
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