How does a 60-foot boat come into being? Find out about the new Ice 60 in the pipeline. VIDEO

We went to the Ice Yachts shipyard to see how the construction of the first example of the new Ice 60 is progressing, intrigued to see the birth of this 18-meter boat that promises to be one of the most interesting new products of 2017.

Because even for us, it is not so automatic to understand what the differences are between a mass-produced boat built on an assembly line and a boat, as all Ice boats are, that is instead made with very high technology, but with a sartorial approach. In short, the difference is that between a dress you buy already made and instead one that a tailor makes for you. Ice Yachts’ approach is that of the third-millennium nautical tailor: non plus ultra materials, exclusive design that follows today’s aesthetic standards without blending in with the mass, water lines that guarantee excellent performance according to today’s parameters, maxi interior and exterior volumes, and “custom made” level of construction and finishing. But then all these parameters, which define what is called a premium boat versus a large series boat, how do they translate into reality?

That’s why we went to the shipyard and had this amateur video shot that, in its simplicity, shows how a premium boat is born.

They didn’t show off because we were there filming them; they were simply doing their job, as they do every day. The shipyard’s team of craftsmen, as can be seen, works with “sartorial” care, for example, at the hull attachment of the carbon moorings as at the laying of the teak. What was also interesting about our visit was that we could see that everything originated there in Ice’s shed. And that is no small thing in an age when boats are often made in pieces, in different factories. Hull and deck perhaps molded in Poland in the name of offshoring, carpentry made hundreds of miles away, deck assembly ditto. Only at the end is the boat finished at the headquarters. This is what happens in many cases, but not in Ice where the entire processing cycle is in-house. As at Ferrari we might say, making an automotive comparison once again. This is Ice’s strength, that of controlling the entire processing cycle in house.

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And the result shows. As you can see with the naked eye that this is being born is a boat that does not betray what you can see from the renderings. The project by the Felci studio, one of the great names in global design and water lines, is a further evolution of its previous achievements. Even cleaner, essential, recognizable but with a “family feeling” that unites this new 60-footer with the successful ICE 33 and 52. A hull line where forcings, like the dry edge of some realizations in vogue today, is here muted, accompanied, mellowed. The result is one of great harmony, without excess.

The hull of this 60 to the naked eye is even more powerful, with fine bow sections and full stern sections guaranteeing racing boat-level performance at the highest level. An essential element in ensuring the performance promised by the software during computer simulation is for the boat to be as light and stiff as possible. This is where Ice’s “home made” process and the fine materials used intervene. The construction system is infusion, to reduce excessive use of resin, with hybrid glass and carbon fibers. All this translates into greater lightness. Carbon structures also laminated in place by infusion to have a single hull/ deck/bracing integral structure. All in the name of rigidity.

These two key steps for a “premium” boat we saw directly in the boatyard, with our own eyes.

As we have seen born, the interior joinery structures with lightened woods and the laying of precious teak on the deck. A nice advantage to have the carpentry department just a few feet from the boat, if something needs to be changed it is done instantly.

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As for the generous volumes we note from the measurements, which the shipyard says are 7 percent larger than those of another successful ICE boat, the 62 nearly a meter longer, we did not take measurements. But it is certain that walking around the deck and interior, the feeling is of large volumes and an “anti-suffocation” interior layout. The saloon uses the full length and width of the maximum beam, which is an impressive 5, 20 meters, and the aft sundeck is 3.40 wide!

At the end of the site visit of the first specimen of the new Ice 60, it came to us to think: the much-vaunted quality that makes the difference, we have felt it for ourselves. Now we wait to see the boat in the water, not long before the launch.

The numbers of ICE 60
FT LENGTH m. 17.99
LENGTH AT THE LAG m.16.80
BAG MAX m. 5,20
FISH m. 2,85
DISLOCATION kg.17,900
www.iceyachts.it