Design of a 23 m modern-classic wooden sailing yacht with timber investigation

Abstract

Interest in to classic sailing yachts has been rising lately. Still, these kind of vessels are primarily reserved for small group of people, because of the high cost, demanding maintenance and big crew that is necessary for operating vessel. Because of these drawbacks, new type of sailing yacht emerged, they are called modernclassic yachts. These yachts look as traditional ones above the water, but under the water they have modern hull and appendages. They are much more reliable, affordable and easier to sail. Yacht that is presented in this Thesis, aims to place itself in this category. So it will use traditional materials, mostly wood, with some improvement of modern technology. It is common for this kind of vessels to unquestionably copy appearance of classic yachts, when it comes to part of the hull above water line and deck design. In this project author will question that idea and try not to mimic old designs, but instead try to design sailing yacht in a way that designers from classic era would, if they would design it today. Design will be kept very clean and minimalistic. Volumes mostly shaped by aero and hydrodynamics, with no unnecessary details. Hull will be black, with one line to define physiognomy, on contrary, deck will be bright, in order to contrast hull and to make sailors job easier. Pure space with no obstacles, light so visibility is good and it doesn’t heat up by sun. In order to improve construction methods and materials used to construct modernclassics, two kinds of studies were conducted, both of them analyzing wood based construction materials. First study was a series of destructive tests that were conducted on wooden samples with different scarf ratios. All of samples had scarf joints, but with different ratios. Test was conducted in order to determent how strong is each of these joints. This way results could be compared with empirical values used in ship construction. In second study author was concern about longevity. It is possible to test samples of laminated wood in laboratories and determent their strength precisely, but it is unknown how will they behave in 50 years. Every day new, improved types of glue, get invented, but it is hard to predict their behavior on the long run. That is why part of this thesis was focused on discovering test method that will artificially age wood. So when artificially aged specimens are produced, it is possible to test them for strength as they were decades old