Superyacht Design Q3
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Q3 MATERIA- LIST SOLID LIQUID In theory at least, glass is visco-elastic and not a solid substance. It also happens to be very strong—stronger than many metals—making it a safe and versatile structural material. Yet although land-based architects have been innovating with glass for decades, the yacht building industry has been slow in catching up. SYD investigates a see-through world that JUSTIN RATCLIFFE has yet to be fully exploited. 52 53 Clockwise from below: three glass sculptures by Czech artists (Vasicek, Frydrych, Rybak) and glass tiles by Crystal Caviar. MARTIN FRANCIS JUSTIN RATCLIFFE What is most surpris- ing, despite Starck’s to- tal denial of nautical Facing page: clockwise tradition, is that this from top left: Martin extreme bathroom Francis; his Sultan 126 concept was configuration actu- developed from the iconic curved windows ally works. MARTIN FRANCIS of Eco (bottom). CAVIAR CRYSTAL 54 55 KISMET LURSSEN ELDEK ANASTASIA / B. G OCEANCO CEANCO O LURSSEN / KLAUS JORDAN 56 57 artin Francis is widely her noticed. Francis specified curved windshields of Parisian buses, “Toughening glass by heat is ago and perhaps one of the reasons Having managed to make the panes considered the guru glass throughout the superstructure—a which are designed to reduce not unlike tempering steel and why Eco has never been emulated, both curved and distortion free, the next Mof glass in superyacht solution that is as innovative today as it internal reflections. It seemed like overcomes this weakness. The despite the fact that modern chemical challenge was to prove to the Lloyd’s circles. And for good reason. was then. Francis recounts the story of an interesting thing to try and I glass is heated to a semi-plastic toughening and more recent bending surveyors that they were strong enough He began his career as how it came about: made a full size mock-up on the state and then chilled very quickly processes are less costly. for the job as storm shutters could not a furniture designer and “I’d been working on the roof of my house. We had the with cold air. The outer skins cabinet maker, but quickly project for a couple of years for final showing in Palma where we harden to form a crust, while the moved into architecture Azcarraga. He had owned two showed the owner a presentation inside cools slowly and shrinks, “The idea for Eco’s when he collaborated with radical Bannenberg yachts, Azteca with various overall lengths and putting the outer skins into Norman Foster on a number and Paraiso, and wanted the the same superstructure, they compression. So when you bend curved windows of groundbreaking projects same military styling. In the end, looked much better at 72 metres. the glass like a beam you have in the ‘70s such as the Willis, we weren’t getting any closer He took one look and said, ‘That’s to overcome the pre-stress or Faber & Dumas head office to a final solution, so Azcarraga the boat I want, if you can build it compression in the bottom half of came from the in Ipswich. By adapting told me to get some other to the right price.’” the beam before it breaks.” so-called ‘patch’ fittings people involved. Amazingly, I was A German subsidiary of Pilkington, To create the curves the glass is windshields of developed by the glass requested to subcontract both ironically called Flat Glass, was heated then passed between two manufacturer Pilkington Bannenberg and Giugiaro, the contracted by the builders Blohm matching moulds to deform it into the Parisian buses...” (the inventors of float glass), Italian car designer, to do some & Voss to make the curved panes desired shape (about a third of a circle). Francis devised a cladding styling studies. Both came up with using simple toughened glass. Adco When the moulds were pulled apart, “The moulds at the time were be fitted to the rounded windows. system for the building schemes that were eventually Technik GmbH, another leading glass a bank of air jets shaped to follow the made of wood with little screw “We did finite element by which enormous panes rejected by the client, who then manufacturer, was also consulted and exact same curvature, cool the glass jacks to adjust them like the staves calculations based on a worst case of toughened glass were said he was interested in buying installed the all-glass fitness room uniformly. Therefore the initial tooling of a barrel”, continues Francis. “I scenario of asymmetric loading if a suspended by a single bolt. Carinthia VI. That got me thinking, aboard the yacht (the Rostock-based was hugely expensive as different calculated that we needed at least wave went over the foredeck and company specialises in marine projects moulds were required for each size of A decade later Francis joined forces because we’d been working Below: these one spare piece of glass for each wedged itself under the bottom and has supplied several megayachts, glass. In fact, Francis remembers the with Peter Rice and set up RFR, a on a brief for a 60-metre yacht lamp shades pane because they were going to of the glass”, continues Francis. including Al Mirqab, Rising Sun, final cost of each pane was around consultant engineering firm in Paris. with faceted styling and now he destroy the moulds. To this day— “Lloyd’s accepted our calculation, Limitless, Kismet and Skat). aboard Kokomo 6,000 deutschmarks or roughly 3,000 Together they advised on the glass was looking at a 72 metre. So I touch wood—none of the spares but required additional storm euros—a considerable sum 20 years structures of the Museum of Science & went back to the office and said, “Glass is incredibly strong were made have been used.” mullions that could be fitted in Technology in the French capital, for ‘let’s start over again, and forget in compression and very weak from recycled which they perfected and patented the brief.’ The idea for Eco’s in tension”, explains Francis. curved windows came from the a bolt mechanism inspired by the glass bottles. ® self-steering gears he had designed for yachts this featured a ball joint that Dura ShieldMarine allowed the glass to deflect without the fixing generating a bending MARINE GLASS - BY GLASSHAPE LTD moment under wind load. This later led to work with I.M. Pei on the famous glass Pyramid in front of the Louvre, for which he recommended Navtec FOR ALL SUPERYACHT GLASS rods instead of cables to support the structure, much like the rigging of a Flat, Curved… Certified! HALF PAGE AD yacht. Intriguingly, Tim Eliasson who GLASS SHAPE founded Navtec, went on to set up END OF STORY TriPyramid Structures, Inc. to pursue COPY IN further the architectural applications of tension structures and today the company is playing an active role in imaginative architectural projects. It wasn’t until Francis designed his first motoryacht, however, that he was able to put his knowledge of glass into practice in a marine context. Eco (later Katana and Enigma) was built for the Mexican media magnate Emilio Azcarraga by Blohm & Voss and launched in 1991. Driven by gas turbines and capable of speeds in excess of 35 knots, the 74-metre vessel was at the cutting edge of yacht engineering technology. But it was Eco’s radical exterior design that really got www.glasshape.co.nz 58 65 – 67 Woodcocks Road P.O. Box 358, Warkworth, New Zealand +64 9 422 2565 An all-glass interior concept for Heesen by place from the inside, which have Martin Francis himself followed up loading goes onto the screws and Ken Freivokh Design. never been used. Because of her Eco with the even more stunning Sultan thread, which is easily stripped. In low freeboard in the bow, we also 126 and proposed a massive all-glass addition, you may get a bi-metallic designed a wave breaker and superstructure with the futuristic, corrosion so after a few years it’s a a foredeck locker that acts as a 140-metre Crystal Ball concept for fizzing mess. It may be approved, buffer to redirect green water into HWD. Sadly both projects have yet to but to my mind it’s complete the centre of the curved glass at be realised. nonsense. Glues are sufficient: the its strongest point.” One difficulty with glass is that automobile industry uses them and Eco was effectively a massive it is ‘statistically non-determinate’, so do cruise ships. In architecture experiment from start to finish, made which means very occasionally it the glue absorbs much of the possible only by an enlightened owner will spontaneously fracture. This distortion and prevents the who was willing not only to foot the was discovered in the early days of loading going through to the bill, but also to place his faith in both toughened glass, but no one knew fixings. When we were researching designer and builder. The result was a quite why. It was later found it was the Science Museum, we hung master lesson in glass architecture and caused by microscopic metal inclusions two tons of glass in a test frame aesthetics that the superyacht industry in the glass. So a process called ‘heat outside the Rhône-Poulenc facility has been slow to take on board. An soaking’ was devised that rapidly heats near Lyon using only their silicone exception has been Luca Bassani and and then cools the glass, which will adhesive to support it. The loading abundant use of glass has been a key break if there is a defect in it.