Re-Designing the Luxury Yacht

摘要

The Super Sports 18 (SS18) luxury yacht is 18 meters long, reaches speeds up to 56 knots, is powered by four, 270 horsepower supercharged engines, and will cost just over $1 million. What makes it particularity unique is a raised hull that allows it to glide over the waves. The unique vessel was developed by a team made up of aero and hydro dynamists, Formula 1 automotive engineers, aerospace engineers, and naval architects at Glider Yachts, a new British yacht manufacturer headquartered in London. "Traditional vessels run on the surface and have a large amount of buoyancy forward so they move up and down with the waves," explains Robert McCall, managing director, Glider Yachts. The Glider yacht, which has reduced forward buoyancy, moves straight through the waves with drag coefficients and wave response figures far below that of conventional vessels. This is in part due to the lack of subsurface appendages and their associated drag.