Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman

June 17, 20186min read

“Do not make me a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Build me a beast”

So in the boat industry there was one of the most often cited requests from the owner at all times. And actually have nothing to add, the owner of the 58-meter / 190-foot sloop Ngoni, built by the shipyard Royal Huisman, from the beginning, was very clear about his intentions.

Ngoni, designed by architects from Dubois Naval Architects together with interior designers from Rick Baker Ltd – it is absolutely luxurious and fast yacht. The result is a bold and minimalist design with impeccable build quality professionals from Royal Huisman.

Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman
Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman
Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman

Smooth, elegant, and quality made exterior design hides a lot of innovative developments, for solving problems related to the combination of huge, powerful and modern weapons with a graceful and easily controllable building.

“The owner wanted me to look completely fresh look at the design of large yachts”, — says designer ed Dubois. “He wanted me to go back to their roots, to the end of the 1970s and 1980s years, when we were designing racing boats. But he was also aware that we have developed a range of yachts with high quality performance, which were, nevertheless, seaworthy, and was considered comfortable cruisers. So I had to just reset your “internal computer”, and seriously think about how we can save weight and add power. So we came to the idea of the reverse tilt of the stem”.

The reverse slope of the bow, which visually defines the Ngoni, set the pace of creative search, but it soon became apparent that this idea was a key point for structural rigidity of the housing, providing 12% more strength and load resistancethan normal curvature, when using the same materials. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this factor for the entire project, given the difficulty of building a durable thin shell with numerous holes, but tough enough to carry the heavy burden of huge armaments.

Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman
Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman

“Imagine that the sloop’s bow and arrow: bow is a housing boom is the mast and string is a Fock-forestay and the backstay”continues Dubois. You can imagine that indescribable tension creates a bending moment, which is fine if you can compensate for this strong, deep and broad body, but “the Beast” relatively low freeboard and shallow draft, and he has no supernacerrone”.

“Then you take, and even more worsen the situation, making holes in the deck for lockers and hatches — ballast, which typically resists compression in the deck. You can overcome this by adding sirtrack (upper zone of the shell plating of the hull, bordering on the main deck), and the Ngoni has a top plate from a solid 35-millimeter aluminum sheet, which acts as a ring beam around the body, although it is still a struggle with the necessary rigidity”.

“So, I started thinking about the opposite tilt of the stem, which is very similar to the design of the bridge, where the road is designed as a curved line, to withstand the compression generated by the load transport. We launched a program to analyze this structure, and suddenly had a 12-percent increase in stiffness for the same weight. This is what you sometimes see on yachts with high technical characteristics such as Samurai, but this is the first time I developed this sailing yacht”.

Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman
Spirit personality: sloop Ngoni from Royal Huisman

Continuous teak deck plating with a giant secret hatches and covers a large tender, a sloop-beam, Spa pool, locker for sails and other technical space.

Towering carbon mast is one of the top three one-piece masts in the world, all three were produced by the company Rondal. The total height of the Ngoni from the waterline to the top of the mast is 75 meters / 247 feet and therefore exceeds the level of so-called “Panamax”.

The sail is provided with winches Harken equipment and supplies for deck, complemented with winches Rondal with electronically controlled variable speed feeders. These feeders are designed for high-speed operation, which ensures total safety and reliability.

“The owner wanted the yacht was fast, without losing the concept of the cruise ship, which allowed me to think outside the box and challenge conventions,” said ed Dubois. “I remember when he first came into the office, I sketched the design, and he said, “All right, but a bit ordinary”. “I went away and came up with the same opposite inclination of the stem, as a solution, but worried that he may not like it. Next time, when we met in London, I showed him the design and he is really like.”

The area of the grotto Ngoni is 853 m2 / ft2 9,182 and is notable not only for its ease to load the file, but the innovations that allow the Square Top mainsail and a diagonal support rail to be disconnected automatically and neatly stowed in the boom, with minimal intervention from the crew. To further reduce weight and resistance, set to continuous carbon shrouds from deck to top of mast.

The design of sailing arms was one of the major projects, and its success is a tribute to productive cooperation between Rondal (subsidiary of Royal Huisman), manufacturers of sails, North Sails and Carbo-Link, together with the architects from Dubois Naval Architects, and a team of the shipyard.

Main requirements for interior designers from the team of Rick Baker were pretty simple: “don’t develop a traditional yacht interior!”. The interior should have a clear purpose — for travelling, thus, the designers got creative freedom.

“Yacht is one with a unique design of architect ed Dubois, says intererst Rick Baker, and the interiors should reflect the same style and modern design. Therefore, we deliberately avoided giving the yacht a certain stylistic theme, and chose to make a very individual separate areas. It was important not to let the boat turn into the hotel, and all the ways to avoid monotony in the design of the cabins”.

A few steps down from the deck lead into the guest cockpit, intimate and protected space outdoors to relax and read. The superstructure covered, along with electric exhaust kit provides a comfortable atmosphere in any weather conditions.

On the starboard side is a bar and dining area, and on the left side of the informal relaxation areawith sofas and coffee tables. Moving forward, door opens for access to the navigation station and the steps leading down to crew area and engine room. The upper part of the retractable keel of the hull located between the staircases, and by elaborate design, its presence is not noticeable.

Access to the residential premises for the owner and guests is via a curved staircase from the deck to the guest lobby. On the left side are double guest cabin with spacious bathroom and on the starboard side is a double guest cabin with a Japanese bath. In both cabins for the decoration was applied only high quality exotic wood and marble.

The owner’s stateroom occupies the entire aft of the Ngoni. The cabin is equipped with built-in furniture made by special order, and a wide double door leads to the huge bathroom. There is a spacious office with its own bathroom and a large gym with large vented porthole Windows in the sides.

Another feature of the yacht Ngoni is an advanced audiovisual system that is thoroughly tested at least a year. The owner of the yacht, as in other matters, had very specific requirements regarding system configuration. The point is that all users of the iPad to interact with custom settings, embedded Tijssen Elektro – based engineering Royal Huisman. With 48 terabytes of memory from Kaleidescape and storage for 320 discs, guests have access to a huge media library.