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Two dramatic new explorer trimaran concepts by Nigel Irens Design
Nigel Irens Design has introduced two new trimaran explorer yacht concepts as part of a collaboration with CMN Shipyard and French designer Christophe Chedal-Anglay . The 57.5 metre Origin 575 and the 70 metre Xplore 70 are inspiring yacht concepts that display a dramatic new style of explorer yacht design.
According to the Nigel Irens team, the design focuses on comfort, speed and ocean crossing capability. The trimaran setup is more efficient than a conventional mono hull, with improved range and fuel consumption. The extra hulls provide increased stability and comfort, with the overall beam at around 20 metres.
Both yachts are designed on the same platform, feature an all-aluminium construction and have a customisable interior arrangement, but due to the differing lengths there are some variations.
The Origin 575 is proposed with accommodation for 10 guests and eight crew. This 57.5 metre version has space on the aft deck to carry a mini-submarine; a sought after addition to any explorer yacht. There is also space for a 4.5 metre tender on deck, while a tender garage below offers further storage for a 6 metre tender and personal watercraft.
Four Scania D116 45M engines will power the Origin 575 to an estimated top speed of 27 knots. It is also expected to be capable of covering 4,000 nautical miles at an impressive 18 knots.
The larger 70 metre version, the Xplore 70, offers a larger platform than the Origin 575. The increased size means a greater range of 5000 nautical miles at 18 knots, while the four MTU 10V2000 M84 main engines can power it to a projected max speed of 27.5 knots.
The extra deck space can accommodate larger tenders, a submarine and also a helicopter deck . The larger area could also be used to accommodate containerised units with proposed uses such as a research laboratory, aquarium or a dive-centre. More interior volume also means there is space to accommodate up to 12 guests.
Nigel Irens is well known for designing record-breaking multihulls such as Ellen MacArthur’s 23m trimaran B&Q Castorama. His British design studio also develops yachts for any owner in search of a vessel for a specific purpose, such as the Vantage 86 performance catamaran that is being built by Green Marine .
Nigel Irens said “I have had the pleasure of travelling many thousands of miles in powered trimarans and am passionate about sharing that experience with owners who want to be part of this exciting development.”
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Who's Who : Nigel Irens
Over the last twelve years, during which time I have written profiles of the leading figures in the world of multihulls, no renowned naval architect, designer or skipper has failed to include the name of Nigel Irens among the masters of multihull design. As inspired as he is inspiring, the self-taught British designer has been responsible for many projects, but above all for numerous trimarans and catamarans that have left their mark on the history of ocean racing, as much for their elegance as for their performance.
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Published 22/03/2024
By François Trégouët
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Already honored with the ‘Royal Designer for Industry’ award in 2005, Nigel Irens has left his mark on the evolution of the modern multihull. Just in case His Majesty King Charles III is reading this, the title of Sir Nigel Irens would suit him perfectly. The nickname ‘The Wizard of Bristol’ is already associated with the American Nathanael Herreshoff, the brilliant designer of the first racing multihull, the John Gilpin, at the end of the 19th century. It is an incredible coincidence that two such talented personalities in the same field were born in homonymous towns, one in Rhode Island (USA), the other in the southwest of England. It is not too far to the south, in his cottage in Devon, near Plymouth, that we find Nigel Irens. Behind his blue glasses, his eyes still shine with the same passion for the sea. This visceral attraction to boats began in Salcombe, just thirty miles away, when Nigel was only eight years old and already noticing the different shapes of transoms, straight or ‘wineglass’, adapted for sailing, rowing or motoring. From an early age, Nigel’s powerful intuition and innate gift for design led him to create some of the most beautiful and high-performance multihulls of the late twentieth century. Over three hours of interviews conducted half in English, half in French, (“learnt on the pontoons”), we discussed some of the greatest names in multihull sailing, a veritable pantheon of sailors on two or three hulls. There are, of course, the Anglo-Saxon pioneers - Dick Newick, Tony Bullimore and a certain Canadian, Mike Birch. 100% self-taught due to a lack of specialized training at the time, Nigel was working for a trimaran builder in Bristol when he met Mike in 1976. The Val 31 with which the skipper had just completed the OSTAR transatlantic race capsized on the return trip back to Europe. Nigel helped the skipper restore the boat and set sail with him on the Round Britain and Ireland race. They became friends and together they extended the legendary yellow trimaran, Olympus, with which Mike won the first Route du Rhum. Nigel then designed his first trimaran for himself, Gordano Goose (currently for sale at www.catamaran-4sale.com). On board, he won his first and only solo race, the 24 Heures de Saint Malo, just ahead of a certain Philippe Poupon. It was enough for him to start making a name for himself on the other side of the Channel. But it was British sailor Tony Bullimore who would be his first client with the trimaran IT82. This was followed by Mike Birch’s catamaran Vital, which came third in the 1982 Route du Rhum, and then the magnificent Apricot, again for Tony Bullimore. This elegant, high-performance trimaran won all her races in 1985, including the 1985 Round Bitain. During the Tour of Europe that year, the crew won every leg and finished “two days ahead of everyone else” in Toulon, thanks to one of Nigel’s brilliant ideas: when all of Apricot’s rivals were still trying to sail downwind under symmetrical ...
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One to remember
A boat’s delivery to its new home becomes an unforgettable passage when the boat’s acclaimed designer, nigel irens, comes along for the ride.
Roxane ’s little sister, the 22-foot Romilly , was built on the same principles by Dartington Boatworks in Totnes. It was flat calm when owner Bill Stanton took me for a drift on the river, so I could be forgiven for not seeing the boat’s full potential right away. And, rereading the article I wrote back then, it’s clear to me I didn’t really get what the boat was about. I had only owned long-keeled, wooden cruising yachts, and could only imagine owning something that could safely sail around the world. Yet Romilly was very specifically designed for daysailing in coastal waters, rivers even.
Cut to 20 years later, and my perspective had changed completely. I was about to move to a small village on the River Dart—coincidentally, only half a mile from where I had sailed Romilly No. 1—and was looking for a boat to keep on the river. It had to be big enough to take my wife, our children and assorted friends (most of them non-sailors) sailing, and yet not so big that I would have to spend all my time maintaining it or pay huge mooring fees. It had to be shallow enough to potter around the river and get stuck on the mud without any fuss, and yet seaworthy enough for me to take off on the occasional inshore cruise, either solo or with friends. As a bonus, the ability to go on a trailer would both expand our cruising range and potentially save on mooring and storage fees.
There were any number of pretty, cheap old wooden boats that I could have lost my heart to, and it took a great deal of concentration to stick to the plan. When I spotted a Romilly for sale within our budget, it was like an epiphany. Not only did she fulfill all the criteria, but she would be the perfect companion to my other boat: a 12-foot skiff, also designed by Nigel Irens. Within a few weeks it was a done deal, and Ramona (nee Dolphin ) was bobbing at her new mooring off the village of Stoke Gabriel.
Tantalizingly, we couldn’t move down for another and it was during this period that Nigel (who I had become few weeks, friends with since sailing Roxane and Romilly all those years ago) asked if he could borrow the boat for a week for his family holiday in Cornwall, as he was momentarily boatless. At week’s end, he would either trailer the boat back to the Dart or, weather permitting, we could sail her back together.
So when a weather window showing moderate southwesterly winds (and sunshine!) showed up after Nigel’s holiday, we dropped everything and headed straight to Fowey. On the way, Nigel told me about his holiday and enthused about Ramona .
“It was great to discover this little boat,” he said. “I had never had the opportunity before to use her so intensely, doing exactly what she was designed to do. We did stretch the limits a bit as we had eight and a half people on board and sailed every day of the week! Even the non-sailors agreed it was the best part of the holiday.” (The “half,” by the way, refers to his 6-year-old daughter Katie.)
By 11:30 a.m., we had loaded the boat, topped up with fuel and donned our foul weather gear. Low clouds and rain were coming in from the west as we motored past Punches Cross—a small white cross set into the rocks that has welcomed sailors into Fowey for at least 500 years—and hoisted the sails. The rain squall brought a fresh breeze with it and Ramona surged forward eagerly, ignoring the waves growling on the rocks to port. As we raced out to sea, the sky cleared and we were soon sailing in a fresh southwesterly breeze in glorious sunshine, while behind us a massive cloud glowered over the land. Our plan was to arrive at Bolt Head at slack water, about two hours before high tide, and make most of the east-going current beforehand. If we timed it right, we might even ride a little eddy that sweeps into Start Bay for nearly two hours after the tide has turned farther out to sea.
It was an interesting dynamic. I was the boat’s owner but had only sailed Ramona once before and had only sailed one other Romilly, when I reviewed the prototype 20 years before. Nigel, on the other hand, had not only designed the boat and sailed several other Roxanes and Romillys over the years but had also sailed Ramona for a week before I turned up, not to mention a lifetime’s experience on all manner of craft. So, despite my not inconsiderable sailing experience, I was a newcomer on my own boat and had everything to learn.
The issue soon came to the fore when, after about an hour reaching under a freshening breeze, Nigel suggested it was time to take a reef in. We had already brailed the mizzen and, although things were getting lively, I would have certainly held on to full sail for a bit longer. Bowing to his greater expertise, I agreed and sure enough with the main reefed the boat steadied down immediately, without seeming to lose any speed. Nigel still wasn’t happy, however, and after a few minutes quietly observing the (boomless) mainsail he attached a line from the mainsail clew to a cleat on deck, and hauled it down tight. This improved the shape of the sail as well as further steadying the rig, and for the next hour we surfed along the waves in complete comfort.
As I watched him handle the sails, I was struck by how well he kept the boat under control. Whereas I would have simply eased off the mainsail halyard and taken up the slack on the reefing pennants once the sail was lowered, Nigel used the tack line to haul down the sail and keep tension on the luff so that the sail was under control at all times. He also showed me a trick he had learned the previous week: lowering the sail beyond the first reef (using the second tack line) so the reefing points could be easily tied from the cockpit, before fully tensioning the pennants.
As the wind eased, the boat started to wallow and become sluggish. This time I took the initiative and shook out the reef and unbrailed the mizzen, and Ramona was soon back in her groove. One of Nigel’s guiding principles when sailing these luggers is to use the mizzen to steer and balance the boats. Thus, if there’s weather helm, ease the mizzen. If you’re overpressed, drop the mizzen before you reef the main. If you need to heave-to, drop the main and set the mizzen on its own. He’s also a great advocate of using the mizzen to maneuver out of a tight space including, if necessary, backward!
By the time we reached Dartmouth it was almost dark, and a huge moon squeezed up over the horizon. It rose higher and higher as we wound our way up the river, lighting our path all the way home. Twice we ran out of fuel, and twice I overfilled the tank and drenched the spark plug (bizarrely located right under the fuel tank). By the time we reached Stoke Gabriel, the current was running fast and it was with relief mixed with regret that we slipped a line onto our mooring. In the previous 12 hours we had experienced rain, mist, sunshine, wind, calm, sea, and river, and somehow ended up back home on a tranquil moonlit night. A perfect homecoming. “One to remember,” wrote Nigel later, and indeed our journey had followed such a perfect arc, it would have been hard to better it. It was an auspicious start for my new family boat.
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No Jumping the Gun(boat) here
- By Yachting Staff
- Updated: April 10, 2016
This CE Category oceangoing yacht concept by Nigel Irens Design is the maximum length for its classification, measuring 78 feet 7 inches LOA.
Gunboat 78 will have a vacuum-bagged, epoxy foam sandwich, Nomex aramid honeycomb and carbon fiber inner skins’ lightweight build. Its size just fits into the CE class requirements, allows more room for equipment and avoids the heavy code regulations of larger yachts.
The catamaran will feature 5 double cabins with ensuite heads, including 2 master cabins, and a large salon.
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Over the past 45 years I have had the pleasure of designing an unusually wide variety of boats of all sizes – both sail and power-driven (see https://nigelirens.com/), but right now we are concentrating on spreading the word about a particular kind of power-driven boat – the development of which has been an on-going passion of ours since 2003.
These designs are characterised by the fact that their hulls are unusually Long for their Displacement . From the outset we therefore adopted the term ‘LDL’ (‘ L ow D isplacement/ L ength ratio) to identify this kind of vessel.
The design of boats has always been characterised by the need to favour certain requirements at the expense of others. Clearly a boat that can offer all things to all people cannot exist!
In the case of the ‘LDL’ hull our clear objective has always been to optimise a range of speeds that lie anywhere between slow speed (the easy bit…) up to ‘swift’ speeds up to about 12-14 knots – beyond which planing-hulled designs will be more appropriate – especially if these speeds are needed for much of the time afloat.
During the dark days of Covid lock-down the only upside was that there was plenty of time to think, and in that apparently vacuous period it suddenly became obvious to me that the characteristics we had optimised with the development of the ‘LDL’ hull made it a perfect partner for the burgeoning development of electric propulsion .
The problem bothering the world of planing-boats is that the inherently low energy-density offered by a battery often results in serious power-to-weight problems when compared to traditional gasoline-powered units that have always served the high-speed boating industry so well.
NIGEL IRENS
Totnes, Devon Summer 2022
* Video filmed by Seb FitzHenry ( sebfitzhenry.com )
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In the early days of this website you’ll find a some more information in ‘LDL – Close up’ and also on-going information about the progress of ‘Clara’ in ‘ CLARA’s Journal ’. Other titles will be added in time!
The design of ‘CLARA’ was developed from what we learned from our 2012 test vessel ‘GRETA’. This video shows ‘GRETA’ at about 9.75 knots – powered by a 14 hp inboard diesel. (The shot was taken as ‘GRETA’ was reaching the end of a 50 nautical mile coastal passage from Fowey (Cornwall) to Dartmouth (Devon)).
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Saecwen: Queen of the seas
- September 13, 2021
From childhood memories to a brand new ketch designed to handle the 21st century, the owner of Saecwen has created a true modern classic, as Nic Compton finds out
“Look at that piece of oak behind you. I first met that tree when I was a kid, growing up in the New Forest. Ten years ago it blew over in a storm but I managed to buy a chunk of it through a forester friend. It’s a 400 or 500-year-old piece of oak – the same wood used to build Nelson’s navy – and now it’s the centrepiece of Saecwen . On the other side, the names of all the people who worked on the boat are carved.”
We are hunkered down in the saloon of Saecwen , the latest design by Nigel Irens launched at the Elephant Boatyard only a few days earlier, while the rain patters on the skylight above.
The boat’s owner, PR consultant Charles Watson, is telling me about the genesis of the boat. It is a very personal and at times emotional story, stretching back not only to his childhood but over three generations of his family.
The 50ft ketch might be a new launch from the drawing board of one of Britain’s most successful racing yacht designers, but even before her maiden sail Saecwen was already steeped in history.
When I turn around to look where Charles is pointing, I’m faced with a massive wooden post between the galley and the saloon. It’s the only piece of oak on the entire boat and it seems to not only carry the weight of the coachroof but to represent a bridge between past and present, new and old. It is, in so many ways, the heart of the vessel.
Saecwen : A family affair
Charles comes from a family of famous sailors, not least his uncle Mike McMullen, the single-handed sailor tragically lost at sea along with his boat Three Cheers in the 1976 OSTAR.
Mike’s father, and Charles’s grandfather, was Colin McMullen, a former Royal Navy captain known for his colourful escapades – including climbing the length of a towing hawser from one boat to another while under way.
The original Saecwen owned by Charles Watson’s family for nearly 30 years. Photo: Ian Roman
When he retired from the navy in 1972, Colin bought the Saxon class Saecwen , a 35ft racer/cruiser designed by Alan Buchanan, which he sailed extensively on both sides of the Atlantic . One of his crew was the young David Barrie, who he taught to use a sextant, earning himself and the boat a prominent place in Barrie’s 2014 book Sextant .
Over three decades the boat was sailed by three generations of the family, with Colin, Charles’s parents, and Charles forming a syndicate.
There were adventures aplenty and Charles and his then wife Fiona were even awarded the Goldsmith Exploration Award by the RCC (of which his grandfather was a ‘sometimes commodore’) for their voyage to Venezuela while on honeymoon in 1989-90.
But, inevitably, as Charles’s career took off he had less and less time to look after the boat and, in the late 1990s, she was sold on. For the next 20 years, Charles travelled the world by plane rather than by boat.
The memories of the family’s beloved family yacht were deeply ingrained, however. By early 2019, Charles was ready to don his yellow anorak once again, and there was only one sort of boat he was interested in.
“Having been brought up on a wooden boat, I couldn’t see myself not owning a wooden boat – it’s an incurable illness which I was infected with,” he says. “But, having grown up with an old boat, I knew that you have to give more time commitment to keeping them alive than actually going sailing. The idea of building a new classic was really exciting, but I had no idea how to go about it.”
Luckily, one of Charles’s old friends was the celebrated maritime author Tom Cunliffe , who knew exactly how to have a new boat built. He recommended Charles contact Nigel Irens who, he assured him, was the man to design “something classic in concept but with a contemporary twist to it”.
A meeting was duly arranged, but when Charles handed Nigel a half-model of Saecwen and said he wanted the same thing but a bit bigger, the designer seemed initially reluctant, saying, “I don’t do replicas.” He agreed, however, to perhaps “be inspired” by the Buchanan design and, after sketching some initial ideas on the back of an envelope, went away to work up the design.
The model from which the new Saecwen was born. Photo: Ian Roman
Charles’s brief was clear: he wanted a boat capable of going anywhere on the planet. “I’m conscious of what’s happening in the world,” he says. “The weather is a lot less predictable and more extreme. If you’re going out there bluewater cruising, you’ve got to be prepared to take whatever the weather throws at you.”
For that same reason, he wanted a ketch or yawl rig with twin foresails, to break the sail area into manageable chunks, rather than have to cope, possibly short-handed, with a vast mainsail and genoa.
When Nigel came back a few weeks later, he brought with him not plans and drawings, as Charles expected, but a model of the boat, about the size of a baby, carved out of balsa. Charles was immediately blown away by the new, fully-formed creation he held in his hands.
from the outset, Saecwen was deliberately overbuilt, with hefty laminated frames and bilge stringers. Photo: Ian Roman
“It was a long keeled, sea-kindly, displacement boat, but you could tell it was clearly going to be fast just from the shape of the hull. I loved the feel of it: the way the transom came together had elements of working boats, with the high bulwarks and the lifting keel, there were many different genres in the design. I just looked at the model and thought, ‘Fantastic. Let’s do it!’”
Three yards were asked to quote for the job of building the new boat, but the Elephant Boatyard in Bursledon, where Charles’s family had always taken the original Saecwen for maintenance work, was the natural choice.
As well as a long history building custom racing yachts in the 1970s and ’80s, the yard has more recently developed a solid reputation for building one-off wooden classics, such as the new/old gaff cutters Ivy Green and Zinnia , designed by Ed Burnett.
Having specialised in wood epoxy construction since its development in the 1970s, the yard soon got into the swing, building the boat in the now standard form, with 22mm cedar strips overlaid with two diagonal layers of 6mm khaya mahogany and sheathed with E-glass and epoxy.
The main difference this time was that everything was built just that little bit more heavily than usual.
Unlike the yard’s historic racing clientele, Charles was after maximum strength rather than overall lightness, which meant heavier scantlings all round, including 35 75x75mm laminated mahogany frames. In the end, project manager Damian Byrne estimates the hull ended up 20% stronger than ABS standards.
Launch day on the River Hamble. Photo: Ian Roman
The other big difference was the lifting keel – one of the key elements of Irens’s cruising boat philosophy is shallow draught, to allow greater access to inshore waters. The boat already has a substantial 7,500kg lead keel, however, so the bronze centreboard tucked neatly away in a slot in the keel without impinging on the accommodation at all.
Indeed, the only evidence of the centerboard once the boat was in the water would be a pulley system at the base of the mast leading back to a dedicated winch in the cockpit – Charles was adamant he didn’t want any complicated hydraulics on his boat.
The hull was turned over in December 2019 – a video on the yard’s Facebook page shows two cranes spinning the 15m structure around in the air as if it was the original model – but progress on fitting out the hull was soon brought to a grinding halt by the arrival of Covid-19 and the first national lockdown.
Overnight the workforce went down from 15 to zero, then back up to six, as a small team was allowed to start work again in a socially distanced way.
Creating a wooden boat brought unique conundrums: supplies of the masks they usually used for dusty work dried up and when they were available again had quadrupled in price. To add to their woes, Brexit threw their supply chain into disarray, with chandlery from Italy being particularly badly affected.
Yard manager Matt Richardson estimates the combined effects of the pandemic and Brexit added about six months to the build time.
Freehand design
By summer 2020, work was back in full swing and much of the skilled joiner work was in progress. Rather than churn out endless drawings of each and every part, Charles relied on the boatyard to create something beautiful.
Modern sheets on traditional bronze winches. Photo: Ian Roman
“The craftsmen and shipwrights at the Elephant brought the next dimension of creativity to the project,” he recalls. “So I was able to say: ‘I want a table, I don’t want it to fold up. It’s got to be a permanent feature; it’s got to take Tom Cunliffe being thrown across the cabin and not collapse. I want to be able to sit a seagoing passage crew around it without having to open it, but then be able to sit 10 people around it when I’ve got friends on board.’
“Then a friend of mine who goes hunting for trees came up with this amazing cedar of Lebanon that has this extraordinary grain, so I gave that to Pete [Taylor, the lead shipwright on the project], and he made this beautiful table.”
Evidence of this artisanal approach can be seen throughout the boat, from the simple black Perspex hatches, with flush locks operated from the outside by winch handles, to the wooden compass binnacle with inlaid compass motif, and the dorade boxes with their complex angled dovetail joins on each corner.
Nigel Irens and Tom Cunliffe joined Saecwen on her sea trials. Photo: Ian Roman
Even the stainless steel stanchions were bead-blasted and passivated (a chemical process which removes the shine and protects the metal from corrosion) to give them a more classic look – somewhere between galvanized steel and titanium.
Classic comfort
The boat was finally launched in May 2021 and, of course, named Saecwen – the name being Anglo Saxon for ‘sea queen’.
When I joined her in Lymington two weeks later, she had just completed her sea trials and Charles seemed delighted with Saecwen ’s latest incarnation.
saloon and galley combines an open plan feel with traditional joinery. Photo: Ian Roman
“There’s always this big debate in boat design,” he said, as we sheltered in the boat’s cosy saloon. “You’ve got performance in one corner, comfort in another corner, aesthetics in another corner, and seakindliness in the other corner.
“What usually happens is that aesthetics is chucked out by comfort, or performance is at odds with seakindliness. The genius of what Nigel has designed is that it covers everything. Sure, if this was a Beneteau 50 there’d be cabins and en suites everywhere – but I think this is perfectly comfortable. It’s a big enough space and has everything you could possibly want.”
Indeed, while the beam of Saecwen is a mere 12ft 6in (3.8m), compared to about 15ft 6in (4.8m) on a 50ft Beneteau, the interior feels anything but cramped.
The saloon is well proportioned, with ample headroom and seating for 10. The fit-out is a classic mix of white painted tongue-and-groove bulkheads, with varnished wooden trim. And in one corner sits a perfect little wood-burning stove.
The biggest cabin is the foc’s’le, which converts into a double. Photo: Ian Roman
There are many small personal touches, such as custom-made tiles around the stove depicting every sea bird in the British Isles (courtesy of local potter Jules Carpenter), and hand-turned wooden plates, bowls and mugs – several made from the same chunk of cedar as the table.
There are separate sleeping spaces for at least four crew (the ideal number for extended passagemaking), with a double quarter berth aft, a pilot berth in the saloon, a mini cabin opposite the heads and double berth in the foc’sle – all with their own storage areas and USB ports.
On deck, there is a mix of modern and traditional, with black ball-bearing Harken blocks sitting next to a handsome collection of winches from the Classic Winch Company and a very traditional-looking gallows from Daveys.
There are no sail tracks, but instead the angle of the jib sheet can be adjusted with barber hauls – low friction eyes attached to Dyneema lashings – located at strategic points on the bulwarks.
The tender is a nesting dinghy and when not in use, the two halves of it sit stacked and lashed on the foredeck. To assemble the boat, the aft section is wedged against the guard rails and the bow lowered onto it with the help of a halyard. In just a few minutes, you have a 10ft tender, complete with centerboard and a rig.
Muscular performance
During sea trials, both Nigel and Charles have been surprised how well Saecwen has performed in light airs, given that she came out a bit heavier than expected, getting up to 7.5 knots in 10 knots of wind.
Saecwen’s ketch rig breaks the sail area down to into more manageable sizes than a sloop rig. Photo: Ian Roman
“I am genuinely astounded by her sailing performance,” Charles said, on the phone from Cornwall. “What she loves to do is sail with all four sails up, which she carries well into a Force 5. We only reef when it goes over 20 knots.
“ Saecwen ’s record so far is sailing off the Lizard when she clocked up 13.5 knots in 20 knots of wind, with the wind forward of the beam – which isn’t what you expect from a 23-ton traditionally-styled wooden boat. I’m beginning to conclude this Nigel Irens fellow is really very clever!”
Charles may not have got his old Saecwen back, but what he’s got is something better: a new Saecwen more befitting his needs and the current state of the world.
I suspect this boat will have a life every bit as interesting as her predecessor’s and, in time, she too might become a family heirloom.
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Nigel Irens
His design portfolio is wide-ranging, from record-breaking yachts to innovative cruising designs such as Roxane, and other sailing designs of traditional appearance such as the Westernman cutters – designed in association with Ed Burnett – or the launch Rangeboat, a 12m power craft also of traditional appearance. Typically, Irens’ designs synthesise traditional forms with modern materials and methods of construction, with Carbon fibre masts, laminated frames, and epoxied strip woodstrongly in evidence.
The designer also in association with Ed Burnett, designed the King Alfred dinghy to be built by King Alfred School in London. The school has built three so far and use them to introduce students to dinghy cruising. Irens is perhaps particularly noteworthy for the simplicity, the efficiency, the essential elegance of his design.
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FARFARER is a Nigel Irens design, built plank-on-frame at Covey Island Boatworks in Nova Scotia in 2010. She is the successor to the schooner Maggie B, also designed by Nigel Irens. Maggie B burned when Covey Island burned down, directly after her circumnavigation around the Great Capes in 2008.
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Nigel Irens. Nigel Irens RDI is a yacht designer. He is the designer of the Adventure which is a 35m trimaran motor yacht which completed a circumnavigation in 1998. He also designed the B&Q/Castorama [fr] which is a 23 m sailing trimaran used by Ellen MacArthur to break the world record for solo circumnavigation in 2005.
Tucked away down a narrow alley in the picturesque town of Ashburton, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in England, is a tiny building called the Tenter loft, a relic from the ancient wool industry when cloth was stretched on tenterhooks. It's now the quirky office of British multihull designer Nigel Irens, the man behind some of the fastest sailing boats on the planet.
This is Wilhelmina, the latest creation from one of the most original and brilliant minds in contemporary yacht design, Nigel Irens. Although best known for a string of record-breaking multihulls ...
The 16.76m GUNBOAT 55 is designed to offer the ultimate performance catamaran for those planning to sail as owner/operators by maximising the living area and providing just two superyacht style double cabins. The 55 is aimed at warm water cruising and so an open-plan central deck replaces the more conventional enclosed deck salon with aft ...
Nigel Irens Design has introduced two new trimaran explorer yacht concepts as part of a collaboration with CMN Shipyard and French designer Christophe Chedal-Anglay. The 57.5 metre Origin 575 and the 70 metre Xplore 70 are inspiring yacht concepts that display a dramatic new style of explorer yacht design.
Over the last twelve years, during which time I have written profiles of the leading figures in the world of multihulls, no renowned naval architect, designer or skipper has failed to include the name of Nigel Irens among the masters of multihull design. As inspired as he is inspiring, the self-taught British designer has been responsible for many projects, but above all for numerous trimarans ...
It was the latest design by that doyen of modern multihull design Nigel Irens, best known as the designer of ENZA, Ellen MacArthur's record-breaking B&Q and several Gunboat multihulls. The previous year, Nigel had taken some time off from designing high-speed racing yachts to create something completely different: a lug-rigged cruising boat.
Courtesy Nigel Irens Design. This CE Category oceangoing yacht concept by Nigel Irens Design is the maximum length for its classification, measuring 78 feet 7 inches LOA. Gunboat 78 will have a vacuum-bagged, epoxy foam sandwich, Nomex aramid honeycomb and carbon fiber inner skins' lightweight build. Its size just fits into the CE class ...
Sail Boats Gunboat 57 Read More
Cable & Wireless Adventurer Read More ILAN Read More
Clara Boat Co. Ltd. is a small company set up by Nigel Irens to build the first CLARA 'LDL' ('Low Displacement/Length ratio) boat.
We are hunkered down in the saloon of Saecwen, the latest design by Nigel Irens launched at the Elephant Boatyard only a few days earlier, while the rain patters on the skylight above.
Nigel Irens RDI is a leading yacht designer. He is perhaps best known as designer of the Adventurer, a 35m trimaran motor yacht which completed a record-breaking circumnavigation in 1998, and of the record-breaking trimaran used by Ellen MacArthur to break the world record for solo circumnavigation in 2005. His design portfolio is wide-ranging ...
FARFARER is a Nigel Irens design, built plank-on-frame at Covey Island Boatworks in Nova Scotia in 2010. She is the successor to the schooner Maggie B, also designed by Nigel Irens. Maggie B burned when Covey Island burned down, directly after her circumnavigation around the Great Capes in 2008.
Boat Class: Power LDL Kooldjak 23 Read More
Boat Details Description EXCEPTIONNAL NIGEL IRENS DESIGN CATAMARAN BUILD FULL CARBON PREPREG ONLY 10 TONS VERY FAST UP TO 32 KNOTS 4 BEDROOMS WITH ENSUITE BATHROOMS CREW CABINS ALL COMFORT WITH AIR CONDITIONING , 2 GENSETS, WATERMAKER AND FULL ELECTRONIC Show More Contact Information Other Details
Please Note that Boat Design Net has no involvement with the above web site; all content and images depicted in the above thumbnail are the property and copyright of Nigel Irens Design unless otherwise noted on that site.
Tver Oblast Tver Oblast is a region in Central Russia, which borders Smolensk Oblast to the southwest, Pskov Oblast to the west, Novgorod Oblast to the north, Vologda Oblast to the northeast, Yaroslavl Oblast to the east, and Moscow Oblast to the southeast.
1. Reason for construction of a new factory Hitachi Construction Machinery expects the demand for construction machinery to continue to grow in Russia, and so will construct a factory in the outskirts of the city of Tver in Tver Oblast, which is approximately 170 kilometers northwest of Moscow, the capital of the country.
Yacht Categories Sail
Crash of an Antonov AN-22A in Tver: 33 killed Date & Time: Nov 11, 1992 Type of aircraft:
Boat Class: Sailing Catamaran Gunboat 57 Read More
The Tver Oblast Chamber of Commerce is a local organization of businesses and companies in Tver with the intention to develop and further the interests of local companies and businesses in Russia. Many businesses are international operating companies with offices in Russia. Members of a Chamber of Commerce are usually international and local operating companies, such as lawyers, property ...