Many people who are considering investing in a yacht are often interested in hearing an outsider's perspective. May we offer you one?

The following was taken out of the book "The World's Best Sailboats" written by Ferenc Mate - one of the most widely read and respected of sailing authors. His books "From a Bare Hull," "The Finely Fitted Yacht," "Best Boats" and "Shipshape" are all nautical best sellers. His works are admired for their range of knowledge and their humorous, engaging style.

"So many things are machine made today. I'm not saying that is bad, because I enjoy having a lot of the things that machines make, but I am very happy to be involved in the building of something that is still done by hand. There is a special sort of feeling there. I know what our people put into these boats, I know what they feel. I mean sometimes it hurts when you deliver a boat. In one sense you are happy because your client is happy. You feel happy because you've achieved what he was looking for but on the other hand you feel sad that you have to part with something that you have put your whole heart into."

P.G. Johansson
Baltic Yachts

CONTENTS:

Introduction from the author

1. "You Can Build A Boat In So Many Different Ways"
2. "Without Creativeness, I think You Will End Up A Copier Who Hasn't Added Much To The World"
3. "I Think Every Human Being Would Like To Go It Alone At Least Once In His Life"
4. If You Have Good Designers Design Fast Hulls For You, Then It's Foolish To Destroy Performance By Building The Boats Too Heavy
5. It's Our Duty To Explain To People Just How Our Boats Are Put Together
6. The Hull And Deck Joint

Author's Introduction:

This was a good book to research. Scrutinizing boat shows from Long Beach to Paris cannot be considered a hardship, and touring boat factories from California to Finland, from Maine to Milan, can't be called having a bad time.

You will naturally ask how the boats were chosen, and I'll tell you that no sales figures, race results, or opinion surveys were consulted, although some of the world's fastest production boats are included here. I simply picked the most beautiful and best-built boats I could find. The homely ones I cast off right away, even if they were built like fine Swiss watches. If you wonder what constitutes my concept of beauty? Just flip through the pages and you will quickly see. I then did a close inspection of the boats and left many by the wayside because of poor engineering, poor construction, or both.

I tried to limit the book to twenty builders in order to avoid repetition. (One builder went into receivership near the book's completion so we ended up with nineteen.) I left out a couple of Swan clones, even though they were pretty and well-built, to make room for more varied and more original designs. Had I expanded the list, I would have included boats like the Dutch Trintellas, the U.S. built Sabers and the Italian Grand Soleils, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
Other important criteria were integrity and reputation. The youngest boatyard in this book is seven years old (not counting David Walters who owned Shannon Yachts before he started building his Cambrias) because I wanted proven consistency.

I also wanted range. I wanted the best of the more affordable production boats like Beneteaus and Pacific Seacrafts to be included among the well-known luxury semi-custom Swans and Hinckleys, because a good walking shoe is at least as valuable as a silver slipper.
So I think we have a good mix. I'm sure there are many who will resent my excluding their favorites, but to them I say that these are just my choices, not an addendum to the Ten Commandments.

And a final most important note. This book is not intended to be a shopping list. I wrote it to point out examples of good design and construction, so that when you look at any boat, you'll have some facts and ideas to guide you.

Ferenc Mate

There are remote little pockets in the world where the building of modern sailboats has reached the level of true art, where small groups of creative men have gathered the native talents of a region to build the very finest sailboats in the world. The little town of Pietarsaari, Finland, is one of these, where a few miles up the road of Seven Bridges, Baltic Yachts, whose five founders were mutineers from nearby Nautor twelve years ago, build their version of the very best.

Compared to the silent countryside that surrounds it, the Baltic boatyard looks like a science fiction movie. The first thing you notice is that the cement floors of the shops are just like polished glass and the whole place is as clean as if it had been scrubbed down for surgery. And when you are told why, you start to smile because you realize that Baltic really is the boatyard of the future.
A special sealant is used to make the floors as smooth as ice, because that is what you need when the cradles your boats sit in move on cushions of air. And you stare in sheer amazement when you see a man move a 6000 pound lead keel with one hand because the cradle the keel is in hovers on air too. And when you see the Olympic-pool-sized testing tank, and the building for the heating system that's bigger than most boatyards, and computer programs that can calculate the hull construction and the size and shape of a new rudder within minutes, then you realize that the folks at Baltic have a lot to teach you.

We were lucky to have as our teacher for most of one weekend P.G. Johansson, whom everyone calls PG. He was one of the original mutineers from Nautor, and is one of the most well-spoken and knowledgeable men we encountered on our travels, who knew not only a lot about building sailboats but also about many little mysteries of life.

"You can solve the technical problems in so many different ways and a lot of them are good acceptable solutions. But whether you choose one acceptable solution or the other, you can still end up building a good boat or a bad one, depending on how well you apply the method. Like sandwich materials, corings or what type of roving you use; the main thing is that you understand how these materials all work, otherwise you end up with things working against each other instead of strengthening each other.

"People think that a material or a method that has become 'in,' as you say, is the thing to go for; like some new salvation. It's not. It has to be used properly. A boat is a lot of small, individual, technical solutions, which, if all done the right way, will result in something good. For example, with our custom yachts we use a lot of Kevlar and carbon fiber. Those and E-glass and S-glass are all good for some applications and bad for others. So you have to know the strengths and weaknesses of each material and how to combine them. It takes a lot of time and experimenting before you learn all this. Things just don't come overnight.

"My philosophy is that when you are born into this world you know nothing. When you leave this world, by far the biggest percentage of what you have learned will have come from others...so you have to be open to what other people know, what other people think...

So what you learn from others is vital, but then you have to combine that with what is even more vital, your own creativeness. Because however small a part creativeness is of your total, when you leave this earth, that is the thing that counts.

"It's a funny thing, because at the other extreme the truly creative people reject the works of others because it's against their nature, and go completely on their own. I think it's very difficult to combine the two things to be an observant copier who is truly creative. In a company you have the possibility of doing that by mixing the right sort of people. You can have someone who looks very coldly and analytically at things he might be a great copier. That's one very good type to have. Then you have the creative one who never looks at anyone else's work and even hates to do the same thing twice. These two kinds of people seem to balance one another. I think we are lucky to have that kind of balance here at Baltic.

"When the five of us left Nautor we were very aware that we were different personalities, we had a good cross section of knowledge and attitudes to form a good company. That was so not by accident. We loved to work at Nautor. We learned a lot. But in a big company it's very difficult to make changes. Sometimes you come up with a suggestion that you think is just beautiful and you end up getting no response. And at that time Swan was pretty much alone in building top quality racer-cruisers so they really had no incentive to change.

"You have to give your capabilities a try, otherwise at the end of your life you might not be too happy with yourself. Sometimes it works out like you thought, other times it doesn't. But both ways you learn.

"Our basic idea from the beginning was that we didn't want to go head to head with anybody on the market at that time. Although our philosophy might be closer to other people's out there, I think it's vital that every company find its own niche. You have to consider pretty hard what it is you're looking for; what you are trying to achieve.

"We wanted to create a top quality, comfortable, cruising boat, but one that was lighter than most, not only to increase performance but also to make life easier, more enjoyable...in close quarters and harbors the light boat responds much more quickly, is much more manageable. A heavy boat is harder to slow down, harder to turn.

The closer you get the boat to its designed displacement, the better for both performance and, I think, cruising.

"There is little doubt that the modern hulls with flat bottoms and light displacement are the fastest, but even forgetting racing, I find that many of our clients who don't even do club racing just don't want to be overtaken by another boat. It's against their nature.

"And the other thing. I have been in our boats in really heavy conditions, both with boats that were relatively free of gear and boats heavily loaded with spare anchors, great lengths of chain, and the like, and the unloaded boat just flew happily along, dry and fast, whereas the loaded-down boat was beginning to pitch and struggle and was wet. Ninety-nine percent of the time most people will be coastal or weekend cruising, and even when they go long distances there is no real need to carry five years of supplies; you can get most things in most places now, so a lighter displacement boat will not be a disadvantage.

When I commented on how almost inhumanly thorough the construction of the boats was, PG frowned and said, "You know, too often people do things in the boat business for marketing reasons. I can't object to that because that is their philosophy, but I think we are guilty at the other end. We do all these little things because we think they are important, but then we forget to tell our clients about them.

"And you can't blame people for not knowing or not seeing right away, because you have to start from one end and go through all the details, and by the time you get to the other end you have a good list of why this is a good boat.

"For example, when we put a teak deck on a boat, that owner should not be punished in performance just because he wants to have a beautiful deck. So we calculate exactly how much structural support that teak deck set in epoxy produces, then we cut back on the materials in the deck to try to make up for the extra weight. I'm not saying you can take as much weight out as the teak deck puts in, but you can make an effort to compensate...We also do other nice things on the decks, like rounding the ends of planks where they fit into the covering boards.

"In the floor grid we use unidirectional fibers. With them you can stretch the material to a higher strength so the fibers act as the steel rods do in reinforced concrete. Now if you were to bend the steel rods, put all sorts of waves into them, then under stress the rod would just straighten out and the concrete would crumble. You can roughly compare that to woven roving where the fibers go up and over each other in a million little bends.

"We did testing on panels with unidirectional and woven roving and the difference in strength was substantial. What is even more important to me than the actual failing is that when we loaded the test panels under stress, long before we could actually see the panel fail because that takes a lot of load we could hear through listening devices that we attached to the panels, the small fibers coming apart in the woven roving. That means that the longevity of woven roving just would not be as good.

"The nice thing with unidirectional is that you can orientate the fibers in the direction of the load. In a boat you always have concentrated loads in certain areas going in a certain direction. So we have a relatively complex lamination schedule. That is why we have a book for each boat we build, not just each model, but each and every boat, with a page for each layer of laminate. Then as the guy lays up the laminates, he signs off each page and the book goes into our files. We have to do that. If you overbuild anyway by a long shot you don't have to worry about a guy forgetting a layer; it wouldn't make that much difference, but when things are engineered, you have to keep tighter control. Plus you can go back and see how well specific things you did worked out.
"We like to use glass floor grids and longitudinals instead of wood or metal floors, because if you work the glass right, and you stagger the dimensions down the further you get from the load concentration. All your materials are then of the same elasticity. If you use metal floors and I speak from experience because we have used different materials on the custom side you are going to have critical spots where one material will start behaving differently from another and you'll have problems.

"We have developed our own computer program for calculating almost everything on a boat. A few years ago we set one of our boats up with a computer and a great number of sensors that recorded loads. We went out many times in all kinds of conditions and we got thousands of readings that we then developed into computer programs that form a book this thick, for calculating rigging, rudder stock, laminates, everything.

"But the computer is just the first step. It's very easy to design programs that will spew out a lot of fancy and impressive, but sometimes unreliable, numbers; so you have to take a computer for what it is: just one of the many tools. The most important factor is still the people who build the boats. So often you work out something on the computer and in the design office and it seems absolutely perfect, but then you come out into the shop and start building the boat that way, and all of a sudden you take a few steps back and you say to yourself,'That just doesn't look right.' You have to have the ability and experience to recognize that. There is a combination of mathematical, high level know-how and practical instinct and experience. And you need a balance, just like with the creative and methodical people we talked about. You need that balance to be able to do the best.

We use a layer of flexible resin and mat, and then we bolt the toe-rail on. That gives us about ten times the strength we need.

"In the bottom of the boat we can build heavy beams for strength. Adding weight down there is no problem because the ballast is there for that very reason. You should have laterals to support the torque of the keel, and then heavy longitudinals to support the laterals.

"All our tanks are bonded in because that's the safest way to hold them in place. We also pour two-part foam between the tank and the bulkheads and the hull to make things more secure and to get away from the noise of water sloshing in the tanks. Besides, you won't have things falling in there, bouncing around and making noise.

"High strength aluminum is what we use on the rudder posts because we don't want extra weight out in the end of the boat. This specific aluminum has stronger properties than most stainless steel rudder posts, but it's much more difficult to handle. You can't weld it, for instance, or the weld will just break. You have to attach the rudder reinforcement plates mechanically to the rudder post, which is a more expensive method, but it does save a lot of weight and with our philosophy it is worth doing. On custom boats we use titanium and carbon fiber all sorts of things.

"The sea cocks are bonded in with fiberglass material instead of using an outside flange because if you want to get an outside flange flush to the outer skin for performance, you have to weaken the hull by feathering it to make room for the flange.

"I'm not saying that building a boat in two halves is the only way to lay up a boat, but it does make it easier for the men to do their work. I do think you end up with a better quality hull. Some people say that builders only do that to speed up production by having two crews working on one hull at once, but when you are putting out a total of forty boats a year of all models combined, then, believe me, speeding up lamination is the last of your worries.

"For us, setting the keel is a one-man job. That is nice because the man can take all the time he wants, check it, remove it, fit it again. He's not in anybody's way and no one is waiting for him as happens when a bunch of people are moving a hull and lowering it onto the keel. And when people are relaxed and enjoying themselves, they can do a much better job. Around the bolts we use an elastic sealant but between the keel and the hull we use chopped fiber and a form of resin that remains more elastic, thus less liable to crack than ordinary resin.

"We have had a number of boats grounding very hard and all sailed away. Most weren't even hauled until the end of the season. I'm not saying that we are building amphibian landing craft, but if you use a little caution when you're close to rocks and don't run aground at full speed, then a well-built boat should take that. But if you hit the ground so hard and stop so fast that you sheer the engine bolts and the engine flies into the salon, then you should expect some hull repair.
"Chainplates? Well. The more you can spread the chainplate load longitudinally, the stiffer the construction is. It's not just a question of a chainplate being strong enough so it won't break, its foundation also has to be solid enough so it won't move. If it gives and the plate moves, then your mast tuning will change dramatically and you might lose your mast.

"We always use rod rigging. It stretches less than wire so you have a safer mast, because whatever happens that changes the tuning of the mast chainplate moving or a wire stretching the rig is more likely to fail.

"Our computers help a lot. They can tell us what we need in a mast cross section, wall thickness, spreaders, rigging, everything. We can input an outside laminate requirement and the computer will calculate weights and layers and direction weave. It also gives us total weight, weight per square meter and required stiffness. We do that for side shell and bottom shell laminates, or bulkhead laminates if we want to make up bulkheads out of balsa and fiberglass. Of course we have to consider whether the panel is curved or straight, because a curved panel will have additional strengths compared to a straight panel.

We can feed in size of boat and displacement and the size of rudder and it will then give us the amount of reinforcement necessary, the size of rudder shaft, and wall thickness. We check all the designers' figures and calculations. If something happens, the yard is responsible, not the designer. We have a program for calculating keel shape, vertical and horizontal center of gravity, etc. We like to do all those things ourselves because then we can be sure of what is going on and why. Then we can understand, and if we understand we can go on learning. That is one of the best parts."