11.52m centreboard cruiser
A customer from Switzerland approached Dipl.-Ing. Juliane Hempel’s design office with an unusual request for a large heavy yacht. He wanted an 11.5 metre heavy yacht with a deckhouse for Lake Neuchâtel, where – according to the client – there is usually a breeze with the distinctive name ‘Nonnenfurz’.
Conventional cruising boats with a high weight usually drift or motor in these conditions, but he wants to sail like a dinghy cruiser but with the comfort of a modern deckhouse yacht.
Extensive stability tests and the shaping of the hull similar to a large dinghy cruiser with a width of almost 3.7 metres were the result.
The yacht is fitted with a lifting centreboard with 600 kg ballast, which can be lowered from a draught of 1 m to 2.4 m. The plug-in rudder with emergency release in the event of grounding matches this.
The rig is modern with swept spreaders, but – as is typical of dinghy cruisers – it is not as high as on a corresponding keel yacht.
A self-tacking jib can be used, which does not reach all the way to the top. Or a top genoa on the bowsprit, which holds the anchor in the centre.
The cockpit situation is interesting, here you can sit outside – as usual – on the side benches. In the cockpit itself there is a kind of ‘command desk’ with a folding table around it and plenty of space to set up folding chairs in the harbour.
This yacht is also intended to serve as a rest area from everyday life for the owners in the harbour.
The 22 hp outboard motor is located aft in the cockpit in a closed box to which the rudder is attached.
The cockpit floor is very low so that you can step down through the two doors into the saloon in one step, the cockpit floor is level with the floor of the raised seating area, which avoids the staircase effect of deckhouse yachts.
