Nautor's Swan - Launch of a Modern Classic, Development of a Legend

14 October 2009, Isle of Wight – SP, the marine business of Gurit, has secured an agreement to supply materials and engineering for Finnish yacht builder, Nautor’s Swan. The contract, which ensures that SP will be involved in a new range of Nautor yachts, is confirmed as SP completes its work on the new Swan 60 and the Swan 80, two semi production high performance yachts.

Nautor’s Swan – renowned for its luxurious and technologically superior crafts – pays meticulous attention to the build quality of its range. It contracted SP to utilise the company’s expertise in the development of bespoke composite solutions for boats that combine a race performance with exceptional levels of comfort and style.

The Swan 60, which was completed and delivered this summer, has a high-volume interior, a large and well-protected cockpit and race levels of performance. It has been designed to be comfortable for cruising as well as for fast offshore racing, and for this purpose it has been built to be light and responsive as well as highly stable.

SP was involved from the beginning of the project and supplied a range of advanced composite materials including ST70 Carbon Structural SPRINT® woven and biaxial cloths for the manufacture of thick sections, as well as SE70 epoxy prepreg unidirectional tapes for additional reinforcements. Two grades of Corecell™, the leading structural foam core material, were used to increase stiffness and reduce the weight of the structure; Corecell™ T-Foam for the deck and bulkheads and Corecell™ P-Foam for the hull. The laminating system Ampreg 22 and the adhesive Spabond 340 LV were also utilised for the wetting out and bonding of components in the build.

SP also developed a custom SPRINT® material for the project – a simple laminate stack which allowed the hull to be laminated all in one go, and was used similarly for the lamination of the bulkheads and the deck. This innovative SPRINT® material has since been used as a building block for the rest of the range of the Nautor Swan boats.

The Swan 80 is the second in the new range of high-tech advanced composite yachts and is a continuation of the concepts for the Swan 60. In tune with the Swan 60, Nautor set out to produce a high quality, lightweight and production friendly yacht using a reduced inventory of materials, while producing some typical build details and methods to aid the production, and to make the boat a very easy-to-construct model. Once again SP supplied all of the build materials, which included a number of SPRINT® prepregs, Corecell™ T-Foam and Corecell™ P-Foam, Spabond 340 LV and Ampreg 22.

Graham Harvey, Business Manager Marine says: “The Nautor’s Swan contract is fantastic news for the SP team and we are delighted to be working with them to engineer and develop revolutionary boats for high performance sailing. Our range of advanced composite materials coupled with our 20 years of engineering expertise makes SP the ideal partner for Nautor’s Swan as they continue to push the boundaries of sailing yacht design.”