SP Technology Helps Unleash Ultimate Sportsfish Boat

A Florida based “Unleashed Team” was assembled three years ago consisting of boat designer Applied Concepts, boat builder Tribute Performance Yachts, boat builder Lost River Marine and interior styling by SR Marine Interiors. The Team was chosen specifically to design and build the 86’ Sportfish Unleashed. The Unleashed Team enlisted the help of SP, the marine business of Gurit, to provide its composite technologies and technical support in the build of their 86’ Unleashed, which sails under the name Double Down.

Double Down is one of the most structurally and technologically advanced Sportfish boats on the water. With six staterooms, seven heads, an enclosed fly bridge and totally integrated entertainment, navigation, monitoring and control systems, including Dynamic Positioning with a 3-axis joystick, she is the perfect mix of luxury, advanced engineering and cutting edge design – creating a buzz wherever she goes.

SP provided its unique package of innovative product range and engineering knowledge to the Unleashed Team, a solution that ranged from what products would perform at the highest level through to technical and sales support. This turnkey approach of supplying materials and in-house expertise aided the team to complete the vessel made entirely of composite materials.

The Double Down hull and deck is constructed entirely from an E-Glass reinforced epoxy matrix of Corecell, Ampreg 22, Spabond 345 and 740 adhesives, which enable the boat to maintain excellent structural integrity whilst helping it effectively deal with impact slamming. Tribute and Lost River Marine also employed thermoforming on the deck to create an incredible stiffness which prevents deck buckling at high pressures.

To apply SP’s Ampreg 22 epoxy laminating system Tribute built a specialist gantry to travel backwards and forwards over the hull, they were then able to seamlessly perform one continuous layup on the 86’ hull without fault and no questionable joins. The flexibility of the product enabled them to lay up the full layers of each bottom and side in one go.

Richard Scheffer of Tribute Boats said: “The Double Down is an incredibly unique boat and the first build of its kind for us in terms of the composite technologies we used to create her. One of the main reasons we approached SP was because of the fully comprehensive package of materials, engineering and technical support they offer. During the build all the products supplied performed exactly as they said they would – enabling us to perform all of our processes by the book. SP worked closely with our staff helping them optimise the products and enabling us to maintain our high level of quality control.”

Shannon Neville of Lost River Marine added: “In my 27 years of boat building I have worked with lots of materials and for me Corecell is the most appropriate and easiest to work with. It is strong, resilient, easy to cut and sands easier then the competition. I found the products wonderful to work with because they offered us a great deal of flexibility. The Spabond range in particular with its increased working times and overall consistency stood out for us. I couldn’t imagine anything out there could beat SP. They offer the advantage of being able to provide a full range of products and technical support from one vendor which translates to less production time on the shop floor.