Rob Doyle reveals some of the secrets behind his latest superyacht, created in collaboration with Juan Kouyoumdjian and Mark Whiteley. The 53-metre superyacht, which is due to be built in Greece, has changed the shape of Doyle’s yacht designs and looks to be one of the most radical and thoroughly researched high performance aluminium sailing yachts ever constructed.
Juan came to me and told me about this design project he was working on with a client that wanted a super sailing yacht with massive capabilities. Juan was looking for assistance with the vessel's styling, structures, system & engineering, having never designed a superyacht before and offered me a 50 percent stake of the pitch. Juan’s initial concept was really out there which I completely embraced as I worked over the concept of the exterior styling. When we pitched the yacht, which was at that time 52 metres, the owner came back and said “this is my yacht, I don’t need to see any other designers – let's go.”
I’ve done 36 superyachts in my career and I have never seen a project approved so quickly by the owner, it was extraordinary. With a reaction like that we really knew we were onto something special, and then the owner and project management team allowed us an entire year with which to research and develop the project and come up with the best solution for the boat – that is unheard of in this industry! What he was essentially looking for was a superfast, super light but luxurious yacht that would set a new standard for yachts of her size. 
Juan and I really collaborated during that year, turning over every rock and learning what we needed to do to get the very most out of the yacht. We researched every rule, all the classification rules to find out which would give us the best, lightest rule for aluminium. The goal was to clarify the design down to create the strongest and stiffest rule we could get. It allowed us to explore all of the rules to their merits and eventually we settled on the BV rule.
The entire research process allowed us to hone in on the yacht’s weight and we ended up with around 11 percent less weight than a comparative carbon hull. There are a lot of factors that contributed to that, such as the rig design with Doyle Sails and structured luff, as well as us being super aggressive in cutting down on unnecessary items and systems. It has allowed us to think completely differently about the structure and composition of a sailing yacht. I would confidently say that this hull has the most thorough FEA ever done for a sailing yacht.
We looked at every nook and cranny of the vessel and questioned ‘do we really need these systems?’ ‘Does this bring value for the owner’, if the answer was no, we removed it. What we have created is a much simpler yacht, at a lower cost and a significantly lighter weight, it's a real win-win situation. Normally with yacht design it goes the other way, with yachts getting heavier and heavier as the design process progresses. Juan’s experience in the performance yacht sector was absolutely key here as well because he knows about every single piece of waste so we were challenging one another and questioning the value of different elements. That collaboration really pushed this yacht into a new sphere. 
You can never have a boat that’s too light. Some weight will always creep in there but it is an old cliche that a good heavy boat is a more seaworthy one, it is just not the case. It is old, redundant thinking and we don’t need to go that way anymore. Speed is your friend. If you’re sailing in the following sea, you want to jibe the boat at maximum speed because forces are reduced putting less pressure on the rig.
It is a different thought process now from how the older yacht designers used to think about sailing yachts. We are moving into a different generation of sailing yachts, a higher level of performance sailing yachts, it's a natural evolution.
You are also collaborating with Mark Whiteley for the interiors, how did that relationship begin?
Juan worked on the rig, the hull shape, deck hardware and foils, while I was responsible for the exterior styling and the interior layout and we worked on the systems together. While Juan and I were in the thick of this R&D process, I approached the management team and said “look, you need an interior stylist who will take this same approach and give the interior the same amount of attention that we are giving the exterior and rigging.”
We got them to meet Mark Whiteley and he and the owner clicked straight away. Mark’s proposal was very different and very in-keeping with what we were trying to do, yet retaining a beautiful sense of the interior spaces. When I created the interior layout with the owner, the only thing he really stipulated was that everything was on one level, he didn’t want to walk down any steps. Getting Mark into the team has been critical and he really has gone down into every detail to ensure the interiors comply with all the weight reduction work Juan and I had been working on. 
She is a luxurious yacht, with a massive saloon that has a near panoramic view through wrap-around glass windows, the biggest we’ve ever put in an aluminium structure. We’ve kept the mullions as small as possible and provided Mark with the biggest possible canvas to work with. We’ve hidden a lot of the glass in the exterior styling so actually you don’t notice the glass expanses from the outside, but from the inside you get the full benefit with masses of light. Mark was able to really adapt the interior styling to that feature and we’ve pushed as much out of the vessel as possible, it’s really exciting.
What stage is the build at now?
Once we settled on the rule and the hull design, we approached the Gouwerok shipyard in Holland for the construction of her aluminium hull, while her outfitting will take place in Athens. In the coming months the hull will be launched from the shed and shipped down to Athens.
We have finished the vast majority of our work, moving forward now it is a case of monitoring the build and ensuring that the construction matches with the work we have done on the design. We expect the yacht to be launched in 2024 at the Greek shipyard, which in itself is a fantastic facility that the owner has really invested in over the last few years. There is even talk about a second boat so things are certainly moving in the right direction.
It has made me question everything, the entire way I have looked at design and all that research has really focused my attention on what is truly necessary for yachts. You can certainly see how this yacht has inspired some of our recent work, such as 63-metre Fury unveiled last year.
From the sail set up with the structured luff, to the entire superstructure itself, its changed the way be approach design. It also opened my eyes to the value of aluminium over carbon fibre, not only for the weight but also for the interior volume of the yacht itself, with aluminium allowing you to achieve the maximum square meterage from the vessels interiors. She’s certainly going to continue to influence our work moving forward, it has been the most interesting project we’ve worked on and we are all very excited to see her launched in the coming years!
This article was originally published in Issue 41 of SuperYacht Times newspaper. To read more stories like this one and to never again miss another issue of the SuperYacht Times newspaper, subscribe here.