New build : M/Y Cornelia

Hi all,

Recently delivered a 34m steel+aluminum displacement yacht from Turkey to Netherlands, logging 3500 nm on her maiden voyage. The boat had a few unusual features I'd like to share.

She's a typical displacement yacht with clean uncluttered lines, weighing in at 300 M/T fully laden. Was built to a De Vries Lentsch design by RMK Marine in Tuzla / Turkey, for a Dutch owner. The delivery trip was also to serve as a shake down / extensive sea trial before final touches / improvements were done in Netherlands; I could say that the delivery, done in North Atlantic winter conditions, served that purpose very well.

The interesting feature of the yacht is the propulsion: single 602 kw ABC diesel, turning at a max rpm of 750; driving a single variable pitch propeller. This combination, which we used at a max of 80% load due to vibration problems to be adressed, gave us a speed of 11 kts, and fuel consumption at that speed was a mere 80 ltrs/hr.

Then we had the ''power take home'' feature, where the 100 kw shaft generator would be used as an electric motor to turn the propeller shaft by means of a PTI coupling, thus providing an emergency means of propulsion. In this mode, three 60 kw Cat gensets are to be used in parallel, suppyling sufficient power to drive the electric motor at full power + the 40-50 kw normal cruising load. We tested the system and were able to get 3-4 kts out of it, this time due to some control problems. When fully operational, the system is estimated to be capable of driving the boat at 5-6 kts.

I was surprised too when I first went onboard; but she handles pretty well with the help of a large rudder and a powerful bowthruster; and now with the vibration problem solved, she's easily making 12+ knots while consuming a mere 100 ltrs per hour.