Royal Huisman uses aluminium to achieve ‘Featherlight’ design standards for its Nilaya superyacht

Royal Huisman has successfully cut down the weight of its Nilaya superyacht, or Project 405, using its ‘Featherlight’ aluminium design. The extremely sought-after 46.8-metre (154-foot) yacht is the first to utilise the company’s patented Featherlight blueprint.

Nilaya continues to gain attention in the neighbouring area of the Vollenhove facility as the superyacht has left her construction hall and is heading towards mounting her towering rig in Amsterdam.

The developer of the yacht has been relentlessly monitoring the building of Nilaya, which has led them to curtail almost 11% of the vessel’s weight with the use of aluminium, other than the conventional metals used in shipbuilding.

The most revered ‘Featherlight’ process often resembles the design protocol followed by space agencies that make good use of Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This particular FEA modelling system allows the selection of different aluminium plate thicknesses and frame structures to increase hull rigidity while lowering the total displacement.

The in-house engineering and weight management led to proper installations of lighting solutions, insulation devices and all the other related mechanical systems.

The inside of the yacht has also achieved a lot of stagnancy due to the proper weight analysis. The interior of the yacht is completely studded with lightweight foam. This specific design negates the displacement gap between the aluminium and the carbon-constituted yachts.

The CEO at Royal Huisman, Jan Timmerman, mentioned: “I am proud of the investment we have made in advanced engineering and of the way teams from Royal Huisman and Rondal advanced new solutions to meet the brief from very knowledgeable clients and designers.”

Project 405 can be considered the first yacht of its magnitude to be designed to take full advantage of the structured luff sail incorporated by Doyle Sails, an option that allowed the entire Rondal mast, rig, and vessel parts to be almost weightless. 

Rondal had also been responsible for providing new generation hybrid carbon and aluminium captive winches, different sail handling gears and hatches.

The project manager at MCM Newport, Nigel Ingram, pointed out: “While the new Nilaya is meant to take the owners world cruising, he also asked for a boat with all the ‘good habits’ of their previous racer, meaning responsiveness and excellent handling. Alustar aluminium is the right material for an advanced, quality superyacht for global cruising. It deals with noise better and is a better choice for cruising in comfort to remote locations.”