To meet the recent growing demand for support vessels among large yacht owners, Damen Shipyards has come up with a new concept of axe bow. A concept, which has already applied successfully to few Fast Crew Supply Vessels. The new Sea Axe Fast Yacht support vessel will not only cater to the needs of large yacht owners but would also introduce a new concept to the yacht building fraternity.
Axe bow is a proprietary design of Damen and Ships Hydrodynamics department of Technical university of Delft, with significant inputs from captains and chief engineers of Amels Yacht.
Unlike the conventional support vessels, Sea Axe is a high speed vessel, very close to the design of Damen’s 50 meter hull working boats but with finer finish and interior. Depending on the load, the ship can deliver a top speed of 28 knots.
The space consuming stowage , just like in all supply vessels, has been neglected in Sea Axe. The 50 meter Sea Axe has a 30 meter open aft deck and 250 tonnes of deck cargo capacity. Sufficient space has been provided in order to carry helicopter, large tenders and water toys. Extra capacity tanks has also been made for carrying specialized fuels.
The design has been made in such a way that later modifications can be made easily in order to accommodate extra capacity. Additions features like a dive center, extra refrigeration and freezer capacity, dry store rooms and living quarters to accommodate additional crew, pilots, owner’s staff, security personnel and dive instructors, can be easily made.
A transatlantic range of 18 knots, easily allows the mother ship’s logistics, scout anchorages, shuttle guests and fishing and diving excursions. An additional feature in the Sea Axe helps in keeping the mother yacht clean by disposing of the grey water and trash. It is a fully classed vessel with a crew capacity of only six, making it ideal for charter trade to accompany the primary yacht and can also prove extremely handy to support large sail boats such as J-class yachts.
The fine section of the bows with a deep forefoot results in the axe bow, which helps in reducing vertical acceleration and slamming in heavy weather. This particularly helps in preventing crew from getting seasickness. The overall structure increases the efficiency and operability and helps in better sea keeping even in rough weather.
Thus, Sea Axe is a true axe bow yacht and shouldn’t be compared to conventional yachts, merely having fine bows.
