Returning sailing yachting to its natural environmental and eco-sustainable vocation regardless of size: the NL 285 “Vento” project, presented by Nuvolari Lenard at the 2021 Venice Boat Show (May 29 – June 6), is a manifesto for environmental protection and a appeal to designers and owners to develop, with full awareness and at 360 °, authentically green large yachts.
Progetto Vento: 100 m megasailer by Nuvolari Lenard
A 100m sailing superyacht can – and must – be environmentally friendly and have the least possible impact on the ecosystem. To achieve it, it is enough to reverse the course, adopting virtuous behavior and at the same time combine the knowledge, technologies and materials of which we are aware. Carlo Nuvolari and Dan Lenard, founders of the Venetian design studio of the same name, are convinced of this, sensitive to these issues and have always promoted a conscious yacht design (among their latest projects, Thunder, the 14-seater hybrid Venetian water taxi launched in 2020 ).
Back to basics
With decades of experience in yacht design at all levels, with hugely successful projects created for iconic shipyards such as Oceanco, Palmer Johnson, Perini Navi and CRN Ferretti, Nuvolari Lenard decides to break ranks with a radical concept, which integrates all the parameters of pure sailing with the current needs of a superyacht owner. “Vento”, in fact, will not be yet another “sail assisted megayacht”, but an authentic and extremely elegant sailing ship of 100 m, which will find its natural propulsive force in the wind. «Being attentive to the environment must become a way of being, as well as thinking», explains engineer Carlo Nuvolari, «and nothing prevents us from thinking about a truly green large yacht. It is not difficult to achieve important results, just stop being traditionalists and take risks.
Sustainability and performance
In compliance with Nuvolari Lenard’s own design philosophy characterized by a sporty and muscular design, “Vento” has powerful and aggressive lines that confirm its unique character; but since the form is never an end in itself, but always an expression of a very specific function, the living work is designed to be as efficient as possible: the bow pours, for example, in addition to giving the yacht a strong personality, allows you to extend the waterline length to the maximum, thus elevating performance under sail and stability. The result is a hull with reduced drag and therefore with less power requirement for a given speed, which translates into enormous benefits both under sail and motor. Even the sloping stern fulfills a function, because being not very voluminous, it will have less impact on overall displacement, the crucial point of an efficient and sustainable hull. A sailboat must be light, with the weight concentrated at the bottom, and “Vento” will thus be built in aluminum with superstructures and masts in advanced composite. A hull that tends to be light and long will have less residual resistance and will consequently form smaller waves, to the benefit of the coasts, which are increasingly exposed to the motion generated by large fast boats.
Wing-sail
An efficient hull must be matched by an adequate sail plan that maximizes its benefits and performance. Nuvolari Lenard then turned to Omer Wing-Sail and its creator, Ilan Gonen, a former Israeli fighter pilot, an aerodynamics expert as well as a passionate sailor. The result is the Wing-Sail, the only one of its kind which – as the recent hulls of the America’s Cup also demonstrate – offers a much higher efficiency than that obtained with traditional rigs. A wing like this, in fact, requires a smaller sail area for the same performance and this triggers a positive spiral: by reducing the amount of sail there will be less heeling force and therefore less keel weight will be required to straighten the boat. In a word: less displacement which is, in fact, the final goal. The retractable keel will allow you to go from a draft of 5.5m to one of 9m. The carbon masts will measure 64m and support a total sail area of 2100 square meters.
When green rhymes with big
Like every project by Nuvolari Lenard, “Vento” also contains, within sporty and powerful lines, large and very well distributed interiors, thanks to a careful study of volumes and flows. The concept includes six double cabins: four Vip, one super Vip and the large master suite forward of the main deck with private terrace. The outdoor spaces are also huge and diversified, which obviously include fly bridge, spa, beach club and all the pluses one would expect to find on board a megayacht of this size.
Change of pace
As for motor propulsion, Nuvolari Lenard is in contact with a leading company in the sector to equip “Vento” with a diesel / electric hybrid system with variable speed generators and variable pitch propellers that allows many operating options to achieve the conditions of maximum efficiency and minimum specific consumption. “Vento” is much more than an avant-garde and environmentally friendly yacht: it is a revolutionary concept that forces us to face reality and face it with different eyes and minds.
In fact, an electric motor and batteries are not enough to make a boat green, it is necessary to change mentality, acquire a global vision that is able to balance the benefits and costs of some choices by projecting them into the future. In short, there is a need for yacht design to change pace, for it to care as much about the sea under the house as it does about those far away from us and that, from the hull to the sail plan, passing through the technology applied to the decor of the luxurious interiors, it ask questions and be ready to give concrete answers.
“Vento” speaks to a market sensitive to environmental issues, worried about the future of the marine ecosystem, which is ready to do its part: sailing as much as possible, not polluting, sailing slowly so as not to generate a dangerous wave motion the coasts, avoid wasting energy by setting the air conditioning to “polar” temperatures below deck and, above all, regain possession of the sailing times, respecting the whims of the wind which, in the Mediterranean, means moving in the early hours of the day and during thermals afternoon… A new way of conceiving sailing megayachts, concretely veered towards ecology, is possible: “Vento” is the testimony of this.
