Cruising World On Board: Windelo 50

[Music] hi Andrew Parkinson here with cruising world and I am at a very exciting boat at the Miami Boat show this year this is the windel 50 yachting um and I'm standing here with Stephan Grove stepan is the executive director of Walo good to see you indeed good to see you welcome on board for the sunglasses it's so bright here in Miami um but nothing's shining brighter than this boat right here in the dock right now I first saw this boat in can last September and I got to say you know at a International Boat Show with 20s something World premieres this boat really stood out to me what separates some of these multi holes from the rest of the pack is what we're going to be seeing here with this windo 50 Stephan this boat is all about sustainable Blue Water cruising can you tell our audience what does that mean to windo yeah so absolutely key to us you know windo wouldn't be around if we could push and innovate in the market a little bit uh so she's a performance blue water cruiser there's lot of environmentally positive features in the build with the new composite and in the use of the boat with electric hybrid engines and we'll talk through that as we go on board it's really a boat that we form follows function and we'll be using words like autonomy sustainability uh eco-conscious cruising modular uh Arrangement as we walk through the boat uh what can you tell us a little about the design profile of this boat yeah so I mean Kristoff B is very well known for you know designing performance multi-holes so she has really thin boughs uh she doesn't have a top hole speed right she has dagger boards so where're absolutely in the performance uh segment will match wind speeds in in in light winds for example we'll surf more than 20 knots so we're up there with all the performance cats and then in terms of the design The Innovation here is that we've reinvented uh life on board so we have a huge uh Loft which is experien as indoors and Outdoors as opposed to secluding spaces and and duplicating places is now I understand this windo 50 yachting just came across on its own Hall can you tell us a little bit about that absolutely so she came across on the Y and you know we've been delivering boats for 2 and a half 3 years now and actually we've had seven trans Atlantics right so our clients are uh true Sailors around the world Sailors they will take the boats across the Atlantic and back so we've been Gathering a lot of experience uh including on the electric hybrid which has been absolute Marvel so we've made it up to the roof Stefan wow this is a lot of Sol panels it is indeed this is coming up to almost 6,000 wats of solar panels across the roof and the bowels of the boat really built into our design from the outset 6,000 WS of solar plus the hydro generation this boat is pretty autonomous tell us a little bit about the systems and how they all work together so the systems you know we have a in-house uh software that will coordinate everything with you know there's manual backup and the standard products from the market as well uh but we integrate all the systems and you're absolutely right Andie so the Ro is autonomous in most of her use cases of course you know with this amount of solar power sustaining a family's life on board at anchor is you know no debate you're even charging a lot whilst you're doing that for your batteries and then add the hydrogenation when you're sailing uh you know boat is absolutely sustainable uh from Green energies when uh when sailing and with that sort of energy generation we're talking about what about 4 hours uh of Motoring at 6 knots is that correct 4 hours at 6 knots cruising full electric full silence uh we're talking zero emissions right and this is zero emissions right and that's what the boat does she's self- sustained from renewable energies Stephan we haven't touched on probably the most important aspect of sailing which is sailing actual sailing so here we are on the four deck and I see some dagger boards behind us obviously that speaks to a little bit of performance here tell us about the sailing characteristics of the windo 50 yeah so you mentioned diger boards right in this segment where we have diger boards we're looking for upwind performance which is comparable to you know good monol upwind performance and we we definitely have that here and we have a versatile setup on the windel so we have big sale areas but with a self-tacking Solen for example as our first setup so we want to keep tying with the cockpit the Simplicity of use the boat is easy to sail single-handed but then if we get code zeros and genas out you know we have huge sail areas uh and still very good angles particularly on the code zero and in terms of Naval architecture let's talk about the shape of the holes and uh their per performance under the water yeah so I mean the Kristoff parrow uh uh design right so thin holes uh inverted and uh angled in uh bowels uh we have a lot of freeboard we're 2 m above the water uh so safe uh Blue Water cruising the Mast is set very far back as well so emphasizing that center of gravity and providing a huge uh a huge sail area for this size boat so Stefan here we are in the salon SL Terrace um we're looking at a very large a area tell us a little bit about the design maybe the modular living Arrangement so the design concept here with us is having everything as seamless as possible so you'll notice we're on a single floor plan right from the helm station all the way to the half Terrace that which we enjoy at anchor and then we have a large Loft which we can enjoy as being indoors or Outdoors so we don't you know sacrifice the outdoors when we're sailing or sacrifice the comfort of indoors when we're with anchor you can basically experience all of that quite seamlessly open or closed and we're standing here in just a massive open Salon area uh tell us a little bit about the arrangement here we call it the Loft right so it's a very social area uh we actually have a choice of galys this is the L-shaped Galley which is very open creates a lot of social space around the table flip over bench to the outside uh we have a tremendous uh day bed SL watch bed up here there so everyone sort of fights for their favorite spot and everyone uh has their same favorite spots across the boat really nice place to be and living accommodations this is a three-state room this is a three-state room so owner Suite on the port side with a huge uh owner head and shower room in the front two uh State cabins on the starboard side and we also do custom so we do you know home offices uh foldout beds we do uh bunk beds we do uh actually we're working on a workshop right now uh so a lot of options and let's face it when you're Crossing oceans you've got to have that space and this really delivers yeah absolutely and this is in the 50ft version of course the 54 uh is even more ample than this one of the most remarkable places on this boat in my opinion after you're seeing a lot of other multi-holes here in the dock is the location of the cockpit so we got a forward cockpit area why don't you tell us a little bit more about this space and we're also standing right on the center of gravity of the boat so it's actually a really nice place to stay for an extended period of time so all the sailing is done from here right so short-handed single-handed all the lines come back to the cockpit so you know if you need to quickly ease the sheet of that very powerful sail you can do that right from the helm which makes the boat so much easier to operate you know single-handed even on a watch our clients particularly love the cockpit also for the fact that you know as your as a spouse or as a parent you can have people and kids joining you in here uh there's no need for life jackets we virtually never wear any foul weather uh foul weather gear um this is in its open configuration right now and you can actually it's really really important but you can actually feel the breeze come through right you feel the apparent winds but on a night passage or in fou weather you can close it all up have the heating on in the you know in the saloon and continue sailing here from you know very dry conditions as well now we've got some stairs here that lead forward uh We've also got really good visibility uh tell us a little about that Arrangement yeah so I mean obviously visibility to the front of the boat to the full Sals to the tell tals is fantastic from here we have these uh very long hatches which will actually show you're all the way back to the topping lift so you can see all of the main cell as well from the helm station and these steps providing access to the for deck when you do need to go up there you know nobody's going around the side of the boat uh which is super important again we're close to the center of gravity we're right in the middle of the boat uh so very safe for everybody to operate so in terms of construction I understand this boat has a reduced carbon footprint of about 47% correct absolutely tell us a little bit about the materials used in uh construction process how you were able to achieve that we researched uh several different forms of composite and chose composite from basil fiber which requires 10 times less water and 10 times less energy than making glass fiber and so that's what we used as a supply chain of it it's used in other Industries as well but I believe we're the uh first and only ones to make a whole commercial uh Sailing Boat out of it and so that's associated with the core of the composite is more than 50% of that throughout the boat is p so recycled uh plastic bottle foam um and so all in all we've reduced by half the the carbon footprint all of this you know vacuum infused uh very solid very solid build Basel as a result the composite is actually stiffer than a piece of composite from glass fiber the equivalent weight um and we've reduced the carbon footprint we're actually working and we will not stop with this we're actually working to further that uh CO2 Improvement amazing and we talking about an industry that is so focused on sustainability and know those buzzword we talk about econscious cruising and all that to see a boat builder that's actually doing it and making an impact uh is so important and congratulations to Walo for taking initiative and really making that happen well thank you for that and uh you know it's it's the beginning we'll keep working on it we hope the industry will uh follow suit as well uh there's a lot more that can be done in terms of making uh this industry and sailing more sustainable and every little bit counts right absolutely Stephan thank you for taking the time to show us the window low 50 yachting good luck at the rest of the boat show and we're excited to see this sailing on the water here soon thank you so much for being on board Andrew day one opening of the show and uh we were glad to have you good luck enjoy the show and for cruising world I'm Andrew Parkinson [Music]

Channel: Cruising World

Views: 2,673

Keywords: Cruising World, Catamarans, Blue Water Cruising, Windelo

Id: ayA83kgRZPY

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024