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To adapt an adage from the popular language of fashion, green is the new black. It’s no
surprise then that one of the world’s most cutting-edge genres, luxury yacht
construction and design, is falling in step with the green revolution. With
influences ranging from Al Gore’s highly popular feature film documentary "An
Inconvenient Truth," to some of Manhattan’s newest skyscrapers—the Hearst Tower
near Columbus Circle and the Bank of America tower at One Bryant Park—we are, as
a culture, going green.  Interior design is just one of the ways in which ours and every
other community can begin to adhere to a new set of rules that will ensure there
is clean air to fill our sails and blue seas to float our bottoms. Taking this
mantra to heart is one of Royal Huisman Shipyard’s latest projects, the 190-foot
(58-meter) performance ketch Ethereal. Ethereal’s green mission, to be
energy efficient and environmentally friendly, is driven by her extremely
committed owners. Her brief was to push the envelope of current knowledge and
practices and become a yacht that could operate independently and efficiently
for extended periods. Applying this dictum to every detail of the yacht’s design
meant pioneering major advances in interior lighting (and many other systems’
designs). (Click image to enlarge)
Examples of these innovations include windows and hatches
manufactured from exotic glass laminates and designed to become increasingly
opaque as infrared heat increases. They can be programmed to maintain constant
light and comfort levels to reduce the demand for heating or air conditioning.
Advanced insulating flooring was also developed. This new composite is light,
yet stiff enough to support great weight and will be used for many interior
floors. Some composite panels will also be used in the bulkheads of certain
spaces, such as the galley, ensuring Ethereal’s interior will be, as
the yard says, a "beautiful and stylish energy-saving cocoon." (Click images to enlarge)Trumping the admirable list of eco-friendly advancements is
Ethereal’s lighting applications. As Royal Huisman explains, "Lighting of
a ship can actually be a major player in improving its level of environmental
friendliness." The conventional, incandescent lighting that is the norm takes up
a considerable amount of energy and is thus an important factor in
determining a yacht’s power profile (which, in turn, is used to determine the
size of the generators required). Saving energy with lighting equals reduced
generator capacity and subsequent fuel consumption: green benefit No. 1. In addition to the grander goal of reduced fuel consumption,
saving energy by eliminating incandescent lighting has two major benefits.
Typical incandescent light only converts five to 15 percent of the energy
consumed to light, leaving the balance of that energy to turn to heat. To offset
this heat, a yacht requires an elaborate air-conditioning system that not only
combats heat from the external environment, but also heat from the lighting
system. Consequently, this requires larger generator capacity and more fuel.
Royal Huisman’s Ethereal was designed to be green. Among the many
ways yacht owners can be environmentally responsible is using LED lights and
fabrics made of sustainable materials. (Click images to enlarge)
Ethereal’s LED bulbs solve both these issues.
State-of-the-art LEDs convert 20 to 25 percent of their energy to light, and
because white LEDs make near zero infrared light, they do not throw off heat the
way incandescent lamps do. Because there is less heat emitted into each
space, a quieter and more energy efficient air-conditioning system can be employed, translating into energy savings of up to 75 percent. To tackle the problem of the "cool" bluish light LEDs
originally produced, Royal Huisman worked with the American company Illumination
Optics to develop a type of LED that would offer warm white color.
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