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Software mogul Jim Clark challenged Royal Huisman to expand the limits of its capacity and creativity in building his impossible dream: tremendous three-masted schooner Athena.
by Jack A. Somer
photography by Stephane Bravin, Franco Pace, Hans Westerink
03/01/2005
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| Royal Huisman 295 |  |
Scaling
back to
something
Huisman could
build,
Beeldsnijder
used an earlier 60-meter
adaptation of
his classic
33.5-meter staysail schooner,
Gloria, as
a
base for
discussions. By early 1999,
Huisman had
persuaded him to share
the forging of rig, hull lines
and structure
of any new design
with
Gerard
Dijkstra
& Partners. Adept
at “modern
classics,”
Dijkstra
also was expert at overseeing
the
towing-tank and
wind-tunnel tests
that would be
imperative
for this
groundbreaking yacht. Models
were
built,
drawings
rendered, mockups erected, heated
meetings held. As the
concept was
slowly transfigured
under influence of the great
belles of
yesteryear,
it
experienced “mission creep”
– by July
1999, it was 66
meters
long, and by
September, more than 80
meters. Finally, after
months
of passionate
technical
and stylistic deliberation, the
present
clipper-bowed,
three-masted
gaff
schooner
emerged as
Clark’s chosen
framework.
 The bridge-deck "beach" area has a permanent
protective canopy. (Click image to enlarge)
During a final critical
session,
pondering a
model, Clark
remarked that the design,
while grand in
every
other
respect,
was too
high for its length. “I
can’t
make it lower,”
Beeldsnijder asserted.
“Make it
longer,” Clark replied.
In
November
1999,
Jim
Clark – famed founder of Silicon
Graphics
and Netscape, and
self-named
“venture
entrepreneur” –
agreed to
build Athena, a
90-meter schooner
(measured
from
bowsprit
tip to mizzen-boom end), for
delivery in September
2004.
She would be the largest
aluminum sailing
yacht ever
built,
and with
a
displacement projected at nearly
1,000
tons, she
would far outweigh Huisman’s
heftiest
prior
undertaking
delivered May 2002: the 350-ton,
50-meter,
Dijkstra/Alden-designed
Borkumriff
IV,
which also
influenced
Athena’s
aesthetic.
Wolter
Huisman went ahead
with his plans for
the new hall. But
Athena’s mass
would have
other repercussions no one
yet
imagined. For one, there were the
looming strictures of
Lloyd’s
Register and the MCA, under
whose
certification
and survey Athena
inescapably would be
built. As a
yacht greater than 50 meters
and
500
gross tons,
she
would be subject to a slew of
structural, fire and
safety
regulations –
written
originally for tankers and freighters –
all
new
to
Huisman technicians. Athena’s structure,
for
example, would
require finite
element analysis to beef up
high-stress areas,
and a new
longitudinally
reinforced scantling scheme to
withstand the rigors
of a
raging sea. Further,
Huisman,
cooperating with
Feadship’s Van Lent
shipyard, found
it crucial to
develop
weight-saving composite
fireproof
doors,
where only
ponderous
steel
had
previously been
approved.
And
because
the new hall would not be
ready until
autumn
2001, the Alustar
hull would
necessarily be built in
Huisman’s old halls
in 11
sections
(many with
subsections), with welding subject to
Lloyd’s
X-rays.
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