In September 2020 following a competitive tendering process, Vectis Marine Design was awarded a 2 year contract to provide naval architecture support to the CalMac fleet of 33 ferries that serve the western islands of Scotland.
Vectis has a long standing relationship with Safehaven Marine, the Cork, Ireland-based designer and builder of pilot boats, workboats and military vessels. In recent months this has included Vectis supporting Safehaven's development of the innovative XSV20 hybrid craft of which two have now been delivered.
In June 2019, Vectis was awarded a 3 year contract by the Department for Infrastructure, Northern Ireland to provide technical support to government-owned ferries in the province. The ferries include vehicle and passenger ferries and the award follows support provided to the DfI by Vectis over several years via the previous contract holder.
Vectis has recently completed the structural design of two new high performance and weight critical advanced composite craft thereby consolidating our in-house structural design capability in both composites and metals. These craft follow the structural design of a novel 22m high speed craft and a next-generation 8m RIB both in advanced composite materials with infused and cored structural elements. This advanced composite design capability is available to other naval architects, boat designers and boat builders.Vectis supports Safehaven Marine with XSV20 development
The Safehaven XSV20 is a highly innovative hybrid of a wave-piercing monohull forward merging into a planing catamaran aft designed to combine the best features of both hull types in a single high speed vessel. The design has been built in twin waterjet configuration with un-stepped aft hulls, and with quad surface drives and stepped aft hulls. Both configurations deliver impressive high speed performance in higher sea states than obtainable with either conventional monohulls or conventional catamarans. Vectis supported Safehaven with the development by assisting with the structural design of the composite hull structure, and with analysis of the XSV performance. The XSV structure was designed to BV NR600 and NR546 rules and incorporates a cored hull bottom and topsides. Working closely with Frank at Safehaven we specified the composite scantlings to comply with the operational profile in accordance with BV rules. This project builds on our experience designing weight-constrained but robust advanced composite hull structures to a range of classification society and other rules. During the development of the XSV concept Safehaven carried out extensive testing of scale models to confirm and optimise the configuration. Vectis supported this work with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of the XSV hull form to help identify the complex water and air flow around the three hulls and within the tunnel between the catamarn hulls. We invested in the Orca 3D Simerics CFD software in early 2019 and have since applied it to various development and performance analysis projects. Once the first two XSVs were launched and trialled we simulated their performance in CFD and supported their performance optimisation. We wish Frank and Safehaven good luck with the future trans-Atlantic crossing in the XSV20 Thunder Child II. Please contact Vectis for further details of our structural design and optimisation, and CFD development and performance analysis capabilities.
Click here to return to the main news page