Naiad's Managing Director, Steven Schmidt, says,
Explaining the features of Naiad's new 7.3m boat
Naiad's Managing Director, Steven Schmidt, says,
After 27 years of designing RIB hulls to provide a better ride and handling characteristics. Particularly in adverse conditions, I was keen to utilize the concept of the stepped hull. Our emphasis has always been performance first, engineering second and aesthetics third.
This has been appreciated by the New Zealand Coastguard Federation as Naiad is still their number one choice despite the efforts made by our competitors to outperform us.
We believe that we have held favour for two reasons. One is our passion for building RIBs. The other is our belief that volunteers who are prepared to risk their lives to save others deserve the very best in heavy weather capability. It is in this area that our hull designs have outperformed our sometimes "flashier" fiberglass competitors such as Protector, Aquapro, Zodiac and Lancer. Very few companies have the depth of experience or knowledge that we have accumulated over almost three decades of designing and building RIBs.
We
therefore considered the stepped hull concept (image right) very carefully
and were sure of what we wanted to achieve in using it. The concept itself
is not new, being used on both amphibious aircraft to break from the suction
of the water, and on race boats to reduce hull resistance and therefore increase
speed.
Naiad were therefore keen to explore the stepped hull concept. We know that on ac conventional hull water tends to suck the hull down which, if released, decreases the resistance and improves fuel economy. Also on tight turns and maneuvering at speed the hull can be held down on one side or the other and can release suddenly causing a skip effect. We expected the steps to prevent this. We planned to use the steps to cushion the hull on a stream of air bubbles to help improve the ride further. It was appropriate to use this concept on a new hull. We chose to develop a new size - 7.3m - which we had not built before, utilising a slim efficient hull design with the incorporation of steps.
In addition, the design team lifted the boat's buoyancy tubes at the shoulder to allow the hull to more deeply penetrate the wave crests before getting lift from the tubes. This allows more of the hull through so the lift is closer to midships than the bow. This means there is less bow lift generated in heavy seas, providing the ability to travel faster in adverse conditions.