TELL TALES: DOWN THE MEMORY LANE

During the many years I have been active in the yachting business there has been an almost enormous development in materials, building technique and in the design of yachts. The design of hull shapes keels and rudders have changed greatly, mostly due to the development of new rating rules, starting from the I.O.R. (international Offshore Rating rule) and IMS to today’s rules.

Also styling of the yachts have changed not due to any rules or regulations but just the fact that peoples taste and opinion on styling have changed through the years.

For us that have been and are involved, on daily bases, in creating and developing new designs, new building technique, new materials etc. we sometimes do not realize the pace of the development. You are so busy with your daily activities that you do not spend much time looking back. And sometime when you see some of your “older” yachts, you even get surprised how the sailing world and also you own products have changed through the years.

This happened to me.

It was in the summer of 2002 when I took an unexpected trip down memory lane during a business a trip to the Mediterranean. Purely by coincidence, I happened across a Baltic 46 sitting in a Mediterranean marina, in fact the very first model to have come out of the yard almost 30 years before. I must admit that when I saw it that afternoon, I felt surprised because it looked old, and slightly out of date compared with brand new yachts laying in the same marina. When we developed the Baltic 46, it was under the I.O.R. rules that created pinched in stern hull shape. Also, those days the styling concept of deck shapes was with very flat surfaces and sharp corners not the softer rounded shapes that most of the other boats in the marina had. Looking at the Baltic 46, in the marina, I even felt some degree of embarrassment that I and Baltic Yachts had been responsible for such an old-fashioned boat.

But that evening at dinner, I thought it over a little more, and I was not so tough on myself. It was, after all, built almost 30 years ago. I remember the effort and studies from C&C Design to come up with a very optimized design for us. Even including model tank testing – a process almost unheard of in yachting business at this time.  I also remembered materials and methods used for the laminates including sandwich construction and uni-directional fibers. One of our material suppliers even went to the level of producing a uni-direction fiber custom made for us. Also, a lot of other things like rod-rigging standard, used sometimes by racing machines but not very common in serial production yachts at that time. Teak decks were epoxy glued to the fiber deck increasing strength and reducing weight plus many things we did, including a very high level of work quality, to produce a, second to none yacht.

So, when I went to look at the boat again the following morning, I saw her in a very different light. I realized that the Baltic 46 still outshined, by far, most of the brand-new boats in the marina. She looked beautiful. I felt very proud. For a 30-year-old boat, she was state of the art. She might look slightly outdated now, but the first ever Baltic 46 was – and in many ways still is ahead of its time.

Footnote: Between 1973 and 1977 Baltic Yachts delivered 11 hulls of the Baltic 46. The first hull namned Queen Anne has been in the same family since 1979.