Elida, the wooden sailing yacht, launched

by Thomas Tison Yacht Design & Engineering 25 Aug 2022 06:26 PDT

Elida - Hull construction © Jolan Kieschke

A racing cruiser designed for long lasting ownership.

Launched in Germany this August, Elida is a 15m offshore racer cruiser featuring a timber hull and carbon fibre deck, designed for the Baltic and Northern seas. Thomas Tison, owner of the design and engineering firm that designed Elida, described her as the embodiment of long lasting prestige.

"Elida is not a machine. Her design considers the sailors, all of their senses, and the environment".

In a world where racing yachts are evolving into technological artefacts that occasionally lose their appeal, and the temporary whims of today's rating rules can often push some owners to change their racing boat every couple of years, the French studio Thomas Tison Yacht Design & Engineering has rediscovered the idea of a timeless prestige.

The main challenge faced was to design a boat that can retain its value for future generations.

All of this was made achievable thanks to a deep understanding of the owner's needs, as well as the needs of his family. Prompted by this, Thomas Tison's team had to carefully select the most suitable materials and implement cutting-edge technologies in order to enhance the timeless pleasure of sailing.

The result is a yacht that distinctly deviates from the current trend of super-fast, minimalist, carbon fibre racing boats.Elida is a blend of curved and tensed lines, with a pronounced flare, inverted sheer line and rounded turn of the bilge. Her gentle and flowing lines enhance both the comfort and the on-board liveability.

The ability to translate the owner's vision.

Elida is the Thomas Tison Yacht Design & Engineering's interpretation of the client's brief for a family racer cruiser and his passion for classic yachts.The boat was designed according to the owner's regatta program, which includes the prestigious Fastnet Race.

The team conducted an extensive study on successful past competitors, which showed that a low wetter area hull with high flare was the most suitable option. This type of hull shape works well upwind, with good seakeeping properties it is ideal for the light to medium wind condition which occurs most often in regattas.

The primary objective of Thomas Tison's firm, which specialises in custom yachts, is to transform their clients' vision into a reality. In the last few years, Thomas Tison has worked on many custom projects for private clients as well as world-renowned sailors like Ben Ainslie.

"The key to realising the owner's vision is having an in-depth understanding of his underlying needs.

A skilled designer should be able to guide the owner to identify his needs at each step of the project, and then satisfy them. Even though it's a process that takes time, this deep exploration of the needs allow us to come up with unique solutions for creating unique boats."

Elida - Aft Rendering - photo © Seb Olle

Functional Layout

The interior of Elida was designed after taking the owner's requirements into careful consideration, including his family's needs and the environmental conditions of the seas in which the boat will be sailing.

To ensure a comfortable living environment on board, Thomas Tison has designed and engineered a custom heating system, a hand heater and a layout that offers extra storage space for sailing equipment.

All the components with which the user will come into physical contact, like the handles and the furniture, are built into materials that are pleasant to touch, avoiding the use of cold stainless steels and plastic materials. Several layouts were explored throughout the design process with ease of movement, perspective, light, and storage being the essential requirements for both racing and cruising.

The aft cabins are open to the main living section, expanding the area for a longer cockpit and providing an improved feeling of space, thus saving weight and facilitating crew movements.

The chart table located behind the companionway allows ease for communication with the cockpit, and places the navigator away from the main action. Above all, it frees up an area that can be utilised for additional storage on starboard, making room for a wet gear locker and providing additional counter top surface.

Many details that are normally not explored when designing a 15m sailing yacht were taken into account, such as the acoustic isolation and the ventilation system. The use of timber enables the yacht to have a good level of sound insulation, and a ventilation system was customised and created ad hoc for Elida.

New technologies enable the pleasure of sailing.

Thanks to his experience optimising the structure of racing and super yachts, the French designer was able to select the best available technologies to enhance the pleasure of sailing.

For Elida, Thomas Tison Yacht Design & Engineering has developed a unique timber hull construction method, which results in an incredibly light and stiff space frame.

The in-depth testing conducted at an Airbus facility provided incredibly useful knowledge of glued laminated timber construction and its behaviour.

Locally reinforced with unidirectional and woven Carbon fibre, the shape of the timber hull has been optimised with Computational Fluid Dynamics and a closer look at the keel bulb displays a high level of hydrodynamic refinements.

In addition to this, many novel systems were developed: the new lifting keel system enables draft reduction from 3.2m down to 2.5m, while the spinnaker retrieval system and the advanced vang and jib dynamic control systems provide competitive gains whilst racing.

All of these solutions allow the Elida to reach a maximum speed of close to 30 knots.

Elida: fast, technologically advanced and elegant.