Superyacht Sarissa

Sarissa is an exceptional superyacht. Designed by leading yacht design firm Malcolm McKeon, an interior by Liaigre and built by Royal Huisman, this vessel is nothing less than a true “head turner”. Not surprisingly, the yacht has already won a large number of awards in the superyacht world.

But the “Ship of the Year Award” is not about beauty – at least not on its own. Judging for this award is based on the technical side of the design and the innovative aspects. Looking a little further than the shiny exterior, this yacht turns out to be full of smaller and bigger innovative solutions. All ingeniously engineered and built into the very limited space characteristic for superyachts.

The most striking innovative solution is the retractable propulsion, consisting of two electric thrusters tilting out of the hull just aft of the keel, developed in close collaboration between Royal Huisman and Hydrosta. Sarissa is not the first sailing yacht with such retractable thrusters, but the integration of the electric motors into the struts of the thrusters is an absolute first. This integration made it possible to flexibly mount the thrusters, including casing (technically part of the shell), resulting in a huge reduction in noise and vibration levels. Also interestingly, the thrusters can be used to generate power while sailing. This is intended more as a safety redundancy than for daily use, as Sipmarine’s propellers are entirely optimised for “forward sailing”. The latter fits in with the owner’s desire to look at energy-saving solutions in all aspects of this yacht. A smart electrical DC network with significant battery capacity, for example, made it possible to fit smaller and more efficient generator sets. These can then run under better loading, while large power peaks are absorbed by the battery pack. The latter plays a role, for instance, when many winches have to run simultaneously during complex sailing manoeuvres. After all, these yachts are used for serious racing too! These winch powers are significant, e.g. imagine a mainsail area of more than 1,000 square metres!

Building the yacht was a very complex process, due to a combination of the aforementioned lack of space in super-sailing yachts and the huge number of systems. Besides everything that should already be on board “normal yachts”, Sarissa also had to be fitted with a large number of very complex sailing systems. To name a few: a whole battery of below-deck winches for halyards, sheets and backstays, an impressive lift keel to allow this deep-draft vessel to enter normal harbours – and, of course, the retractable propulsion.

Royal Huisman has managed to seriously raise the bar for super sailing yachts again with Sarissa.