UPDATE, MAY 28, 2019: Rough conditions in the Gulf of Lion off France led to My Song partially sinking this weekend. She fell off a transport ship in the early hours of May 26. She was en route from the Caribbean to Italy, to participate in the upcoming Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta.
Read on for our original article about the yacht.
Speed is everything in racing. With sailing superyachts, it’s not just the boat’s speed. It’s how quickly her crew can get her in that mode. My Song, enjoying her first season on the water, should turn heads on both accounts. She’s expected to be one of the fastest all-carbon-fiber performance yachts, promising nearly 30-knot speeds with her game face on.
The 130-foot (39.62-meter) My Song is the fourth yacht that Nauta Design conceived for the same client. It handled styling and interior design. She’s also the second yacht for the owner from Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design, responsible for naval architecture. The latter spent 18 months analyzing hull designs via computer, a common practice. The sailing superyacht’s wide aft areas and plumb bow derive from maxi racers. The studio also used another common tool, velocity prediction programs, to determine My Song could see 16½ knots while cruising and close to 30 knots in regattas. All of this needed to pair with a 105-ton displacement.
That’s where Baltic Yachts came in. Known for lightweight carbon construction, it employed Corecell coring for the carbon fiber composite hull. Nomex coring figures prominently in the bulkheads. But, Baltic Yachts still had a challenge on its hands. My Song has unusually long freeing ports. Nauta Design penned them stretching 13 feet (4 meters) within just 11’8”-high (30-centimeter-high) bulwarks. Result? Challenge met. (On a related side note, those freeing ports purposely let plenty of light stream into the deck saloon, too.) “Because of their holistic, in-house approach to design, engineering, and construction with teams for all disciplines constantly communicating with each other, Baltic are one of very few yards capable of building such a complex yacht on time and to weight,” avers Nigel Ingram, the owner’s project manager at MCM.
Baltic Yachts contributed its own creation to My Song, too. She features a retractable propulsion system that doubles as a stern thruster. It withdraws fully into the hull when not needed. As a thruster, the pulling propeller (therefore facing forward, not aft) can pivot 90 degrees to “walk” the yacht off a dock, for example.
When racing is on order, the crew can switch My Song’s rigging from cruising mode to competitive mode within three hours. A pin-head main is for leisurely travel. Racing sail area gets a boost from a square-top main, with running backstays. The crew can rig one fixed, simply managed backstay on a removable crane at the masthead complementing the conventional sail. And, the crew can press a remote control to deploy the asymmetric sail from the concealed stowage drum.
Lest we forget about cruising mode, My Song accommodates six to eight in the owner’s party. The master suite makes the most of the 28-foot (8.52-meter) beam, forward of the mast. Its en suite studio converts to a guest stateroom when needed. Four other guests stay aft of the saloon. All get to enjoy the deck saloon, which benefits from the above-mentioned freeing ports plus skylights. Alfresco meals and sunning take place in the guest cockpit, accessed directly from the saloon. And while My Song won’t ever make it into shallow waters, her lifting keel will let her access different types of anchorages. With the keel fully down, draft is nearly 23 feet (7 meters), versus nearly 16 feet (4.8 meters) when it’s up.
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