February 4, 2008

FIRST EXCLUSIVE 76 DEMOULDED


The complete platform of the first EXCLUSIVE 76, built for a private owner, has been demoulded at the King Cat /Vip Composite shipyard in Les Sables d'Olonne (France).


As you can see on the pictures the hulls and the platform come out of the moulds in one piece which is a guaranty of a strong platform/hulls connection a very important area of stress in a catamaran. A well performed infusion process, on that size of a catamaran, insures flawless hulls. The King Cat/ VIP composite shipyard is really specialized in the SCRIMP (Seemann Composite Resin Infusion Molding Process), having built the KINGCAT M272 and 220 JBOATS in 2007 !!! The SCRIMP was invented by Bill Seeaman and first used by famous US shipyards such as Sabre, Hinckley. The King Cat/VIP composite shipyard is being actually re-organized to increase quality and performance. In the coming weeks the Exclusive production team will focus its energy on the deck and the flybridge while on the side the interior fittings are being built simoultaneously in ready to fit in"cocoon kits". This process is now used by many shipyards. Basically, you build each part ofthe interior on the side of the boat while the plumbing and the electricity is done aboard so technicians don't get in each others way (like in plane building). So you build a bath room, the galley... and then you fit them in one by one. This unables to save time and to gain in quality because it is easier to work out of the boat than inside. The Exclusive marine website is changing with lots of news 3ds renderings. The Exclusive 76 has been divided in two version a classic and a design one. I prefer the classic version because it is warmer. I am still amazed by the amount of volume available both insided and outside on a catamaran of this size.





Exclusive Marine dealers for the US is Willmar USA.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is one beautifully designed catamaran. Gilles Vaton is an absolutely superb designer. Bravo. Thanks for posting this, Sebastien. By the way, do you know how long the building process is projected to take?

Also, I was wondering if you could find the time, one of these days, to write a short history of the catamaran industry in France. It's well-known that France is a sea-faring nation and has a long tradition of shipbuilding but I'm especially interested in how and why France became unarguably the world center of catamaran building. Maybe you can point to some references. Just curious.

Sebastien said...

Dear louis I have made a mistake clicking on the tabs. This is not a gilles vaton but a gilles ollier design. My mistake. I have already written a short story of catamaran building for a french shipyard. I will ask them the permission to publish it on my website. I will be meeting I hope in the coming week with the exclusive marine team I will ask them how long the production will take but I asume a year and a half in total would be a good bet.

Philippe Guillemin said...

Sebastien
We should be able to build boat faster .
THe goal is a boat every 12 months

Anonymous said...

Sebastien, thank you. My hat is off to Gilles Olier and his team for such a superb design. I agree with you that the classic design looks better.