COURTESY LDP Quoting from classic cutters designed by S&S at the mid-20th century, Project Ouzel marries high-end wood-composite construction with a traditional appearance.
Designing, engineering, and building sailing yachts 90′ (27.4m) or more in length once was common in the U.S. It’s happening again at Rockport Marine in Maine: Project Ouzel, a 95′ (29m) classic cutter with a pilothouse, has a cold-molded hull with elements of carbon and fiberglass and a foam-cored plywood-fiberglass deck. Designed by Langan Design Partners (LDP) in Newport, Rhode Island, the boat has traditional lines and proportions, with long overhangs and a low deckhouse but decidedly modern performance expectations thanks to her carbon rig and optimized appendages. With Marine Construction Management (MCM) in Newport, Rhode Island, overseeing the project for the client, the principal service providers are the same as for the 106′ (32.35 m) Bermuda sloop Spirit of Bermuda, launched in 2006.
Project Ouzel Specifications
LOA: 95′ (28.95m)
LWL: 71′ 6″ (21.8m)
Beam: 20′ 6″ (6.25m)
Draft: 12′ (3.66 m)
Displacement, sailing: 154,000 lbs (69.5 t)
Upwind sail area: 3,880 sq ft (361.5m2)
Engine: 400-hp Cummins diesel
Fresh water: 560 gal (2,100 l)
Fuel: 950 gal (3,610 l),
350 gal (1,325 l) in the keel
Gray/black water: 2 x 310 gal (2 x 1,150 l)
The owner plans to take the vessel to high latitudes and “likes the motion of a heavier, powerful boat,” Tom Degremont of LDP said about building a 154,000-lb (69.5-t) displacement yacht. “We’re not chasing weight. If we wanted to build super-lightweight, we probably wouldn’t be building in wood.” Degremont added that performance studies and CFD work on keels, displacement, and righting moment pointed to a fixed keel with a relatively deep 12′ (3.65m) draft, because performance considerations outweighed access to shallow water. The lines also reflect the history of the firm, founded in 1998 by Bill Langan, who previously led the designers at Sparkman & Stephens. “Sam [Howell] and I used to work for Bill, who’s my mentor,” Degremont said. “If you look at some of the hull shapes we design, there’s a continuity that goes back a long, long time.”
COURTESY ROCKPORT MARINE Visible during rollover last winter were the hull’s structural Douglas-fir longitudinal and diagonal layers with western red cedar at the ends.
To learn more about this classic cutter’s build, I spoke to Sam Temple, the president of Rockport Marine, who has a crew of 20 on the job. “[The hull has] a balanced panel with four layers of wood,” he said. “A longitudinal of Douglas-fir and two diagonal layers of fir with western red cedar at the ends, switching wood species within the diagonal layers for weight advantages. Over the top of all of that are two layers of 1208 E-glass infused with PRO-SET epoxy.” Wood dimensions were given by LDP as 7⁄8″ (22.2mm) for the longitudinal veneers and 1⁄2″ (12.7mm) for the diagonals. With wood-composite construction, Project Ouzel sidesteps time and monetary expenditures for tooling and sound insulation. The construction calls for the strategic use of carbon between the wood layers, Temple continued. “For example, there’s a large X-brace of carbon fiber in the hull that backs up the headstay chainplate and carbon fiber reinforcement around the rudder blocking.” More carbon reinforcements were applied around each of the 10 hull ports on each side and reinforcing the caprail in way of the jib track.
The interior structure includes three large carbon bulkheads with intercostal ladder frames. Temple: “That work has a dual purpose: it’s structurally important for the keel and the sailing loads, but the floor timbers and that composite work also form the yacht’s tanks.” The deck consists of two layers of 5⁄8″ (15.9mm) marine ply with 11⁄4″ (32mm) Corecell M80 core and 1808 E-glass on top. The interior, designed by Mark Whiteley in the U.K., is being built on-site at Rockport Marine with painted upper panels and solid cabinetry of West African avodire wood, while varnished furniture is South American mahogany. Temple pointed out that the crew is carefully tracking weights during construction. “We’ve taken all of the temporary structure out and final-trimmed sheer and frame tops and things like that, weighed all of that and sent Tom those numbers.”
COURTESY ROCKPORT MARINE Before the boat was closed up, this view reveals how builders applied carbon fiber as reinforcement on the interior and in some of the bulkheads.
At the time of this writing the 124′ (37.8m) mast was being engineered at Hall Spars in Europe, with delivery scheduled for early 2025. “The other systems are all well on hand,” Temple said.
Having completed a similar but smaller project with MCM—Mist, a 45′ (13.7m) Tripp design launched in 2021—Temple thought that was a valuable experience as it “grounded us in some of the composites work that we use to good effect now, and to the same extent on the system side [because] that was a relatively complex boat.” The next milestone for Project Ouzel is the deck installation this summer, while the expected launching date is late in 2025.
Rockport Marine, 1 Main St., Rockport, ME 04856, USA, tel. 207–236–9651. Langan Design Partners, LLC, tel. 401–849–2249, 105 Spring St., Newport, RI 02840, USA.
—D. L.
