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Sometimes I wonder how I find my way out of bed in the morning. Here I was looking for Turkish builder Vicem Yachts' latest offering targeted to the American market, the 85 Classic, maybe the largest lobster yacht afloat, and I couldn't find the darn thing. Huh! After giving me the address of a canal-side residence in Fort Lauderdale, Michael Landsberg, president of Vicem's stateside distributor Down East Yachts, had promised that I'd see the boat I planned to test out back. "Just walk around," he'd advised. So now I was pushing through one last, thick swathe of shrubbery to get to the edge of the briny. Where was she?
A sideways glance held the answer. Obviously, I'd gotten my street numbers bollixed up and mistakenly traipsed through some neighbor’s yard—the 85 was off to port several hundred yards and, to put it mildly, conspicuous. "Now that's a lobster yacht," I exclaimed, momentarily taken aback by the immensity of the low, clipperish bow and the smooth, creamy superstructure surmounting it.
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I headed for the test boat, examining her long, sinuous starboard hull side, her sculpted flanks, and finally her giant, hydraulically actuated swim platform. All of it was smoother than a hound dog's nose.
The 85's a cold-molded vessel, meaning her hull and virtually every other structural thing about her are comprised of crisscrossed layers of wood and epoxy, WEST System epoxy in the 85's case. And while this time-honored way of building boats has advantages—displacements are often comparatively light, for instance, because hull forms have near stand-alone strength and need fewer stringers, ribs, and other internal strengtheners—it's also prone to cosmetic imperfections. But I noted no hull-surface goofs associated with staples, nails, or other temporary fasteners, though. Just lovely blue Awlgrip.
Landsberg met me at the stern. After exchanging pleasantries and speculating on what kind of seas the strong easterlies prevailing offshore were liable to nail us with that afternoon, we began delving deeper into the details of cold-molding technology and, more particularly, Vicem's robust take on the subject.
The company starts the process on a lofting floor with a giant, full-scale paper drawing that includes station frames for the entire hull. This is a traditional approach except that whole frames, not halves, are drawn, a savvy little twist Vicem says speeds up the precise assembly of sawn-plywood parts into a jig. Four layers of khaya mahogany planks are then epoxy-laminated over the jig in various orientations using noncorrosive plastic staples and other fasteners, with the final layer running longitudinally. And finally Vicem adds a scrim of epoxy-bedded woven E-glass along with epoxy filler, after which the entirety is abrasively long-boarded to a fare-thee-well.
Additional strengthening is massive. A laminated-mahogany keel and four longitudinal girders of the same material muscle up the hull, along with bulkheads bonded with epoxy/microfiber fillets and other components (laminated deck beams, carlins, sheer clamps, locker sides, etc.) similarly epoxied and filleted to bolster structural integrity. Decks, deckhouse, and cockpit are laminated of two layers of opposed, epoxy-glued Okume marine ply except for the coach roof, which boasts three layers.
"Vicems are robust—no question," said Landsberg, trouncing the teak-planked cockpit sole with a deck shoe. "For example, the structure we're standing on is probably six inches thick, given the two layers of ply under this teak and the thick lattice of laminated mahogany beams under the ply."
I got a clearer understanding of what Landsberg was getting at once I’d followed him into our 85’s interior, headed forward through the saloon, descended a central stairway, and continued through to the galley, where I lifted a deck hatch and dropped into the bilge. Wow! While I was aggrieved to find top-notch Vetus Nosmell sanitary hoses installed down here with the plastic shipping wrap still intact, an oversight that jeopardizes proper bilge-pump operation with plastic refuse, I was certainly impressed with the scantlings. The longitudinal girders were knee-high and thigh-thick, for example, and the ribs near the stem looked just like dinosaur bones. Moreover, everything was clear-coated with epoxy to nix the chance of water intrusion.
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