Home / News / Frers’s uses Gurit composites to design lightweight boat

Frers's uses Gurit composites to design lightweight boat

08 Aug '14

2 min read

“Spectre”, the first build of the new Frers 60 foot daysailer/racer series has just hit the waters at the end of July in La Spezia (Italy). With its large, open and almost empty cockpit, a 4.80m cross beam and a water line of 17.1m which almost reaches its overall 60 foot length, this racy-looking boat will bring day sailing to new dimensions.

The boat was designed by Frers Naval Architecture and Engineering, Milano/Italy, and was built by Persico Marine of Nembro/Italy, while James Stagg coordinated the whole project.

Gurit Engineering
Gurit’s structural engineering team worked closely with the naval architects at Frers to design an efficient, lightweight and stiff platform. Various studies, including Finite Elements Analysis, were carried out during the engineering process of the boat. The goal was to optimise the laminate layups and the core densities and thicknesses to achieve the specified weight target set by Frers.

Gurit engineers also worked with the Persico Marine specialists, discussing structural concepts and finalising the details of the design. Paolo Dassi, project engineer at Gurit Engineered Structures comments: “It has been a genuine pleasure to work with such a knowledgeable team on this exciting project. The open minded approach of the architects at Frers, and the “will do” attitude of the builders and project managers at Persico Marine made this high-tech project possible.”

Gurit materials package
Gurit’s very lightweight woven carbon fibre SPRINT materials were used in the inner most plies in some areas of deck, hull and internal structures to achieve an aggressive and shiny carbon look finish.

Gurit’s SE 84LV prepreg system was chosen for all unidirectional carbon plies, and has been widely used in the hull laminates, bulkheads and for some of the internal structures. Because the boat will be used for day sailing and racing, Gurit Corecell M grade structural foam was chosen for the slamming area, while deck, bulkheads and remainder of the hull feature honeycomb cores.

The high elongation at failure makes Gurit Corecell M a perfect material for areas exposed to slamming and dynamic loading. This core material is highly thermo-formable and compatible with Gurit’s prepreg and SPRINT processing temperatures. Gurit’s epoxy based Spabond 340LV was used throughout the boat as structural adhesive due to its high strength and ease of application. The mast was manufactured at Future Fibres in Spain, also using Gurit materials.

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Frers's uses Gurit composites to design lightweight boat

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