She has a certified length of 23.95 metres, but provides the comfort and room of a pleasure yacht of forty metres. She will make her official debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival. BARCHE was able to try her out in advance
An idea might be revolutionary and change the world, but on its own it isn’t worth anything, it needs an ambitious dreamer behind it, a determined person who can get involved and fight for it every day without ever giving up. The concept was from Andrea Agrusta and Alberto Mancini, the dream was August Pernsteiner’s and the determination to make it has come from Angela Pernsteiner. A perfect mix, which has given life to the Dominator Ilumen 28M project. The boat was given an advance media presentation in Monte Carlo last June, taking 92.5 hours to cover the 1,139 nautical miles from Fano up to the Principality. It is a tough test, but a significant one. Angela Pernsteiner tells us with visible satisfaction: «The vessel left Fano on June 2nd, and sailed for four days to reach Monte Carlo, having just been launched and with only a few hours of trials, without a single problem». Andrea Agrusta of NavalHead, designer of the naval architecture and the man in charge of the engineering spent over ten thousand hours planning the project, using an approach, which is generally only used for the most modern cruise ships or the latest military craft. The design of the waterlines ensures excellent seakeeping, reducing rolling and pitching to a minimum while at the same time giving high levels of on-board safety and comfort, at any speed and in any sea conditions. Andrea Agrusta comments: «I didn’t design the Ilumen’s hull, it was shaped by water itself». And he adds: «The engineering of this boat, which is unique in its class, has been developed with the feeling of the need to ensure a high level of stability, both static and dynamic. This has been made possible by the balanced choice of materials, the shape of the hull and the distribution of weight on board. Thanks to the extensive use of carbon fibre, sandwich construction and vacuum-bag technology with epoxy resin, the result was a highly advanced structural lay-out». During our test, we saw the worth of all this work. We were in the waters of the Principality of Monaco, with 22 people on board, 7,000 litres of diesel and 1,500 litres of water. It was a typical summer’s day, there wasn’t any wind and not even any waves. The handling was quite good, in part because of twisted rudders that means you can turn in not much space, and because of the Humphree electronic system that ensure absence of roll and directional stability. There were no waves at all, so we had to find some caused by traffic coming in and out of the harbour. The waves had a modest height but crossing them the feeling was to sail in a stable and safe way. At the top speed of 19.4 knots, the two Man V8-1200 engines were using 462 litres per hour, while at cruising speed of 13.5 knots they were steady at just under 300. The fuel tanks take 11,800 litres, and that means around 1,500 nautical miles range at ten knots.
While we were sailing, Agrusta invited me to have a look outboard to the blade bulbous bow. «It works exactly as we had seen it in CFD studies and in the tank tests, during the first sea trial I made a video and it was very exciting and interesting to see that, not just the bow wave, but also the smallest splashes, the smallest drops were exactly as in our simulation». The trial shows Ilumen’s construction quality, the absence of vibration and creakings is a clear sign of this, and this is underlined by very low overall noise levels. Getting the boat to top speed the produced air noise is72.5 decibels. This is a figure, which is much lower than the ISO limit, measured being on a tender at 25metres of distance. The work that has been done in terms of boat stability is also excellent. «Many yachts foresee zero speed fins; to avoid adding resistance due to appendages we went for a huge gyro stabiliser from Seakeeper capable of a reduction of 80 per cent of the uncontrolled roll angle», said Federico Brumat of the Dominator Yachts technical department.
The styling is the work of Alberto Mancini, who won the Italian Association of Industrial Design’s Compasso d’Oro prize: «My idea was to bring the space and the feeling of a mega yacht to a 28-metre boat. When a project as ambitious as this starts, you have to bear in mind what you want to offer clients. I thought of a full-beam owner’s suite of nearly 30 square metres, in the bow on the main deck, but that wasn’t enough. From the start I wanted to create something that would excite emotions, bringing together internal and external space, and so I decided to open the prow with two sliding doors and give the room a terrace accessed straight from the owner’s cabin. I also wanted to create big windows to give 180-degree light and visibility, a unique view. I also made the ceiling of the cabin so it could be opened, with a hard top directly above the bed because just looking at the horizon wasn’t enough for me: now I can see the blue sky lying on the bed. I wanted a fly deck of at least 50 square metres equipped with everything needed for a cruise in complete comfort. Perfect symmetry to serve guests as well as possible, a Jacuzzi integrated between the sun area and the dining table, a comfortable bar and then, to protect yourself from the sun, a large carbon fibre hard top with sporty lines. Steering positions both outside and in, on the raised bridge, and finally, the stern garage which hinges open to create a true beach platform of five square metres».
Custom-made furniture and bulkheads finished in the most opulent materials such as backlit white onyx, ebony, white oak, silk, Zimmer and Rhode fabrics, suede ceilings and satin-like nubuck leather are just some of the possibilities, but as Head of the Dominator Bespoke Office, Giulia Sigismondi, says: «The interior dressing of each yacht is a highly personal affair, so we work with the owners to make it a bespoke design that fits them like a glove in terms of taste and preferences».
DOMINATOR ILUMEN AG
Egertastrasse 2
9490 Vaduz
Liechtenstein
T. + 4232300530
[email protected]
www.dominator.com
Videoworks and Kalliente
On board Dominator Ilumen 28 m, Videoworks took care of installing:
- Invisible speakers in VIP & guest cabins. These “zero architectural impact” speakers miraculously transform every surface to which they are embedded to (concrete, fiberglass, wood, glass, marble…) into a high-performance audio system. They are invisible and very performing, perfectly equalized according to the size of the room or the space (internal or external). These are zero architectural impact speakers and allow each ambient (big or small) to have a great and pure sound.
- “Sound masking” system in the main salon and Owner cabin: a technology that allows for better sound and music quality in loud and noisy environments. This is possible thanks to a real-time equalization that lets the user focus on the sound and not on the noise.
- iPad control over all the onboard domotic systems: Apple TV on demand entertainment, air conditioning and lights control, window panels obscuring (in the Owner cabin) and Airplay in all the rooms of the yacht.
- “Party Mode” in all the outdoor areas of the ship. Plug DJ in the sun deck allows for total integration: any DJ can come onboard and plug its own personal system to have its music everywhere and in every moment. Videoworks ensured a high level of waterproofing for the audio plug-ins and a wired internet connection.
- The Sun deck has a Christie Video projector and cloth that can be set up in any moment according to need.
- Professional Cisco’s on-board network, LTE connection and Panasonic’s VOIP telephony.
DOMINATOR ILUMEN
PROJECT Design Alberto Mancini • Naval Architecture and engineering Andrea Agrusta- NavalHEAD
HULL LOA – beach platform open 27.35m • Lenght 23.95m • Beam 6.58m • Deep draught – without propellers 1.32m • Deep draught – with propellers 1.75m • Displacement at half load (Kalliente) 95,000 kg • Displacement at half load for the standard/future production 82,000 kg
- Fuel tank volumes (aboard Kalliente) 11800 l • Fuel tank volumes for future production custom from 9000 to 13500 l • Water tank volume (aboard Kalliente) 1900 l • Water tank volumes for future production custom from 1900 to 2400 l • Guest cabins 5 • Bathroom 5 • Crew cabins 3 • Crew bathroom 2
Main Propulsion 2 MAN • Maximum outlet mechanical power rated for semidisplacment version kW 882 (1200hp) each Certification EC Category A plus MCA-MGN280
(Dominator Ilumen 28 M, the sea trial – Barchemagazine.com – September 2017)
