These 57m and 70m vessels are based on the platform and performance achieved during sea trials of three Ocean Eagle (OE43) power trimarans produced by the NID/CMN team over the last couple of years. The interior and exterior styling for these explorer yachts is work of Christophe Chedal-Anglay (CCA).

The Ocean Eagle 43 is a lightweight vessel constructed with infused foam sandwich. The skins are mostly glass fibre and epoxy with carbon fibre used in high load areas. But the explorer concepts Irens plans move away from this most often used materials in favour of aluminium.

Comfort and performance

Preliminary spec suggests that the 57m and 70m yachts will be 260gt and 490gt, respectively. “These larger vessels will be less weight sensitive purely because of their size and so we anticipate that these will be built in aluminium which is a perfect fit for CMN with their many years of experience building in this material,” Matthew Wood, director at Nigel Irens Design, told SB.

In addition, the Origin 575 and Xplore 70 have been designed with emphasis on comfort, speed and ocean crossing capability. Wood explains: “The stability of the vessel exceeds all the necessary standards and has been designed to be what we would consider a best compromise between the requirements for a comfortable motion and good sea keeping. Essentially the lateral stiffness can be tuned by slightly adjusting the geometry of the platform.”

The developers claim that the new trimaran configuration is significantly more efficient than a conventional monohull at a given speed, leading to improvements in both fuel consumption and range.

A top speed of 28 knots and a range between 4,000 and 5,000 at 18 knots are the expected performance for these craft, respectively.

Theirry Regnault of CMN shipyard’s yacht division in Cherbourg comments: “We developed the OE43 with NID in order to propose a cost-effective solution for maritime surveillance. The trimaran architecture allows rapid ocean passage to remote destinations at reduced operating costs. The sea trials have also demonstrated a comfortable motion (comparable to the one of a larger monohull) in moderate to rough sea states.”

Layout

Accommodating 10 guests and a crew of eight, the interior arrangement of the Origin 575 can be customised to suit an owner’s requirements.

There is deck space for a mini-submarine and a 4.5m tender. The stern garage offers storage for a 6m tender and personal watercraft.

The Xplore 70 has been designed to carry similar amenities to that of the 57m but in a larger platform and further range capabilities.

The additional deck space can provide accommodation for containerised units for rapid role enhancement such as a research laboratory, aquarium or a dive-centre.

Commenting on the concept, Nigel Irens says: “Having applied what we had learned through the development of offshore racing trimarans to their motor-driven equivalents some 25 years ago it’s exciting to see how successfully that technology has now been passed on to the three Ocean Eagle 43 patrol vessels produced by CMN.”

According to Matthew Wood, lead-time on design is 4-6 months, depending on owner requirements, and 24 to 26 months for construction. “I would expect from commissioning of the build to delivery to be approximately 30 months,” he concludes.