Exclusive: YachtCreators founder discusses new yacht line

Floridian full-service superyacht company, YachtCreators, has announced the launch of a new line of motoryachts, which has been designed to facilitate the ultimate Exuma cruising experience. Created in collaboration with serial yacht owner and entrepreneur, Lucas Silva the new line of vessels named LeVen Yachts, has been designed to fit around the ‘casual elegance’ of the Exumas along with a series of considered performance attributes which perfectly suits cruising in the region.

“For families like mine, boating in the Exumas means navigating shallow waters accessible only with a smaller boat,” says Silva. “When we arrive, we want the benefits of a superyacht, e.g. the comfort and the fun, jet skiing, paddle boarding, spearfishing, SCUBA diving, etc – That's real living.

“On our 37-metre, my family appreciated the confidence that came with building to class, the water toy storage, the superyacht-low noise levels and the massive outdoor decks,” continues Silva. “On our 50-footer, we enjoyed the simplicity of use, the connection with the water, agility, and the shallow draught. On LeVen, my family now wants to experience the best of both worlds.”

Designed and engineered by renowned Dutch studio, Vripack and constructed by Dutch shipyard, Van der Valk, the new 27m motoryacht features a draught of just 1.34m, which allows guests to fully experience the Bahamas cruising grounds and visit areas that larger yachts wouldn’t be able to reach. For the last two years, YachtCreators and Silva have been developing and building the first hull of the new LeVen Yachts range, which is scheduled for delivery on September 24th 2019.

The original brief of the project was to reach the notoriously shallow waters of the region, while possessing the requisite speeds for comfort, range and seaworthiness to take on the unpredictable weather conditions of the Caribbean islands. As a result, the first hull of the LeVen Yachts range is among the first yacht projects to feature the Voith Linear Jet propulsion system.

“The owner wanted the proper gentleman’s yacht, which was very quiet and also efficient, not so much from a fuel cost, but range - and also regarding the environmental aspects of the spots that they wanted to visit."

- Barin Cardenas, founder, YachtCreators

Speaking exclusively to SuperyachtNews, YachtCreators founder, Barin Cardenas said, “The owner wanted the proper gentleman’s yacht, which was very quiet and also efficient, not so much from a fuel cost, but range - and also regarding the environmental aspects of the spots that they wanted to visit.

“Even if you have a properly set up generator in shallow areas, where there is beautiful clear waters, you would see that grease in the water, so he wanted the yacht to be very clean. LeVen began as a dream of island living, but it’s evolved into so much more – we are introducing a new propulsion option to the yachting industry, the layout redefines the use of onboard space, and new tech has been added without complicating the user experience. We have, indeed, created the ultimate Exumas superyacht.”

With the yacht’s shallow draught, the propulsion system also fully shields the propellers themselves, within a streamlined nozzle that is integrated into the hull, further protecting the safety and integrity of low-lying reefs and the sea bed.

“I am positive that the owners will be on board for weeks at a time,” continues Cardenas. “This is the important aspect for the layout. If they want to spend weeks at a time on board, we went out of our way to create multiple levels and different locations throughout the boat so that you feel you are on different locations, even on the same boat. In terms of the GA, we played with the flow of the vessel and one thing that is very important, which I don’t think has been done before, is the entire front windshield of the yacht drops, to allow the breeze to flow from bow to stern.”

The yacht also features ceiling heights of 2.1m in the galley and cabins as well as 2.5m in the main saloon, which is certainly impressive for a yacht of 27m.

Lithium batteries power everything onboard through a series of inverters, producing actual silent ship operation. The battery bank is powerful enough to operate nearly 8 hours in daytime mode and nearly 12 hours at nigh "Most people would define hybrid nowadays as using something other than engines to propel a yacht," says Cardenas. "We didn't see a major benefit to that since it limits speed. Instead we focused on the lithium system into operating the full yacht day or night, aircon included.

"We have five sources charging those batteries," he continues. "The system works more like a cloud computing server in which you can just add more batteries and more inverters as needed. Everything runs from the batteries - constant, consistent power."

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