MICAD, the engineering of creativity

A tribute to the companies and people who have made Barche a Motore great over these 35 years allowing it to be born, grow, and become great up to this historic anniversary. In these articles the great excellences of boating tell their stories and reveal their projects, making an important contribution to the knowledge of this world, which allows us all to go to sea, in all forms and contexts.

The engineering of creativity

We asked one of Italy’s leading boat designers three questions. Three questions that represent the philosophy of a lifetime spent designing boats.

How is a boat born? Amedeo Migali, founder of Micad, one of the most important design firms in Italy, explains. A degree in naval engineering, of course, but also a PhD on the topics of experimental numerical fluid dynamics. Right during his doctorate, the beginning of his collaboration with a studio in Naples, where he began working on Ferretti Group boats. He then lands in Azimut, becoming project manager of a new 60-footer. But the sub prime crisis arrives, the project is put aside, and without the prospect of making these fast and innovative boats, he decides to “make his own boat” and open his own studio. In 2007 Micad was born. Organic: one partner and two collaborators. But from there, it’s steady growth. He designs the entire Monte Carlo Yachts range, works on some Prestige and Beneteau, taking care of naval architecture, then again Bavaria, Fjord, Nautor, Pershing, Bluegame…, in short, all big names in international yachting. And in the meantime Micad has become a company of more than 15 people.

How do you design a boat?

“There is always the struggle between the engineer and the architect,” Amedeo jokes. But designing should not be a contest between design and engineering, rather a single process with a simple goal: a boat that really works. Too often, we start with a striking feature and only then seek compromises on ergonomics and comfort, with adjustments that distort the initial idea. We try to reverse the order: imagine use, mooring, transom passage, life on deck and below deck, and build everything else from there. Innovation is still possible, but starting with what is needed at sea, not the other way around. Creativity then, without losing the engineering approach that sets them apart. The approach could be called “customer-centric,” the question being one: what does this boat need to do? A method that is used as much on 30-meter yachts as on 30-foot boats, like the custom tender they are working on. Do you want a fast, simple, environmentally sustainable boat? Should it be able to sail in protected areas? Questions that are asked of all stakeholders in the project: the owner, of course, but also his crew, his guests, his captain… An approach, that of customer analysis, developed by the renowned MIT in Boston, which is far from common, but essential to ensure usability. That is why Micad starts precisely from the design of the spaces, the volumes, and then, around them, custom sews the hull and all the exteriors of the boat. Also lending concreteness to this system is the founder’s experience gained as a young man at the helm of a small catamaran company, where following every aspect, from design to production to supplies and personnel, helped him “speak the same language as the customers.” Hence the offer of collaboration that is recently being extended to smaller entities, even to direct shipowners, where integrated design, with A to Z assistance, can yield great benefits in terms of efficiency.

Boating can be sustainable

The original headquarters are in Lecce, the founder’s hometown, but, 12 years ago, Micad also opened a research and development office in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region with great potential in terms of the blue economy, which now extends to the aerospace and energy sectors. And above all there is theUniversity of Trieste, where Amedeo, more for passion than anything else, is an adjunct professor of fast hulls. He is also a EuropeanUnion expert on evaluation and support for European blue economy research projects and a member of the innovation committee of the UK’s Royal Institution of National Architects, one of the oldest and most prestigious naval architecture associations in the world. Credentials that make him a true benchmark in the field. From theory to practice, Micad is developing a boat partially funded by a project of the National Center for Sustainable Mobility, with NRP funds. “In the topic of sustainability, we talk about a little bit of everything, but we need clarity,” Amedeo explains. Otherwise we stop at electric boats, undoubtedly the first thing that comes to mind now, commonly understood as the sustainable boats par excellence. In reality, the issue of sustainability is not only related to climate-altering emissions, but to the entire life cycle of the craft. For this reason, Amedeo and his team have joined the scientific technical committee to write a standard regarding life cycle assessment. The goal is to draw universal guidelines in terms of eco-design for life cycle assessment so that we have a benchmark that is comparable, transparent to both manufacturers and customers so it can be offered to the market, and certifiable by notified bodies.

Rethinking the project by anticipating the challenges

Unfortunately, we are still a long way off. The risk is to have small full electric boats, maybe even planing boats, chock full of batteries, which are built with very heavy externalities in the production process that will never be compensated by the reduction of emissions given the few hours of motion they will go in their recreational use. In the design of their sustainable boat, Micad not only used materials with less environmental impact, but chose them from those that were truly available immediately, not relegating the concept of sustainability to some futuristic but unfeasible prototype. With this approach, they have shown that 30 percent of climate-changing emissions can be saved in the construction phase alone… “ex-works” as they say. But even more important than the birth of a project is its end: if a boat was built by gluing everything together, even if the individual materials are recyclable, you get an agglomerate that is really difficult to recycle. It is therefore necessary to rethink the project by already foreseeing the challenges posed by final disassembly, going back to when the components were disassemblable, secured with screws and bolts. “This issue is a responsibility to the next generation.” Also, having longer-lived boats reflects on the value of the boat itself over time and, by extension, on the goodness of the design. Perhaps sacrificing a few inches to habitable volumes on account of technical rooms that are livable and convenient for servicing and keeping everything in order, a fundamental principle for safety.

What’s on the horizon

On large boats, the trend is to bring the boat closer to the sea: more usable sterns and direct contact with the water instead of the “sailing hotel.” The market has responded with side openings and various mechanisms; useful, but often heavy, expensive and difficult to service. Micad proposes conscious simplification: more functionality and less kinematics. Emblematic is a 30-meter they are developing without handling systems, a synthesis of the “less is more” principle. The second theme is propulsion: how to transfer power to the water. Experience on IPSs shows real margins, in the range of 10-15% in efficiency, mainly due to counter-rotation and better flow alignment. But it is an area of study where there is still a lot of room for optimization. Finally, the main challenge seems to remain the energy issue. Hydrogen is promising, but complex: molecule difficult to store, supply chain to build, and availability of “green” limited and expensive. Micad looks with interest at carriers (liquid or gaseous) that can release H2 on board and be regenerated on land, but considers them part of a portfolio of solutions, not the panacea. In the medium term, the most concrete scenarios are targeted hybrids and (non-fossil) e-diesel, but for small boats with few hours of operation a realistic takeaway: “the concentration of energy we have in 30 liters of diesel we carry on board, we don’t have it with anything else.”

Via Augusto Imperatore, 16 73100 Lecce, Italy
Tel. +39 0832 359672
www.micad.it