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What’s so special about a standard state order for Coast Guard vehicles? And why can it also be of interest to the general public? Behind two names that are probably obscure to most shipowners-Piloda and VN-are actually shipyards that are also active in the yachting sector and have produced some very special boats.
No sundeck, no fold-down decks-just strength and reliability. High superstructure with inverted windshield, deck on a single plane, equipped cockpit, probably self-righting, are the basic ingredients of a craft that must go out in all sea conditions. No design compromises, and yet, in its own way, it manages to be really well proportioned. This is no accident: all the adventure boats that are so fashionable today have taken their inspiration from these very work boats.
Astute observers may have noticed a hull shape that is at least curious, with a “strange bulge” in the middle of the boat. This is not a mistake in the renderings: it looks just like an ÖK Hull, from the initials of its designer Össur Kristinsson. Through a geometry hollowed out at the sides, it makes sure to “glue” the boat to the water while reducing wave impacts as much as possible. A design created specifically for rough seas.
And that brings us back to the key players we mentioned at the beginning. Piloda Group, which in this case operates through the Piloda Defence division, also owns Piloda Yachting, the yachting component that, just at the last Cannes Boat Show, presented the beautiful lobster AD Astra 60. Despite its extensive experience in the industry, it has partnered with Turkey’s VN Maritime Technologies to fulfill this order of as many as 40 hulls.
Turkey, we know by now, is becoming a very important manufacturing hub for world shipbuilding. In this case, it also collaborates and builds Rafnar hulls, which use this very special patented ÖK Hull. If the name rings a bell, it may be because we talked about it just a few days ago in this review of boats built to weather storms. And if it doesn’t ring a bell…take a look at it anyway: there are craft that are true tanks of the sea, just like these new patrol boats!
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