Yachting World
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Elfje – is this 170ft performance cruiser the consummate yacht?
- Elaine Bunting
- November 3, 2015
With her graceful lines, but muscular performance, Elfje is one of the few superyachts to be designed for a woman owner. Elaine Bunting speaks to her designer André Hoek
Photo: Cory Silken
Some say the ideal yacht is one that sails like a racer, has the accommodation of a cruiser and the looks of a classic. That’s a wry joke because at the average yacht size this is an almost impossible combination. But if money and scale weren’t an issue, what would the ideal performance cruiser look like?
Elfje is one owner’s vision of the consummate yacht. The 172ft ketch is one of the outstanding launches of last year, and has drawn admiring looks everywhere. You can see why.
Upwind, her dominant features are that powerful plumb bow, long bowsprit and deeply roached sails, shapes akin to the modern offshore racer. But at rest you see a yacht with a graceful, but unexaggerated sheerline tapering to a long overhang at the transom. If a superyacht can ever be called demure, Elfje can, right down to the shade of her hull, an unusual light grey-blue colour.
Is Elfje a muscular yacht or more of a graceful feminine form? It’s an interesting question in this case because she is one of the very few superyachts to have been designed for a woman owner.
Her identity was closely guarded until this summer when she agreed to be interviewed about Elfje by Georgie Ainslie, wife of Sir Ben, and a fellow trustee of the 1851 Trust, set up to inspire young people through sailing and the technology used in the marine industry.
Woman owner
Wendy Schmidt, wife of Google chairman Eric Schmidt, is also linked through 11th Hour Racing, a project that aims to build sustainability practices into high-performance racing projects and is in partnership with Ben Ainslie Racing.
Schmidt is an enthusiastic, long-time racer who also owns a Swan 80, Selene , and the design brief was for a comfortable long-range cruiser that would be capable of good performance in superyacht regattas. Above all, the yacht was to be elegant.
André Hoek was commissioned to design the yacht and Royal Huisman in the Netherlands to build her. The result is the pleasing combination of features that Hoek describes as “basically a bit of a masculine shape, but a very feminine look. It’s an interesting combination and when people see her at anchor, everyone says ‘Wow!’”
Hoek, a quietly spoken man with a professorial air, is one of the most influential designers of the last few decades and a master of the neo-classic form, famous for creating yachts with long overhangs, flush decks, elegant deckhouses and coachroofs that are as attractive to look at as they are comfortable to sail.
It is a style he has made his own, from such big yachts such as the 179ft ketch Adele , launched in 2005, to the range of Truly Classic designs (Sir Ben and Lady Ainslie own a Truly Classic 65). Hoek is an intensely enthusiastic proponent of the big sailing yacht movement and has built up a formidable design team in Edam.
The lead time of the project gave them an unusual opportunity to flex their muscles by studying the performance of various hull shapes. They carried out CFD analysis of five different hulls with varying volume distribution, but all with the same waterline length and displacement.
Based on the results, a 20ft model of the best hull was made and tank-tested in Marin, Netherlands. Wind tunnel testing was performed at the Wolfson Unit in Southampton.
Research into balance
A prime objective was to arrive at a ketch rig that would be mannerly and well-balanced. “Ketches often have issues with weather helm when sheeting on the mizzen, especially when power reaching, and we wanted to predict rudder angles at the design stage,” Hoek elaborates. “ Elfje has a [carbon] spade rudder and lifting keel and we did a lot of research with regard to balance.”
Trim tabs were added to the keel at design stage. André Hoek feels these should help with pointing and accelerating out of tacks. So that Elfje can access shallower anchorages, her T-keel with ‘beaver-tail’ bulb can be raised to reduce draught from 7.10m (23ft) to 4.50m (15ft).
Elfje sports a Southern Spars rig with ECsix carbon plus continuous flexible rigging. Her carbon bowsprit is a thunderous weapon, incorporating furlers for the headsail and Code 0. The engineering posed a particular stress load challenge for manufacturer Southern Spars. “We pushed for it. There was a fight, but in the end they were integrated. It gets the tacks [of the sails] lower for racing and makes it possible to go sailing with the same gear as for cruising,” says Hoek.
The bobstay fittings have been cleverly integrated into an extraordinarily fine forefoot, which is connected to a titanium reinforcement tube within the hull.
With such a strong emphasis on performance, it was important that sailhandling be fast, versatile for cruising yet efficient for racing. The demand for big hydraulic packages capable of rapid sail hoists and drops has boomed in recent years (see this month’s Supersail World ) and the systems on board had to be designed so that up to 15 power-hungry hydraulic functions could be operated at once.
Intriguing technology
Beneath Elfje ’s timeless lines lies some intriguing technology. Energy efficiency and sustainability were high up on the owner’s priorities, and it promoted a joint quest for a state-of-the-art hybrid power system by Royal Huisman’s R&D team and Whisper Power.
The solution chosen combines a flywheel generator from the main engine with variable speed and variable output generators backed up by a lightweight lithium-ion ‘peak shaving’ battery bank. This system is some two tonnes lighter than one with conventional generators and, as the variable-speed generators run at a lower speed of around 1,200pm, they are around ten per cent more fuel-efficient.
On deck, the idea was to create a private area for the owner with separate deckhouse and cockpit aft. The profile of deckhouses is low and modest, which complements the sweeping sheerline. Clutter is banished. There is no fixed bimini, for example, and the 19ft tender is stowed beneath a carbon hatch on the flush foredeck.
The interior of Elfje , designed by Hampshire-based Redman Whiteley Dixon, is clean-looking and light, and uses sustainable timbers such as European walnut and light oak. One of the showcase features is a circular glass-topped saloon table over an opening in the hull so that the sea and marine life can be seen beneath.
As for the name, that was chosen because Wendy Schmidt considers 11 her lucky number and the design team gave the project the Dutch word ‘ elf ’. That eventually mutated into ‘ elfje ’, after a fairy, or sprite, and a children’s poetry form. The term stuck and is epitomised by the winged emblem on the yacht’s big asymmetric spinnaker.
Is Elfje as quick as she is sleek? In her first superyacht regatta, St Barths Bucket, she tied for 1st in class. Hoek raced on board and was benchmarking her against Marie , a similar-sized ketch launched in 2010, which he also designed.
“ Elfje is quick upwind, as St Barths proved, consistently much quicker than Marie , which has a skeg rudder and fixed keel. This is a better hull shape, basically. And we were sailing against yachts that have big sloop rigs and a longer waterline, we were beating them upwind and downwind. We didn’t expect that. I was very pleased. This is definitely an evolution.”
WENDY’S HOUSE: ELFJE
Here, we find out the unique path that American philanthropist Wendy Schmidt’s primary Superyacht took into being.
Article by TIDE-magazine.com (issue 7, 2024)
Wendy Schmidt’s first sailing experience did little to foreshadow the role that boats would later come to play in her life. In fact, I can almost hear her shrugging when I ask her about it. “I have a memory from my childhood when I was nine years old,” she recounts. “We took a family trip to Bermuda – it was the only aeroplane trip we ever took. My three brothers were in the cockpit of a 20ft sailboat on some sort of tourist experience. I’m sitting behind – my head is tossed back and I’m super relaxed. I was having a different experience to them.”
It would take another 42 years before Schmidt sailed again. Yet today she is the owner of multiple boats, from wooden motor launches to carbon-fibre racers. One of the fleet stands out in particular: the 46m Elfje . With her 6m-long bowsprit, towering ketch rig and pilot cutter looks, she is easy on the eye in the same way as all the great classically proportioned yachts. Make no mistake, though: this is a decidedly modern boat that was delivered as recently as 2014.
Her creator, along with Schmidt herself, is Dutch designer André Hoek. His studio, in an old orphanage in the town of Edam, is one of the best in the world at combining the beauty of classic lines with stateof- the-art naval architecture – and it is this which imparts Elfje ’s unmistakable character. “She’s one of the favourites in our design office – of our achievements,” says Ruurt Meulemans, partner at Hoek Design. “ Elfje came out really nicely sailing-wise and in aesthetics. Wendy gave us plenty of opportunities to excel.”
Schmidt remembers how the idea of Elfje grew out of the positive experience of her friend Bill Joy, who was building 58m Ethereal at Royal Huisman at the time. “In some sense, we chose the yard before we had chosen someone to design it or even knew what kind of boat we would build,” she says. “There is a whole community around Huisman.
“Then we interviewed all the leading design firms and fell in love with André Hoek. He had aquarelle when we realised that we were talking to an artist and thought, ‘he’s the one for us’.” Schmidt then went on to choose Redman Whiteley Dixon for the interior.
Now, having appointed some of the world’s pre-eminent designers and a yard with a track record in large sailing boats, some owners would have been tempted to hand things off to a management team. But for Schmidt, the three-and-a-half-year project was a reward in its own right, and she instituted full team meetings every six weeks in locations from New York and Nantucket to the UK and the Netherlands. “It became as much of a social experience as it was a technical one,” she remembers. “I insisted in the beginning that we get everyone on the same drawing – it normally goes from department to department, but we thought this gave room for miscommunication. With everybody present, everything can move in lockstep. I like to do all my projects that way – I believe in transparency, openness.”
“It became as much of a social experience as it was a technical one… With everybody present, everything can move in lockstep”
With lines rooted in Hoek’s favoured ‘pilot cutter’ aesthetic, the beauty of the yacht was always front and centre. Thanks to the plumb bow and relatively low freeboard, her twin deckhouses – one containing a guest lounge and the other a dedicated owner’s space – look ravishingly sleek and low-slung. “She is so nicely balanced in the looks and the proportions of the deckhouse,” says Meulemans.
His real focus was below the waterline, however, where five different hull lines were developed. They were all put through Hoek’s CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] programme and the best one built as a 6m model for tank testing at the Marin laboratory. “She was going to be a cruising yacht, but she had to do very well on the racecourse as well,” adds Meulemans. “She has a lifting keel and spade rudder.”
The carbon-fibre masts and booms are by Southern Spars, with standing rigging in ECsix. That bowsprit alone is capable of withstanding 150 tonnes of compressive force (that’s the weight of a jumbo jet), with headsail and Code sail furling gear built into its underside. Elfje could have had a sloop rig as well, but the design team felt she would be more manageable as a ketch with more sail settings. “Enjoying your sailing is always in part about the kind of sail combinations you can set in different conditions,” he says.
Elfje was to be an efficient yacht, especially given that Schmidt has long been publicly vocal about the need to protect the ocean and manage its resources better. Under sail, that meant good speeds in low wind conditions, and a rig that could be handled relatively easily. Elfje can manage 7 knots in a 5-knot zephyr. What’s more, by extending the lifting keel to its maximum 7.10m, less weight is needed to achieve the required righting moment. When retracted to just 4.50m, the boat can access the world’s Superyacht marinas and anchorages.
Technically, it’s a similar story. Royal Huisman calls her a NextGEN Ketch, because she benefitted from a new way of thinking about power management on board. The key here is her variable speed generators, which are lighter, quieter and up to 10 per cent more fuel-efficient than their conventional counterparts. A large lithium battery bank can mop up any excess power or boost generator output when demand is high.
“People got quite excited about the innovations on the boat,” says Schmidt. “It’s not that cutting-edge today, I wouldn’t say that. With the variable speed generator our goal was [to be] lightweight and efficient. We also have a generator on the main engine drive shaft so that when we’re under way, we don’t have to run the main generator. These big changes have held up.”
Delivered on deadline and to budget, Elfje wasted no time by scoring a joint first place in her inaugural Bucket Race, where she crossed the finish line neck-and-neck with 55m Adela . She has appeared at a couple of subsequent Buckets too, but it’s fair to say that this sort of racing is not Schmidt’s cup of tea. “We had up to 45 crew on board with the spinnaker, and to me it became a little more than it was worth as an experience,” she says. “When you’re racing in a Superyacht regatta, you announce on the radio five minutes beforehand that you’re planning to tack. It’s very procedural.”
Schmidt prefers to race her other boats, including the new 26m carbon-fibre flyer Deep Blue . The strength of Elfje is as a cruising yacht. “She’s wonderful to have as a mothership,” says Schmidt. “She is very elegant; very easy. The interior is comfortable – we were thinking almost ‘beach house’ – very counter to the polished mahogany of these big boats. We wanted to feel fresh air and light. I didn’t want to run into corners everywhere, so the furniture is rounded.”
Redman Whiteley Dixon describes its concept for the boat as “between traditional and modern, freshly interpreted for modern living”. The cabins play with textures including linen, silk, velvet and cashmere, while European walnut and light oak make up the flooring and cabinetry throughout. Great attention was paid to the progression of different spaces internally. The owner’s private suite is positioned aft with its own deck lounge and a saloon featuring a so-called “oculus table” – a window panel in the hull that allows you to watch the seabed and sea life below the boat.
“Delivered on deadline and to budget, Elfje wasted no time by scoring a joint first place in her inaugural Bucket Race”
Besides the owner’s magnificent suite, there are two dedicated guest cabins. Four crew cabins are finished to similar standards as the guest areas. “I wanted all the crew areas on the boat to feel just as homey [with] the same materials – we didn’t downgrade the materials in the crew quarters.”
For someone who only came to sailing in her 50s, Wendy Schmidt has done more than most to pursue her passion. She says she always loved the sense of the wind, but suppressed her earliest sailing experience, thinking it was an activity that she didn’t have access to. How that’s changed. And yet, the excitement of her very first outing is still there in the way she speaks about her favourite boat. “All sailing gives you a connection to your environment – but on Elfje it’s a very direct feedback system. It’s a feeling of quiet power.”
Ocean philanthropy
Wendy and her husband Eric Schmidt have been very active in philanthropy. Through the Schmidt Family Foundation and other philanthropic initiatives, the couple has pledged billions of dollars for a vast array of projects and issues, ranging from human rights and clean energy to environmental journalism and scientific research.
Ocean health is also a big part of the mix, through the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which offers the 111m research vessel Falkor (too) to scientists worldwide for free to conduct marine research in exchange for making their findings publicly available. In 2010, Wendy launched 11th Hour Racing to combine her love of sailing and concern for ocean health. Competing on some of the biggest stages in sail racing, the 11th Hour Racing Team that she sponsors has had impressive results – notably winning the gruelling Ocean Race last year (2023) with Charlie Enright at the helm.
“The platform of The Ocean Race, and partnering with them as a sustainability partner, helps to drive new practices throughout the whole organisation,” says Schmidt. “You get the microphone when your team wins!” Her 11th Hour had a measurable impact on the race, with zero-waste race villages and seawater sampling equipment carried on the boats. “The data that has been coming in has been unprecedented.
These are very remote places where your nearest human is in the Space Station. When you’re finding plastics here, it’s telling you something about the scale of the problem,” finishes Schmidt.
Winners of The Honours announced 27 September 2023
Congratulations to the winners of The Honours, which recognise the world’s most inspirational people in superyachting. The first three recipients of a coveted Bowsprit award were celebrated at the inaugural Honours event in Monaco. Ocean conservation advocate and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, superyacht First Officer and industry DEI proponent Jenny Matthews, and business strategist turned Director at YachtAid Global Zoran Selakovic were feted at a special dinner event.
The Honours was conceived as an opportunity for the superyacht industry to recognise the extraordinary people making a difference behind the scenes, taking the focus away from the yachts and placing the spotlight firmly on the good that happens in the day-to-day superyachting life.
Read on and find the Q&A with Wendy Schmidt, winner of The Honours, at this website: news > inhuis stories & updates [ link ]
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Elfje Yacht
Sail Yacht Elfje
The nextgen ketch.
This plumb-bowed NextGEN Pilot Ketch has been highly optimised for performance. Her long waterline, lifting keel with trim tab and carbon spade rudder are complemented by a powerful, fully-roached sail plan supported by a complete carbon fibre rig package. Intensive CFD tank and wind tunnel testing is already underway as Hoek Design seeks to leverage its extensive knowledge of such projects to fully realise speed and handling potential.
Fine exterior lines and proven sea-keeping characteristics will combine with luxurious and spacious accommodation to create an exceptional yacht with the ability to go anywhere in comfort, style and security. Serious attention will also be givefaithfully acknowledges her sailing forebears. A unique interior design will be crafted by the equally renowned Redman Whiteley Dixon design team. Material selection will be based not only upon design aesthetics but upon the inherent potential as a renewable resource.
The owners" project management will be undertaken by Prior Yacht Management, with the Monaco office of YCO overseeing contractual and operational matters.
Elfje is currently not available for Charter on Superyachts.com. Click here to view similar Yachts Available for Charter.
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Builder: Royal Huisman
Naval Architect: Hoek Design Naval Architects
Interior Designer: RWD
Built | Refit | Length | Builder |
2014 | 51.80m (169'11"ft) | Royal Huisman |
Guests | Beam | Naval Architect |
- | 9.00m (29'6"ft) | Hoek Design Naval Architects |
Cabins | Draft | Interior Designer |
- | - | RWD |
Crew | Speed | Exterior Designer |
- | - | - |
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ELFJE is a 52m luxury sail super yacht built in 2014 by Royal Huisman. View similar yachts for Charter around the world. ... The multi-award winning 51.8m/169'11" classic yacht 'Elfje' was built by Royal Huisman in the Netherlands at their Vollenhove shipyard. Her interior is styled by British designer design house RWD and she was delivered to ...
Elfje - a sailing superyacht of the ages. You would have to travel a long way to see a more magical sight on the high seas than sailing superyacht Elfje. Given that the name of this 52m ketch, owned by Wendy Schmidt, means fairy in Dutch, this is hardly surprising. Anybody lucky enough to have seen the film of her ghosting over the waves will ...
Elfje is one owner's vision of the consummate yacht. The 172ft ketch is one of the outstanding launches of last year, and has drawn admiring looks everywhere. You can see why. Upwind, her ...
4.5 - 7m / 15 - 23ft. Year of Delivery. 2014. More photos, information, layouts and detailed specification. See Elfje brochure. The owner's aesthetic was always focused on Beauty. Drawing on the timeless appeal and seaworthy lines of a traditional pilot cutter, the owner wanted a yacht on which you could feel close to the water with minimal ...
7.1 m. GUESTS. 8. ELFJE is a 52.36 m Sail Yacht, built in Netherlands by Royal Huisman and delivered in 2014. Her top speed is 12.0 kn and she boasts a maximum range of 3690.0 nm when navigating at cruising speed, with power coming from a Scania diesel engine. She can accommodate up to 8 guests in 4 staterooms, with 5 crew members waiting on ...
Elfje was to be an efficient yacht, especially given that Schmidt has long been publicly vocal about the need to protect the ocean and manage its resources better. Under sail, that meant good speeds in low wind conditions, and a rig that could be handled relatively easily. Elfje can manage 7 knots in a 5-knot zephyr. What's more, by extending ...
Elfje is a sailing yacht with an overall length of m. The yacht's builder is Royal Huisman from The Netherlands, who launched Elfje in 2014. The superyacht has a beam of m, a draught of m and a volume of . GT.. Elfje features exterior design by Hoek Design Naval Architects B.V. and interior design by RWD. Elfje has an aluminium hull and an aluminium superstructure. She is powered by 1 Scania ...
On board with sailing yacht owner and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt. 25 October 2016 • Written by Georgie Ainslie. "Wealth is a responsibility," superyacht owner Wendy Schmidt tells Georgie Ainslie. So she built the fuel-efficient, 46 metre ketch Elfje - and founded 11th Hour Racing, to help safeguard the oceans.
The 151´ super yacht Elfje represents fine exterior lines and proven sea-keeping characteristics, combined with luxurious and spacious accommodation. Royal Huisman luxury yacht Elfje (Hull 392) features long waterline, lifting keel with trim tab and carbon spade rudder, complemented by a powerful, fully-roached sail plan supported by a ...
Superyacht of the week: The magical sailing yacht Elfje. Written by ont face="Times New Roman, serif">By Charl van Rooy. Sun, 12 Jul 2015 | 00:00.
Sail Yacht Elfje The NextGEN Ketch. This plumb-bowed NextGEN Pilot Ketch has been highly optimised for performance. Her long waterline, lifting keel with trim tab and carbon spade rudder are complemented by a powerful, fully-roached sail plan supported by a complete carbon fibre rig package. Intensive CFD tank and wind tunnel testing is already ...
Elfje is a 52.36 m / 171′10″ luxury sailing yacht. She was built by Royal Huisman in 2014. With a beam of 7.1 m She is powered by engines giving her a maximum speed of 12 knots and a cruising speed of 10 knots. Elfje's maximum range is estimated at 3690 nautical miles. The sailing yacht can accommodate 8 guests in 4 cabins with an interior design by RWD and an exterior design by Hoek ...
Elfje is a luxury sail yacht built in 2014 by Royal Huisman . Click for more information about this superyacht, including specifications, images, video and…
Download the full charter brochure for luxury Sail Yacht "ELFJE" to explore her beautiful interiors, guest accommodation and full range of amenities as well as outdoor living spaces. This comprehensive overview provides the best way to get a feel for the charter experience on offer and gives detailed and accurate specifications so that you can match them up to your own requirements.
Here are a selection of superyachts which are similar to Elfje yacht which are believed to be available for charter. To view all similar luxury charter yachts click on the button below. Interior & exterior photos of ELFJE, the 52m Royal Huisman super yacht, designed by Hoek Design with an interior by Redman Whiteley Dixon.
Click to view the full table of specifications for Elfje superyacht, including accommodation, performance, equipment and amenities.
Royal Huisman has shared stunning video of its 46.45 metre award-winning superyacht Elfje under sail in the Caribbean. Elfje - a sailing superyacht of the ages- has stayed out of the limelight since her delivery in summer 2014, but made her public and racecourse debut at the St Barths Bucket Regatta 2015.The video below was shared to allow a sneak preview of Elfje's prowess sailing in the ...
Luxury sailing yacht ELFJE. August 04, 2015. Written by Zuzana Bednarova. This image is featured as part of the article Varnish work aboard Royal Huisman Sailing Yacht ELFJE by Absolute Boat Care. ... Majestic Hoek-designed Super Yacht ELFJE Victorious in ISS Design Awards 2015.
Vessel ELFJE is a Sailing Vessel, Registered in Cayman Is. Discover the vessel's particulars, including capacity, machinery, photos and ownership. Get the details of the current Voyage of ELFJE including Position, Port Calls, Destination, ETA and Distance travelled - IMO 1012244, MMSI 319062800, Call sign ZGDW6
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Inside, there is a gym, beauty salon, cinema and wine cellar. There are luxury cabins for 16 guests, and accommodation for 36 crew to service their every need. From a distance, it appears like the ...