Introducing the Baltic 60

New Judel-Vrolijk IMS racer from Finnish builder

Dimensions:

L.O.A.	18.002 m	59.06 ft
D.W.L.	15.150 m	49.71 ft
BEAM	4.500 m	14.76 ft
DRAFT	3.100 m	10.17 ft
DISPLACEMENT	16,558 kg	36.504 lb
BALLAST	7,075 kg	15.597 lb
IM	24.035 m	78.85 ft
J	6.850 m	22.47 ft
P	24.030 m	78.84 ft
E	9.000 m	29.53 ft
BAS	2.050 m	6.73 ft

Baltic Yachts in Finland have announced a new custom project in the Judel/Vrolijk 60 footer designed for IMS racing and cruising.

With the Baltic 60 the approach slightly differs from the Baltic 56 and 66. This 60 footer was built as a custom project for one of our previous clients and the concept has been worked out together with his family and crew. The idea of using the boat for competitive IMS racing was a deciding factor in asking Rolf Vrolijk and his design team to come up with a shape that is IMS optimised taking the latest rule changes and model testing into consideration.

The hull and deck are in epoxy carbon, core-cell sandwich laminates and the same goes for structural bulkheads and interior paneling. The interior is comfortable for family cruising but using high-tech methods and materials will enable us to stay within design weight. Some cruising equipment like air-condition unit, anchor windlass, water maker etc will be installed in such a way that they can be relatively easily removed when transferring the yacht from cruising to racing mode. Once again a yacht that we are closely going to follow up and that we are very much looking forward to seeing on water.

Designer’s comment

It was a big challenge for us to design a new Baltic 60 one-off for racing under IMS as well as racing under IRC, without compromising the cruising ability. The basic hull concept is a further development of our very successful IMS class 500 design, such as Innovision, Banco Espiritu Santo, Bribon 2004.

The hull has a high length to beam ratio for low resistance when heeled upwind, but without the extreme flat top sides you see on new IMS racers. The displacement is in the medium range with approximately 17,000kg in IMS trim and will guarantee very good upwind performance in all conditions. The hull has a long bow overhang which will give a very long effective length. The sail plan is fractional with a short top mast. This configuration in combination with an 110% overlap Jib will be very competitive under IMS and IRC racing.

The concept with angled spreaders and without runners will also make it a very good and comfortable cruising boat upwind. The mast layout allows fractional as well as top spinnakers and can be optimize for light conditions by using the top spinnakers. For cruising purpose the asymmetrical top spinnakers will make it easy to handle the boat downwind. The sail area is big and will make the boat a good performer in light conditions so often found on the Mediterranean area.

One of the restrictions from the customer was the maximum draft of 3.100m. This is of course for a performance very shallow and needed an intelligent solution. We opted for a cast iron top with big recess in the top that can also be used as a bilge. The bottom part is profiled bulb which will still give good side force and will have a bigger affective draft. Additional we designed pockets in the side of the bulb that can be filled up lead (450kg) to give the boat more stability when not sailing in IMS trim.

This appendage concept will produce a very low center of gravity combined with a good lifting surface for upwind performance. Construction will be to the high Baltic quality and the intention to detail will guarantee a low weight for a boat with a complete interior. The interior concept is from the Baltic design group and represents the ideas of the owner. We as a design team are very proud on the final outcome of the yacht and look forward to see the performance of the boat against the competition.

Rolf Vrolijk