2021 Cannes Yachting Festival: Boats that break the mould

Headlining the show were 141 international debuts of everything from dinghies right up to the biggest and brightest in superyachts.

But away from the limelight were the boats that pushed the limits in terms of innovation.

While they may not have grabbed headlines, there was still enough clever thinking around the show to indicate the future of boating may be changing, and for the better.

Here, then, is the boatsales.com.au pick of the most innovative boats of the 2021 Cannes Yachting Festival.

At just 22.6 metres length overall, the Numarine 22 XP is an all-new pocket-sized explorer from the high-end Turkish shipwright.

The boat features three decks of living space including a flybridge, four suites and 11,000 litres of fuel capacity to provide a huge cruising range from the twin 560hp MAN diesel engines.

But what makes this boat stand out from all the other boats unveiled at Cannes is its ability to run all its onboard systems, including the kitchen and air-conditioning systems, for up to 20 hours without having to kick-start a genset.

It does this by using a clever array of solar panels that feed into a bank of compact and lightweight lithium-ion batteries.

The benefit? You can enjoy where you are without having to listen to, and feel the vibration of, a generator ruining the ambience as the sun slowly sinks below the horizon.

Big boats running at speed tend to have a common problem – they’re noisy. So when someone claims they can build a big boat that produces the same amount of background noise as being enclosed in the four walls of a library, it’s impressively ambitious.

That boat will be the CPN Ancona K300-01, a 36.6-metre almost plumb-bowed superyacht made for cruising the world in comfort.

Few details were officially revealed about this superyacht, although it will have five cabins onboard for up to 10 guests, and is powered by twin 800hp MAN D2868 engines that provide a cruising speed of around 12 knots – slow and steady.

But as well as suppressing the noise of the engines to around 40 decibels, CPN Ancona claims the K300-01 will also have almost no vibration while running.

The CPN Ancona K300-01’s 47,500-litre fuel tanks will give the superyacht a range of around 60000 nautical miles.

The problem with big boats is that they tend to be a bit slow. For example, the CPN Ancona K300-01 above weighs a hefty 280 tonnes, with its top speed rated at 14 knots.

But what if you built a superyacht as light as you could? That’s where the Grupo Fipa AB 100, a 30.6-metre superyacht weighing just 90,000kg, comes to the fore.

This is a boat that, despite its onboard comforts, is capable of doing a speed that’s faster than you can travel on most of the roads in Australia – 60 knots, or the equivalent of 110km/h.

All that performance comes from triple 2600hp Rolls-Royce MTU 16v2000 engines linked to water jets, with the powerplants fed using 11,500 litres of fuel. While you’ll get places fast, the downside is that range is limited to around 500 nautical miles – but at a cruising speed of 52 knots.

Onboard are four cabins sleeping up to 10 people.

One thing you don’t really need to worry about much on a powerboat is the direction of the wind. After all, while sailboats can only travel across the breeze, a powerboat can plough on straight into it.

Bu the Silent Yachts Silent 60 is a powerboat of a hybrid kind.

Yes, it has motive power, using its big bank of solar panels to recharge a set of onboard batteries driving a pair of electric motors to give an unlimited cruising range as long as the sun shines.

But when the sun doesn’t shine, the catamaran is designed to make use of a kite “wing” to make way.

Under kite power alone, the 30,000kg Silent 60 can do around 4-5 knots and is attached to the boat via a stubby mast. The owner needs to pump up the wing first to make its leading edge more rigid, and then let it rise on the end of a 120-metre line.

The wing can also make it easier for the electric motors to push the Silent 60 through the water, using much less power than with just the motors alone.

Classic sailing catamaran design can be a bit formulaic, which is why it’s occasionally refreshing to see someone turn convention on its head.

That’s where the French-made Windelo 50, a 15.2-metre sailing cat, shines. Other cats have a cockpit down the rear of the boat, spoiling forward vision and making docking difficult. The Windelo 50 turns this around with a cockpit located forward.

The other benefit of this is that the twin wheels used to steer the Windelo 50 are located in the forward section of the saloon, looking out over the front of the hull. Sheets used to control the sails also run into this space.

The design also allows the cabin to extend aft as far as the transom.

The Windelo 50 also uses electric motors to provide drive when the wind isn’t an option, with owners also able to specify a pair of onboard generators to provide electricity for the motors if more sail-free cruising range is needed.

Here’s a cruising catamaran that’s a world of difference. The IC36 Independence is the only boat produced by French brand Independent Catamarans but packs a lot of user-friendly punch.

It measures 11.0 metres, but packs down small enough so that it can sit on a trailer behind a car or fit inside a shipping container, making it easily transportable to almost anywhere in the world.

Inside its hulls are three cabins sleeping up to eight guests in comfort.

The IC36 uses a rotating carbon fibre mast to help with running and pointing, sleek hull profiles to reduce drag and through-hull daggerboards to stop sideways drift while working upwind.

Top speed is rated at 25 knots, with a 15-knot cruising speed. The boat is also classed as unsinkable, using air voids built into the hull to generate positive buoyancy.

You don’t steer it via a wheel, either. Instead, the IC36 uses a traditional tiller.