Xc 47: eXtraordinary attention to detail
by Mark Jardine 29 Aug 11:00 UTC
Xc 47 © X-Yachts
What is it that makes the difference between the good and the great? At a show, or in a glossy boat review, it's easy to look at the aesthetics, the lines, a glorious shot of a boat under sail, and get drawn into a certain design, but what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary is far more nuanced.
A bluewater cruising yacht is lived on and lived in, and in today's world there are a plethora of systems required to provide the creature comforts which make living at sea transform from ordinary to sublime.
The trade-off for this is complexity. Electrics, hydraulics, water treatment and air conditioning require a myriad of conduits and control systems so that it all works in perfect harmony, giving you the enjoyable days at sea that you crave.
eXemplary quality
Talk to an X-Yachts owner, whatever the age of the yacht, and you'll hear the same message over and over again: X-Yachts are built to last. Designed around the heart of steel for over 40 years, each yacht is built to stand the test of time and give you the peace of mind to undertake the adventures of your dreams.
Details you won't see, but are reassuring to have, are carbon reinforcements around door frames, with the bulkheads themselves laminated to the wood for added strength.
Insulation helps in both colder and warmer climes, and the Scandinavians have mastered this long ago with their cold winters and sometimes glorious summers. This also provides calm and quiet, blocking out noise below deck in a strong wind, or in a marina.
Looking up in the cabins and saloon, watching the ceiling panels and padding being cut to size and then hand finished, demonstrates the art form which X-Yachts have perfected over time.
Underneath this finish, hidden from view, are the carbon reinforced areas of the deck and hull, such as those for the tracks, winches and windows.
Single point lift
Watching an Xc 47 being lowered into the water by a single strop, attached to the central steel frame, can feel strange, but simplifies the whole process and demonstrates the extraordinary inherent strength of the yacht.
On deck
Safety, reliability and aesthetics need to work hand-in-hand, so the designers are charged with thinking of all three for every element... and there are a lot of them in the Xc 47!
Examples of this include having handholds in the inlay detailing just aft of the saloon windows, so that an utterly necessary safety feature is as unobtrusive as possible, and becomes part of the deck line.
Also, housing the anchor, windlass and furler systems under deck, keeping them as safe as possible, away from hands and feet, out of the elements, again maintains the yacht's extremely clean lines.
The same philosophy extends to using a hydraulic vang, reducing moving parts and increasing ease of use.
Storage and style
A yacht is an inherently curved shape. Designed to move through the sea in as efficient and comfortable a way as possible, little regard on a true bluewater cruiser is made to how this makes life tricky for the interior designers. Providing the storage, light, comfort, space and style in the saloon, galley, cabins and heads is a jig-saw puzzle of epic proportions which will make or break a yacht.
Throughout the Xc 47 there are two features which anchor the design aesthetic: the iconic X-Yacht triple stripes and the hexagon, which is so prevalent in nature due to its efficiency and strength.
The beauty of the drawers in the forward cabin, with their three routed lines, and the hexagonal windows and cupboard handles exemplify this.
Subtle storage is everywhere, ensuring clutter is kept to a minimum and space is maximised. The nav station can easily double up as an office, for those who are combining work and pleasure, facing forwards towards the saloon so that conversation can be maintained with guests while also attending to emails and spreadsheets.
Denmark has the fourth tallest population in the world, so headroom is plentiful. The split-level saloon maximises this and ensures that at 6 feet tall at no point do you have to stoop.
Service simplicity
When ashore at home, there are various maintenance tasks required, be that cleaning a U-bend on a sink drain, changing a fuse, or cleaning a gutter. For bigger jobs a plumber or electrician may be required. In a house, delving inside a cupboard to access a part often requires dexterity, but what happens when you need to do the same at sea?
Maintenance in the oceans can be harder as tradesmen could be thousands of miles away. When you need to sort something you need ease of access, and a guide of what you need to do. This is where the team at X-Yachts have truly excelled. The more you find out about the Xc 47, the more you marvel at not just how it was done, but how the design philosophy was 100% based around the sailor.
Every single thought that has gone into the Xc 47 comes down to ease of use and ease of access when you're on your own, or circumnavigating the globe. An example is the water filter, which has its own floorboard in the galley area, which then has its pipes to the different services which require water.
Under the next floorboard is the watermaker, again designed for easy access to the filters, together with drawings of which angle the handles on the valves need to be at when servicing the watermaker, so that as a sailor you don't need to remember every detail about your boat. It literally becomes self-explanatory.
This extends through to the electrics, with every single wire clearly labelled. Then there are separate floorboards for each tank, and easy access under the saloon seats to the air conditioning unit. Everywhere you look, the more you see.
The stern locker, anchor locker and sail locker are all waterproof, with the rudder shaft in the stern locker, complete with two separate systems for each wheel. The stern locker is huge, easily big enough to climb into, allowing easy access to the fuses, pumps and hydraulic systems, increasing user-serviceability.
We can't all be professionals on every aspect of a modern yacht, so the ease of access and hand-holding in the form of guides which accompany the systems, mean we don't have to be. It all leads to less time worrying and more time relaxing - just as it should be.
Forward thinking
On the 'E' version of the Xc 47, there is a diesel genset with a 300 litre diesel tank, backed up by eight lithium cells, giving you an electric-only range of 25 mile range at 7 knots. This means that you can run cleanly and silently for short trips in and out of the harbour before setting sail, but have the range which diesel provides when needed.
The saildrive can be turned to face forward under sail, charging the battery, which allows sailors to be completely carbon-neutral while sailing a lot of the time. Solar panels are sympathetically detailed into the coachroof, so much of the electricity needed can be green energy.
Making your choice
A bluewater cruiser is no small investment. The time and care, or due diligence in business parlance, given to your decision should reflect that.
After a boat show, you'll have your shortlist of yachts that are worthy of further consideration. That's the time to take a deep-dive into what the real differences are between each one. It's time to look at the details which really matter when you're at sea, and will make your time cruising as pleasurable as possible.
Think about the details. Draw upon your experience, and those around you, to understand what really matters. Have your questions at the ready and then ask each brand if their yacht has the answers. You may well find the Xc 47 is the one for you.
Find out more at www.x-yachts.com/en/yachts/xc/xc47
For more details contact Kevin Wallis – Australia & New Zealand Managing Director ( M ) +61 414 258666 or ( E )
For more details contact Kevin Wallis – Australia & New Zealand Managing Director ( M ) +61 414 258666 or ( E )