Baltic 68 Café Racer the largest sailing yacht in the world built using linen.

New generation owners want more and more multi-role sailing yachts that stand out as both luxury cruisers and successful racing yachts. Luxurious comfortable large boats with easy navigation without stress to make long cruises with long distances in total autonomy that, if necessary, can be set up with a racing set-up to actively participate in regattas not only to make numbers but to have concrete possibilities of being able to them to win.   

Baltic Yachts is one of the most famous shipyards in the world because it always manages to meet the needs of owners and for years, it has been building luxurious cruising sailboats with winning performance for regattas and thanks to its innovative capacity it makes its yachts easy to drive. safe, efficient and increasingly eco-sustainable. Baltic Yachts is also the world’s leading builder of yachts with advanced composites such as carbon fiber essential for building light, stiff hulls to be fast. However, due to its green soul, Baltic Yachts is constantly looking for new environmentally friendly materials and techniques to drastically reduce the environmental impact of its hulls.

Although carbon is a more resistant fiber than steel, light and that does not deteriorate, unfortunately it has the defect of being the result of the distillation of petroleum, moreover it undergoes the addition of various chemical substances. In short, it is a material that is anything but “green” and that produces pollution both in its construction phase and in that of destruction or disposal.

For this reason, some shipyards have begun in recent years to replace it with other natural fibers, such as linen fibers which are 100% biodegradable and recyclable, while carbon, resins are not biodegradable and not even recyclable now the most widely used disposal. it is in landfills and hardly in incinerators.

However, it is known that a process is being developed to recover the resins and fibers used in composites, particularly in the nautical industry.

Linen fiber today has not yet reached the qualities of carbon fiber but several researchers are working on it and could soon replace the black composite in all its applications.

Baltic 68 Café Racer is the largest sailing yacht in the world built by the Finnish shipyard Baltici Yachts where more than 50% of cultivated flax fibers have been used to strengthen the hull structure thus drastically reducing the use of carbon.

The linen used is the apmlitex of Bcomp which, in addition to being compatible with the processing with carbon fibers, also has excellent sound-absorbing properties which allows to save space by reducing the use of insulation.

The yacht is 68 feet (20.73 meters) long and 18.47 feet (5.63 meters) wide displacement is just 20.6 tons

The yacht’s exteriors were designed by Javier Jaudenes while the interiors by Jens Paulus and Baltic Yachts.

The first Baltic 68 Café Racer yacht was launched in 2021 outfitted with a powerful sail plan that is easy to manage. Obviously you sail with the wind, but when you need propulsion, it is always guaranteed by the presence in the engine room of a 30 kW zero emission electric motor with hydrogenation during navigation and solar panels. When the yacht sails the electric motor using the energy of the propeller becomes a generator, from 3 kW at 8 knots and 6 kW at 10 knots while the solar panels produce 1.5 kW even when the boat is moored. Together they charge a bank of batteries that have a capacity of 60 kWh and recharge in six hours, which in turn supplies power to the navigation systems and services on board the yacht for a range of three hours at seven knots.In addition, a system for the use of hydrogen is provided.

Even the wooden decks have been appropriately modified to drastically reduce the environmental impact by using a more durable and long lasting sustainable multipurpose modified wood than teak with a smaller thickness with a huge saving of the overall weight of the boat all in favor of performance. Furthermore Baltic Yachts announces that for this boat the following has been used: “The latest air conditioning technology, mixing drier recirculating air with fresh air to reduce energy needs by 30%“. 

The materials used for the interiors are light oak and linen composite which combine with special wallpaper, wicker and paper cord to produce a light, fresh and contemporary arrangement to create an “unpretentious simplicity”.

The Baltic 68 Café Racer was born with the Baltic Yacht philosophy “no frills but maximum attention to ease of use” designed to be really managed by a few people and always offer winning performances.

It aims to attract owners who care about the environment and want easy navigation and prefer to use the boat more frequently but with shorter times. For customers who at any time of the day decide to switch off to experience the wonders of the sea even for a single day without giving up the pleasure of comfort, together with friends and family or only with their partner and without depending on and worrying about nothing else.

In this regard Henry Hawkins the executive vice president of Baltic Yachts has released the following statement:

“Baltic Yachts has reacted to customer demand and since last year we have been working on the details of this exciting Café Racer. Our desire and our ability to adapt to the technical needs of an ecological yacht have resulted in an extremely exciting product ”.

Drastically reducing the environmental impact of boats, reducing emissions to 0 and noise pollution are all characteristics that will engage all boat builders to face the challenges of the 21st century.