Daily Nautica interviews Alessandro Bacci, inventor of speed: “This is how the Cachemire Powerboats range began”
After years of research, his Cachemire Powerboats, with their innovative hull, challenge the laws of motion
Alessandro Bacci is from Venice and the city on the lagoon has given him a passion for the sea and for boating. And for speed; in the sense of performance and pleasure. “Venice – explains Bacci in his interview with Daily Nautica – has a very long boating tradition. The city was full of skilled craftsman and small high quality businesses. Now that the master craftsmen have disappeared and the shipyards have closed down, I would love to bring back the marvellous boats made in the Lagoon, working on innovating tradition.”
HOW DID YOU BEGIN WORKING IN THE INDUSTRY?
In Venice everyone has a boat and goes out on the water. I began working alongside my father, finishing propellers and setting parameters. My mother gifted me a course in yacht design from an American school, the Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology, and I enrolled in engineering. But there were no boats to be seen, at least in the first few years, and I preferred practising in person, “obsessed” with researching ways to achieve better performance. I chased after Fabio Buzzi for ideas – he was a pilot and engineer who “managed” the Iveco fleet during the Venezia-Trieste-Venezia.
And you started studying planing hulls…
A sector that was all experimentation and testing. Over time I collected data on over a thousand vessels, of different lengths, with relative coefficients and regressions. Now thanks to that work I can immediately understand whether or not a boat will work. And I am convinced that “somewhere in the universe” the formulas for load and resistance will meet.
Is this where the FTS hull began?
Yes, from this research I derived the Flow Trimming Step hull, which has demonstrated over and over again its soundness and worth, not only for top speed but also, and above all, cruising speed and consumption. Its “flexibility” with appropriate calculations, can be adapted to different objectives (top speed, cruising speed and planing speed). It is composed of two geometrically different portions, deep-V bow, polyhedric, convex and with two or more runners per side and moderate V-shaped stern, constant and without runners: a particular configuration that allows planing in a short time and to reach incredibly high top speeds.
The boats maintain an optimal angle of balance with the smallest wet surface possible, and this translates into sustained cruising speed as well as reduced consumption and comfortable navigation. Tight turns, used to get out of a difficult situation, can then be done safely, handling like the best deep V hulls.
Can these results be applied to the range of Cachemire Superboats?
The Cachemire Superboats family is based on the FTS hull: four motorboats from 7 to 17 metres, all innovative in their performance (with speeds always over 50 knots) and in layout compared to their equals. So, for example, the smallest model, Gotcha, has an airy cabin over 2 metres long with a configurable cockpit, the 10 metre, Outrage, has a full height bathroom (a singular solution in this category), and the biggest, Infinity, can reach 80 knots, and has two separate night areas.
Speed and customisation?
Certainly; the only thing that cannot be personalised is the Kevlar hull, everything else can be designed and built based on the needs of the owner. We have already delivered three custom hulls, which stand out for their elegant details and accessories, refined and made in Italy.
