“A” Compromise

Everyone who makes things for a living understands compromise. Building a super yacht is no different. You might have the biggest budget for the best boat ever, but a yacht is an engineering project and engineers know how to compromise.
Today I was looking at this photo of the new junk-inspired sailing yacht A on its first sailing sea trial near Kiel. As a self-confessed sat-com nerd, my eyes were drawn past the enormous rig to the four little domes at the base of the mizzen.

These poor little antennas will suffer some serious blockage from the carbon sails and flat, aerofoil mast. The designers have included dual VSATs and dual TV domes which will help. But this comes at more than double the cost of a simple, single antenna system. And probably triples the number of pieces of kit, failure in any one of which can take down the yacht’s communications. What to do?

If I had my way of course, we would remove the mast completely and fit one, big dome. Apart from death and taxes, the only other sure thing in life is that bigger domes are better. While we are at it, why not move those chimney things out of the way too. But I suspect some people might not like that. Maybe compromise isn’t a bad idea after all.

If you want more information on dual VSAT solutions that work, why not visit http://www.acutec.com.au/dual-antenna-vsat-system.aspx. Or for more information on S/Y A, read the excellent Superyacht Times article at http://www.superyachttimes.com/yacht-news/exclusive-s-y-a-sets-sail-for-first-time/