Saphire 27

European Yacht of the Year 2014
Glass – Carbon Rig – CoreCell
Design: Claudio Maletto
Project Management by Trimarine

The coordination work we carried out for Saphire was a bit different from our usual assignments:
The novelty lies in the fact that for the first time we were not dealing with the design of a simple prototype, but with a boat intended for subsequent mass production at a very competitive cost – Starting at 59 000€, ready to sail.

The main features of this 27′ boat stem from an idea of Michael Tobler, a Swiss national and founder of Saphire: to create a sailing boat that is easy to use, fast, trailerable, and that can be easily launched or dried out without external assistance.
Saphire’s philosophy was perfectly interpreted by Claudio Maletto, and with him we began working keeping in mind that every component had to be designed for industrial construction and assembly.

While Claudio coordinated the design group, together with Michael Tobler we carried out thorough research to choose the shipyard to entrust with the construction: it had to be capable of mass production without neglecting the high quality standards required by a Swiss client.

Once the shipyard was defined, the milling of the plug molds began, two prototypes were built, followed by a small pre-series; this process was very useful to optimally set up the construction technology and refine all those myriad of small details that characterize a quality boat.

The result is Saphire, an exciting hull, easy to handle and very fast; a hull that within half an hour – independently, without relying on the port’s crane – goes from the trailer to the water, ready for exciting family sailing or racing.