Captain Allan Lange played a crucial role in both the specification of the onboard equipment and in the construction process of La Baronessa, working alongside David Maccoux, the project manager for the yard. He brought invaluable experience from the merchant marine service where he had taken his first command in 1978 on an offshore oil supply vessel. He knew his owner well, having captained the 35 metre Baglietto, Baroness L from 1991, he knew the yard well, having been on site throughout the construction of the earlier 46 metre and he knew their workmanship well having subsequently navigated 50,000 miles on the boat.
Before construction began, the in-house design team at Palmer Johnson put the main construction drawings onto AutoCAD. As work progressed these designers complemented the work of the stylists and naval architects by putting the drawings of each element onto AutoCAD so that the workshops could proceed with the construction.
Dan Shea, Director of Product Development at Palmer Johnson, sees the setting up of project management teams right at the outset of construction as crucial to completing the job in a timely and orderly fashion. Key events are scheduled and there is a commitment to getting information and decisions early on from the key players.
Inevitably, however much you plan ahead, with the time required to design and build such a large hull, much of the design work and systems specification takes place after the keel has been laid and the plating begun.
Throughout the build process the project manager is juggling the resources of all the departments and chasing up the orders of supplied parts so that the build does not fall behind schedule.
As La Baronessa started out as a design exercise to look at the practical aspects of building a large displacement yacht without any need to conform to a specific owner's tastes, the early design analysis mainly covered aspects of speed, handling and displacement.
This process involved establishing the volume and weight of all the onboard systems including the engines and generators and the required space for tankage. The size of the engine room was calculated from this information.
Critical elements, such as the amount of space to reserve for ship's systems and ducting for the air conditioning, pipework and cable runs between decks were also established before the floor plan evolved.
This meant that basic aspects such as the structural requirement for deck heights were already worked out before the designers started work on the profile avoiding the possibility of ending up with a good looking design which did not have the necessary space for systems and accommodation.
The hull forms were faired on computer and the data was sent directly to a plasma-arc cutter. This process frees up the loftsman to plan the whole construction scheme and building sequence. Sparkman & Stephens specified the plate thicknesses and the fundamental hull form and developed a set of parts for nesting which were then cut by computer.
The construction period of two years required careful advance planning and day-to-day co-ordination of all the different aspects of the process so there would be minimal delays. Palmer Johnson, as a custom builder, have the correct mentality for this and have the management expertise to handle the vast amounts of information that are required by the different project teams, consisting of a project manager, purchaser, project engineer and project scheduler.
As work began on the hull plating, the joinery shops were simultaneously starting on the interior fit out which was also designed on AutoCAD. Even though the computer can produce 3-D visuals of the interior, Palmer Johnson still believe in building full scale mock-ups of areas that are hard to visualize.
Two crucial areas were developed in this way on La Baronessa. Part of the owner's suite was built so that decisions on details such as the profile of the windows and the choice of fabrics and wood veneers could be made. For the engine room, a full-size mock-up was set up right outside the engineering shop. This not only allowed the engineer and captain to plan the positioning of all the major equipment, it also meant that the brackets, manifolds and pipework could be pre-made by taking measurements directly from the mock-up. This offered both accuracy for the final fitment and saved countless hours in workers moving to and from the boat. The hours put into the mock-up are more than saved by the reduction in engineering time and fitout. This shows the level of customization that Palmer Johnson apply to each project.
Although the engine room of La Baronessa was only one frame longer than La Baroness's was, it did mean that a sound proofed control room could be incorporated with switch panels, bridge communication, network computer terminal and a closed circuit TV (CCTV) screen.
When it became clear that the new Detroit Diesel/TU 4000 series might create a delivery risk the decision was made to fit twin 1,950hp Caterpillar 3512 B Series engines with electronic management. Even though La Baroness had proved trouble free with Deutz, the captain decided to go for Caterpillars because he felt they were equally reliable and would have better spares and servicing facilities in the Far east. Also Palmer Johnson had had good experience fitting Caterpillars on the 46.5 metre Turmoil.
Once the main engine choice had been made the captain and chief engineer felt it was logical to stay with Caterpillar for the generators selecting three 160kw Caterpillar 3306T's and a back-up 50kw emergency 3304NA. The decision was made to leave these unboxed and concentrate more on the engine room sound insulation so that visual inspections and servicing access could be made easy. A waterdrop silencer coupled with regular mufflers connected in series was used for the exhaust system.

During the first sea trials the main engines proved rather smoky because the Great Lakes water temperature at 48 to 49 degrees Fahrenheit did not allow them to get up to working temperature as there was no thermostat before the intercooler. A thermostat has now been fitted so that water recirculates until the engines are warmed up. Showing the openness of their thinking, at one stage the Palmer Johnson engineers had actually considered keel coolers to avoid silty water which would have involved putting heat exchangers in the keels but this was rejected
Palmer Johnson used several different criteria, including summer and winter in both lay-up and running modes, to calculate the actual power generation requirement. Distribution is via an integrated system with all three generators running in parallel.
The boat was designed for a speed of 16 knots with a cruise speed of 12 knots in load with 42,000 gallons of fuel. These parameters were relatively immovable and so drove the project forward. The captain decided on the choice of Berg controllable pitch propellers (CPP's) which he had used on commercial ships, since they are more able to deal with the wide range of speed and load conditions possible with the extra performance offered by the aluminium hull developed by Sparkman & Stephens.
The system uses programmable electrical/mechanical controls that govern engine load and revolutions directly to the Berg propellers so the engines cannot be overloaded. The system allows for both automatic and manual adjustment of the pitch, so there is an early learning curve until the boat's performance characteristics have been established. Assumptions of speed and load are made in advance of the sea trials and then these are refined by mechanically pitching the propeller at various loads and rpm. In this way the automatic program is adjusted to the boat's characteristics.
The flexibility the CCP system allows is particularly useful when maneuvering in harbours to give smoother, more controlled acceleration and create less wash for other yachts. It also allows the engineer to maintain reasonable engine temperatures when forced to run at slow speeds in heavy seas or in cold water by increasing revolutions and reducing pitch.
There are two automatic operator modes, one that allows the engine to run at a constant rpm by continuously adjusting the pitch and one that increases rpm and pitch together to develop full power. The system can also be completely manually controlled and has alarms for engine overload.
The bow thruster is also a Berg controllable pitch unit, this time in a tunnel, driven by a 300hp electric motor which gives a much smoother power delivery causing less noise, wash and disturbance. A 200hp unit would have been perfectly adequate but the captain felt that when there was a really big blow, or even a hurricane, the extra power would be very useful to push the bow off the dock. The motor requires all the power from one generator and so when in use this is the only time it is likely that all the generators might be running. As the generators are in parallel this third generator can be continually cycled on the maintenance schedule.
A great deal of time was spent on the overall organization of sound insulation and vibration damping. Aluminium is noisier than steel since it has less mass. Palmer Johnson have good experience working with aluminium, and, in addition to rubber mounting most of the interior structure and machinery to isolate paths, used a system of applying the same size random plates to the bulkheads, tank tops and hull sides that completely changes the resonance characteristics. In addition to damping tiles, a matrix of sound suppression materials were built in areas over the decks and underneath the joinery including fiberglass and heavier barriers of quilted mineral wall shipboard for sound insulation. Palmer Johnson believe there is no inherent compromise or penalty to pay for alloy versus steel with their long experience in sound insulation and vibration damping.

La Baronnessa is fitted with tanks for 159,000 litres (42,000 gallons) of fuel for an extended cruising range of 10,000 miles at 10.5 knots. The typical cruising speed is 15 knots with a top speed of 16 knots. To provide the most reliable fuel treatment system possible, La Baronessa is fitted with an Alfa Laval MMB 304 fuel purification system, rated at 3,200 litres per hour. It consists of a centrifugal purifier, a separate feed pump, dual motor starter controls and the MAWA water seal alarm system to monitor any drop in pressure. The MMB separation system is designed for centrifugal separation of water and sludge (solid particles) from mineral oils.

	The pump supplier, Depco, worked closely with engineers at Palmer Johnson to select, design and construct each pump to meet the specific requirement of the applications on this unique vessel. All pumps were required to be 50 Hz and have motors rated at 50 degree rise. In some cases this required the creation of new motors which were individually constructed by the motor manufacturer. Several of the pumps provided are listed below. Flomax 2" & 3" bronze self priming centrifugal pumps equipped with 3 phase, 50Hz, 50 degree rise motors. These pumps were used for bilge, gray water, black water, fire and washdown applications. The standardization where possible on one type of pump reduces the quantity of repair parts and tools required for backup and minimizes the amount of training necessary. Oberdorfer 1" & 1.5" bronze gear pumps equipped with 3 phase 50 Hz, 50 degree rise motors. These pumps were used for diesel fuel transfer for the generator and main engine respectively. Gear pumps are the ideal choice for fuel transfer because of their superior priming capabilities and high discharge pressure to overcome filter back pressure. Price HP75 ¾" bronze high head centrifugal pump equipped with 3 phase, 50 Hz, 50 degree rise motor. This pump was chosen because of the upper deck location of the equipment it was required to cool. The standard centrifugal pump would not have overcome the required head pressure to reach and cool this equipment. Grundfos JP5 1" stainless steel centrifugal pump equipped with 3 phase, 50 Hz, 50 degree rise motor and automatic demand pressure switch. This pump is utilized for the water system on board. During system tests it was discovered that the toilet flush flow and pressure was not up to the owners standards. A custom nozzle was designed and a pump constructed to deliver the desired flow and pressure. This pump turned out to be an Oberdorfer 994 ½" bronze gear pump. Again it was assembled with a custom 3 phase, 50 Hz, 50 degree rise motor.
	The Yacht Report

Cramm Engineering provided Palmer Johnson with their latest hydraulic steering system design, the CB2500-B. The system has a capacity of 25000Nm and a rudder angle of 2 x 40o. The CB2500-B, built under ABS classification, was constructed and delivered in 1997. The system is provided with mechanical synchronization and is powered by an electric hydraulic powerpack in the lazarette with two equal systems (one for emergency use). The second backup system is provided by a manual handpump in the lazarette.
Cramm also provided a hydraulic stabilizer system, type 4080, with two stainless steel 4.0 square-metre fins. The system is controlled by a servo hydraulic double motion control with adjustable damping level and fin position indicators. This system was also delivered in 1997 and was commissioned by Quantum Marine.
The system's main pumps, Parker Hannifin PAVC 100 variable piston pumps with load sensing controllers, are driven by the main engines of the yacht. An electric powerpack with a 15kw and a 7.5kw electric motor was delivered with the system. This power unit drives two Parker Hannifin piston pumps, types PVP48 and PVP23, supplying the stabilizers, stern door system and the bilge pump.
To summarize, the overall combination of the ship systems and equipment with Palmer Johnson's engineering expertise has resulted in a yacht that has exceeded any expectations in US yacht building. It is fair to say that La Baronessa's technical and engineering quality is comparable to some of the leading German and Dutch yards and with a project price in the region of 35 million dollars it makes Palmer Johnson an attractive proposition in the 50 metre plus market.