Baltic Yachts Service & Refit is stepping up its presence at this year’s Marine Equipment Trade Show (METS) in Amsterdam as the 2024 winter refit season gathers pace. A wide-ranging team of refit experts from each of Baltic Yachts’ key locations – Jakobstad, Finland and Palma, Mallorca – will be at the show, led by the new Managing Director of Baltic Yachts Service & Refit, Alastair Campbell.
Alastair, who is based in Palma, joins Baltic Yachts Service & Refit from a senior management role at C-Tech, a supplier of custom carbon components to the superyacht and grand prix raceboat sectors. With a background in professional yacht racing including some notable wins in the offshore and inshore circuits, alongside a career working for major yachting industry brands, Alastair brings a broad base of knowledge and expertise to his new role.
On its exhibition stand at METS (Nº 11.623), Baltic Yachts Service & Refit is showcasing two product lines that have been developed in house. Baltic Yachts began designing and manufacturing its own ranges of carbon composite hatches and carbon pop-up deck cleats, initially for new build projects, because cleats and hatches of sufficiently high quality and low weight were difficult or impossible to source from external suppliers. Hundreds of hatches have already been produced, some of them supplied to another shipyard.
These high-end components are equally ideal for retrofitting and they are now available on the open market, produced to custom specifications in a choice of styles and finishes. Examples of both product lines can be seen and retrofit projects discussed at METS.
In other news, Baltic Yachts Service & Refit can now reveal ‘before and after’ pictures from one of its biggest projects in recent years: the recently completed refit of Baltic 175 Ravenger, which is the world’s largest carbon composite sloop.
Commissioned by the yacht’s new owner to optimise her already impressive performance, the extensive refit works have transformed Ravenger from a pure luxury cruiser into a racer-cruiser with great potential on the superyacht regatta circuit. At the same time major changes have been made to both her exterior look and her interior, which is reconfigured and completely restyled. All technical systems on board have also been comprehensively serviced.
The key elements of Ravenger’s exterior refit works are:
-Subtle but extensive restyling by the owner’s team, which includes the Finnish designer Jarkko Jämsén
-Her sailplan is now even more powerful: updated rig, new sails and upgraded sailing systems with racing functionality
-New, sleek and streamlined hardtop bimini designed, manufactured and fitted
-New custom helm pedestals installed with an additional bimini above them
-Full exterior repaint
-Restyled bow and bowsprit
Ravenger’s interior has been completely restyled by Design Unlimited in a project that includes:
-Reconfiguring the yacht’s two-level saloon
-Changing the finish of surfaces throughout all guest areas including the master cabin
-Dark stained oak is now prominent
-New cabinets, ceiling panels, bookshelves, floorboards and more
-A stand-out feature of Ravenger’s original design and construction, the large fold-out balcony platforms in the saloon and owner’s cabin – a world first in a sailing superyacht – have been preserved
Another notable project, just completed in Palma, is the refit of Wavelength, a 90ft Pendennis cruising sloop. She is now due to cross the Atlantic with a full new interior designed by Andrew Winch plus a range of upgrades and service work.
In Palma, Baltic Yachts Service & Refit has 20 major projects under way including ten sailing yachts over 100ft LOA. Half of these are members of Baltic’s own fleet while the other half are from other shipyards. The works include everything from regular maintenance and gardiennage service to electrical system replacement, hybrid power installation, carbon composite structural work, new composite parts, full interior restyles, PLC system upgrades and more.
In Jakobstad the next major refit project is Gaia, a 100ft classically styled sloop built by Spirit Yachts with wood-epoxy construction. This includes the installation of a new teak deck, full exterior revarnishing, fitting a new main engine and generator, renewing her plumbing, a range of interior works, and replacing her monitoring and control system.
‘The team I’ve joined at Baltic Yachts Service & Refit is remarkably close knit, strong and dependable with their heads and their hearts in the right place,’ says Alastair Campbell. 'We can deliver comprehensive support for any type of superyacht.‘
‘We’re very advanced in key areas like the engineering and installation of hybrid power systems, and also in system control and monitoring through PLCs,’ he adds. ‘Both of these are increasingly of interest for the yachts down here in Palma. And at METS we’ll have an eye on new sustainability solutions.’