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Materials
To deliver both high performance and high-end luxury in the same craft has everything to do with the materials chosen.
Externally, the quality of materials that provide the sumptuous Sunseeker finishing touches are there for all to see – rich American walnut furnishings, the finest quality natural teak decks, embossed headlinings, high gloss lacquer bulkheads and plush fabrics and carpeting. What is less easy to see is the choice and application of materials that allow high performance and high-end luxury to come together in the same vessel.
Optimum power-to-weight ratio is achieved by ingenious design and manufacturing. Over the years Sunseeker and engine manufacturers have worked together to increase power and efficiency from ever more lightweight motors, but their progress will be hampered unless the fittings and fixtures are not similarly optimised. By way of example, light-filtering polarised safety glass is one third of the weight that it was five years ago; beautiful marble and granite surface finishes are decorative and durable, but what looks like a two-inch thick slab can in fact be a milled slip backed by a honeycomb of durable composite material.
The extensive use of carbon fibre has also made a great contribution. The rigidity of a carbon fibre sandwich composite floor that is only 30mm thick can produce a surface area of ten by five metres without any deflection at all. A vacuum-extruded resin bulkhead can be lifted and fitted by a team of four, where its predecessor would have needed twice that number.
The constant research into and testing of new materials has become standard procedure at Sunseeker, keeping them and their boats at the forefront of marine design and technology.
