Expeditionyacht.org

A true expedition vessel can’t really be without a helicopter.   If you’re going to the middle of nowhere, you need flexible means of transportation.  Only a heli fits the bill so we plan to make our ship ready for it. 

Obviously, landing a helicopter on a small yacht involves a variety of safety issues.  When I started looking into the rules set up by classification society Germanischer Lloyd, I learned there are basically two things to look at: landing and refuelling.  If you just want to land (and take-off), there’s a variety of rules regarding safety precausions, fire fighting gear, the size of the helipad and surrounding approach area, etc.  If you also want to refuel onboard, you run into a whole set of other rules regarding the safe storage of aviation fuel. 

In this post I’ll start with the landing pad itself.

Below a diagram with measures of what Germanischer Lloyd considers a helipad they would certify.  If  we take a common helicopter like the Bell 206 Jetranger, ‘D’ = 12.15 m (39.2 ft.).  So you need an aiming zone (the yellow H circle)  of about 6 m. and a clear zone of 12.15 m.

Obviously the yacht above does not comply with these rules, not even if they move the Jacuzzi ! 

We’re more thinking into starting out with a Robinson R44 Ravin Clipper with pop-out floats.  It’s ‘D’ is 11.5 m. (37.6 ft.).   More on this in my next post.