Boat review by NAVIS Magazine
Like all Wally Yachts, Magic Carpet 3 is elegant in its simplicity. There is not a single thing onboard that is extra. “If you don’t see it, it’s because it wasn’t needed,” says Luca Bassani, Wally Yachts founder and the designer of Magic Carpet. Bassani is justly proud of not only the company he created but of each and every yacht that has launched including Magic Carpet. “The Wally race rules state clearly that before racing you cannot remove anything that is normally kept on board,” Bassani says. “That means everything has to weigh nothing at the start. We made the wash basins from carbon, we used an ash veneer on a honeycomb core to make the furniture, and we even put the light switches in the deckhead. There are two reasons for this. The first is that every bulkhead gives the boat structural strength and you would harm that by drilling holes through it; the second is that to run the cable down to the ordinary level of a light switch means more wiring, and every inch of wire weighs something.” Now that’s what I mean by maniacal attention to saving weight.
The first thing that you notice when you step on board Magic Carpet3 is the vast expanse of uncluttered teak. Her deck is flat, interrupted only by a sleek deckhouse and a simple cockpit, but other than that it’s flat and designed for purposeful performance. Just aft of the mast, in front of the deckhouse, is a working pit where the crew manages the foredeck and mast controls. Aft, in front of the dual wheels, are two winches either side where the crew can trim the sails. Their placement is perfect and allows the trimmers an unobstructed look at both the headsail and mainsail.
Along with an athwartship track for the self-tacking jib that’s all the hardware there is above deck. The sail controls are led in channels below decks to keep things clear and uncluttered. Sleek, sublime and dedicated purely to performance.
Luca Bassani was responsible for the exterior and interior design. He collaborated with the design team of John Reichel and his partner Jim Pugh, who together founded and act as joint vice presidents of Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design. The Naval architecture for such a precisely engineered yacht has to be impeccable, and Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design are among the best in the world. John Reichel apprenticed with the renown yacht designer Doug Peterson and learned at a young age that light boats are fast boats. Peterson was a master at insisting that toothbrushes be cut in half to save weight on an overnight race (or left off altogether). That legacy can be seen in all aspects of Magic Carpet3. They went so far as to use titanium screws over stainless to hold everything together. Titanium is that much lighter and every little bit counts.
