Modern market dynamics in fast craft design

Arksen has spent most of its short life building a reputation for fast, long-range explorer vessels, but it’s now carving out a strong niche in the commercial and defence patrol boat market through its Arksen Pro division.

The company acquired Ring Powercraft three years ago, which brought with it 60 years’ experience of high-performance military and commercial craft.

The Arksen Pro collection includes rigid and inflatable boats from 5-13m, aluminium cabin vessels from 10-20m and larger displacement hull patrol boats designed for extended missions in challenging conditions.

“The industry is moving away from designing simply for calm-water sprint speeds and instead focusing on real-world offshore capability. As operations push further offshore, the boat needs to protect its crew,” says Andrew Whittaker, managing director at Arksen Pro. 

He explains that Arksen achieves this ruggedisation through higher freeboards, enhanced reserve buoyancy and wider chines to drastically improve both static and dynamic stability, providing a much safer working platform.

“For crew safety, it's about minimising the physical toll over long shifts. The integration of specialised shock-mitigating seating is standard, alongside ergonomically optimised, climate-controlled wheelhouses designed to reduce physical and cognitive fatigue during extended transits in harsh conditions.”

Specialised design

One of Arksen Pro’s more recent innovations is the Vampire 1250, a 13m multi-role platform engineered for search and rescue, border control, interception, anti-piracy, subsea surveillance and long-range equipment deployment.

They are specialised for carrying and deploying jet skis or drones from their stern to enable a pincer movement intervention.

Powered by twin Yanmar 8LV engines and waterjets, the Vampire 1250 achieves speeds of up to 40knots while offering excellent seakeeping and dry running, due to their deep V hull design.

“These platforms utilise advanced deep-V hullforms with variable deadrise angles. This specific geometry allows the vessels to cut through rough offshore chop at high speeds, significantly reducing the slamming loads that cause structural fatigue,” says  Whittaker.

The first three Vampire 1250 vessels have recently been commissioned and are in operation.

Now Arksen is celebrating a recent order from the Indonesian Navy for its Vampire vessels, and another from the Thai police for Royal protection vessels – all courtesy of YouTube.

The order secured from the Thai police is for a variation of the Arksen Pro Guardian 10m.

Arksen Pro’s Guardian 10m platform, built on an Arksen Pro hull, is a narrow, deep-V design with a 24-degree deadrise angle.

The order secured from the Thai police is for a variation of Arksen's Pro Guardian 10m (image: Arksen Pro)

The vessel weighs approximately 4.5tonnes and carries 1,000litres of fuel, giving a range in excess of 250nm at cruising speed

Power comes from twin Yamaha XTO 450hp engines mounted on jack plates, allowing the drives to be raised or lowered depending on conditions: fully raised for maximum speed, lowered for harbour manoeuvring.

At 20knots the boat burns around 30litres/h; at 5,000rpm it achieves just under 50knots, with the capability to push further.

The request from the Thai police was for a twin 450hp variant capable of exceeding 55knots, this is because the vessel will be used for Royal protection duties. In trials, Arksen’s police patrol boat has reached 60knots.

Having built the demonstration vessel, Arksen is now hoping the project converts into a 15-boat order.

Multi-role capability

“Structurally, our philosophy is to use the correct material and manufacturing process in exactly the right place. We heavily utilise advanced resins, specialised fibres, vacuum consolidation and sandwich construction optimised via Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This ensures the hull can repeatedly absorb the intense dynamic stress of interception or patrol work without compromise,” says Whittaker.

While material selection is carefully considered to accommodate complex electronics and ballistic protection, Whittaker says they are actually quite happy to have the boats carry a bit of weight.

“A slightly heavier displacement significantly improves seakeeping and performance in harsher offshore conditions by reducing the ‘cork in a storm’ effect. This weight translates to much better tracking and highly predictable handling,” he says.

He explains that to maintain high-speed performance, this approach is paired with higher-power propulsion systems.

“We prefer to install higher capacity units that allow for greater durability and redundancy. Running a higher-power unit at a lower load is vastly better for extending service cycles and minimising overall wear and tear.”

As well as materials, weight and propulsion, the multi-role capability features heavily in the design aspect for the Arksen Pro range.

Modern operators need a single hull to perform multiple jobs, from search and rescue to tactical boarding.

The core design principle here is ‘plug-and-play’ modularity underpinned by a common structural and systems backbone.

“We achieve this by maximising open aft working decks and integrating heavy-duty deck track systems, allowing crews to rapidly swap out shock-mitigating seating for payload storage or tactical mounts in a matter of hours,” says Whittaker.

“More importantly, by utilising that common systems backbone, you build a highly resilient platform with simplified training. You can completely adapt the vessel for specific operational needs, but keeping the vessel's controls and systems maintenance the same across different configurations dramatically improves both operational efficiency and fleet resilience.”

Andrew Whittaker, managing director at Arksen Pro (on the right) pictured with Sam Roberts, sales manager (image: Arksen Pro)

Design adaptation

Whittaker explains that there is a need to adapt the design process to account for increasing convergence between commercial and defence fast craft requirements, as demonstrated by platforms like the Pro Guardian 10m and Vampire 1250.

“Naval architects need to embrace the crossover benefits: Commercial operators increasingly want defence-grade ruggedness, while defence operators desperately need commercial-style maintainability and high uptime,” he says.

This modern approach leverages proven, predictable commercial hullforms as the foundation and negates the need for designing highly bespoke, single-mission military vessels from scratch.

“By designing in the necessary structural hardpoints, modular electrical grids and power reserves from day one, we create platforms that are cost-effective and reliable to service, yet easily militarised or specialised as the client’s mission demands,” he says.