CRN has discussed the noise cancelling system it has helped develop, and which has been installed on its 2012 launch Darlings Danama.
The Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) system is part of a wider European Union-funded research and development programme that started in 2008. Led by the Ancona–based yard CRN, the project has brought together partner companies including Videoworks SpA and the Polytechnic University of the Marche in Ancona.
In trials on 60m Darlings Danama, the ANC was shown to reduce noise around the bed of the master cabin by 45 to 50 per cent on top of what they were able to achieve with sound-proofing alone.
‘We position a microphone close to the pillows on a bedhead, it senses noise and sends it to the audio sensor, which produces an equal and opposite noise,’ says Maurizio Minossi, technical manager of Italian audio-visual specialist Videoworks. ‘The two sound waves collide and cancel each other.’
The system can be activated and deactivated directly by the owner or use can be centralised for control by the captain. It can be assembled independently of the boat, easing installation and is adaptive to environmental changes such as cabin temperature and yacht speed. It is also visually unobtrusive – on Darlings Danama the tiny ANC speakers look like buttons in the leather bedhead.