Since Feadship first wowed the US market in the early 1950s with a use of steel in motoryachts that was unprecedented at the time, our ability to explore options until the unachievable is achieved has been a hallmark. Below these words is a list of more recent Feadship firsts. While by no means comprehensive, it’s clear that, from the first fully functioning fireplace to superstructures made almost entirely of glass, we say yes to requests that other yards would prefer to avoid. 

Being at the forefront of new developments while sometimes initiating ones that no-one else had even thought of is expected when you build the best boats in the world. It behoves us to always be prepared to go several steps further… In all honesty, Feadship has an organisation that is too smart to do anything else and our yachts would be prohibitively expensive if we failed to invest in innovation. 

Radical vision 
This is an approach that attracts many renowned clients, although we can rarely say who they are due to our privacy rules. These enigmatic individuals come to Feadship because they know we’re the only boatbuilder that can respond to their radical vision. 

An obvious example is the world’s first mastless motoryacht Venus, launched in 2012. Her minimalist looks reflected the design sensibilities of an owner who was keenly researching the possibilities of using enormous slabs of glass. Feadship was busy investigating the potential of super-conducting engines and I vividly remember the times spent looking at the options with the owner. His desire for high speeds eventually took Venus in a different direction but together we moved the dial on propulsion in ways that benefited later projects.

Talking of which, one of my favourites is Savannah, the world’s first luxury motor-superyacht with hybrid power. Her owner was inspired by the eco-friendly electro-mechanical platform predicated by the Future Feadship Concept Breathe and we designed Savannah around a pioneering mix of a Wärtsilä main engine, three generators, a million Watts of Li-ion batteries, a single central propeller shaft and an azimuting thruster.  The latter was one of the reasons behind the yacht’s famous lower aft deck on a project that involved over a thousand specialists and offered fuel savings of up to 30%

Client-driven
A quick mention here for the owner’s rep who played a big part in the Savannah success story. Ditto with Anna, where the quest for quietness led to us proposing a game-changing diesel-electric solution. Like Feadship, reps work for clients who know and understand that rewriting the playbook costs a considerable amount of time, like the five years dedicated to the world’s first hydrogen-powered vessel. 

Launched last year, the client for Breakthrough was keen to take a serious step forward in environmental terms and I remember proposing we could do something with fuel cells at one of the first meetings. The idea landed well and was a key reason the owner decided to partner with Feadship. It was an immense challenge as we started out with hydrogen in pressurised vessels then went to a big cooled tank with liquid hydrogen. There were decision points where we questioned whether we could really pull it off but the client drove us forward. Rightly so for, as Marylin Mower memorably wrote for Pilot Insights, even Jules Verne would be awestruck at a project that has changed the yachting world.

Personal touches
My colleague Giedo Loeff explains here how Feadship’s R&D team has also been developing other fossil-free fuel options like methanol as part of our pledge to develop net zero yachts by 2030. But many other Feadship firsts are more personal in their origins. I’ve often visited client’s onshore residences to gain a true impression of how they live and ensure they can mirror any preferred routines once onboard. 

The dimensions of the delightful Finnish sauna on Lady Britt, for example, were carefully calculated to ensure the owner could read his Financial Times there in comfort. In a similar vein, the seats in the diving area on Samaya were positioned to perfectly match the owner’s height. Faith’s owners have a particular fondness for the taste of wood-burned pizza so we built an oven onboard, which is far more complex to achieve than write, Lady Christine has door sensors for the owner’s dogs while Aquarius has a dog-washing station on her aft peak. 

Open up
Ultimately it all comes down to what’s important for clients and that can at times be immeasurably complicated. Lonian has no less than 22 platforms, hatches and doors, designed to give the best possible access to the surrounding waters. Generating this awesome outdoor-in feel pushed us to establish a new benchmark for this kind of engineering and construction. Crucially, Feadship and De Voogt have the expertise and disciplines in-house to ensure the naval architecture is in synergy with the design and performance parameters including a rich understanding of regulations and the experience of how yachts are operated by crew

These and the other examples outlined below and on our website have one thing in common: a willingness at Feadship to take on every challenge and not try and steer people away from their original ideas. We prefer to embrace the questions posed as that probably means we have a real Feadship client on our hands. What would you ask us?