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Power and Beauty. Confidence and Performance.

When that fire burns, we become unstoppable. We shape the hardest steel and strongest aluminium. With skill and dedication. With hard work and persistence. This is who we are. Power and Beauty. Confidence and Performance. That’s what our Super Yachts are made of. We.... are Heesen.

A CHALLENGING HERITAGE

Founding father Frans Heesen had no idea of the adventure awaiting him when he acquired Striker Boats back in 1978. Now, over four decades later, he has built a company renowned for producing some of the finest superyachts in the world. And although he stepped back from the company in 2012, his mission to create yachts that push the boundaries still lives on today.

We are humbled and proud by the International recognition we have been awarded. Though the greatest reward for us is to see a happy customer sail away on an beautifully crafted yacht.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

At Heesen we build our yachts entirely in-house. This combination of high-tech engineering and quality craftsmanship, creates unique career opportunities and a dynamic and rewarding work environment. With a high degree of responsibility and variation, you will build yachts beyond your imagination.

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Laurentia: The 55m superyacht built with the help of Whatsapp

A busy prospective owner, a nearly finished Heesen and hundreds of WhatsApp messages. Cécile Gauert tells the very modern story of the making of Laurentia ...

Although it’s not unheard of, it is still rare for a client to buy a superyacht sight unseen. Laurentia , a 55 metre Heesen started on spec and resold in the late stages of construction, is a great example of how this can happen, and with happy results.

“In all my years as a broker this is the first time when everything was done via WhatsApp messaging,” says Barin Cardenas, founder and president of The New Yachts Company . “The buyer never once visited the yard or visited the boat in person.”

The future owner, a fiercely private person, was not uninterested in the outcome; quite the opposite. He had a lot of knowledge and contributed many of his ideas, Cardenas says. He had narrowed down the search to a new, finished (or nearly so) yacht built at a northern European yard.

As the new yacht market recovered after years of sluggish growth, it was not an easy task. Cardenas and the principal of Miami-based design firm Radyca , who acted as owner’s rep, searched for good options for about 30 months until an “Aha” moment at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in 2016. Heesen’s 70 metre Galactica Super Nova caught the client’s attention. Unfortunately, she was not for sale and there were no projects of that size available within a short delivery window at Heesen.

The owner’s team began discussing other options with Heesen’s commercial team. The yard’s new 55 metre series offered some of the features the client wanted – room for toys, six cabins and long-range capability among them. So when Project Alida (hull No 2 of Heesen’s 55 metre series) became available, somewhat unexpectedly, the owner’s team went to the shipyard in Oss, the Netherlands, to investigate. “Within an hour our client was reviewing a properly edited film on a private link,” Cardenas says.

The yacht was still in dry dock but nearly finished. All that was needed from the builder’s point of view was to open the water valves and float the yacht out. But it was not to be – at least not right away. “He liked the layout and the bones of the boat. What he did not particularly like was the interior,” Cardenas says. “Boats are supposed to be fun, a place to escape the corporate environment.”

When the client conveyed that he did not like the décor, the team went to work layering different fabrics and finishes, and sketched over photographs they’d just shot to show how Project Alida could become Laurentia , all the while communicating via WhatsApp as the client ran in and out of meetings.

Radyca is a new name in the yachting world, but its team has already designed yacht and aircraft interiors, in addition to several high-end residential and commercial projects. Its office, in one of Miami’s glittering high rises, has been at the heart of the transformation of the financial centre into a vibrant liveable part of the city. The firm’s portfolio includes a vast luxury entertainment centre, which opened recently near Brickell Avenue.

The interior of Laurentia , as it exists now, is the confluence of its lead designer’s and the client’s visions. “The common denominator is that we try to create sophisticated, simple designs, but always warm, cosy and relaxing, which is the purpose of a boat, at least for the clientele that we have,” says the lead designer on the team. “We have never worked with a client who expected a more formal use of the boat.”

An interior rethink is a common experience when stepping into a build at such a late stage. The yacht’s interior had been done for someone else. “It was nice but busy, but it had extremely good bones. We told our client, ‘We think we can make it work’ and he said, ‘OK, make a list of everything you would change without hesitation’. To our huge list he added his own changes. Then he said, ‘Go back to Heesen. If they can deliver that in time for me to use this summer, we have a deal.’ And ‘that’ included relocating the [spa pool], adding awnings, changing a bulkhead on the sky lounge. It was huge surgery.”

The white oak with wenge accents on the surrounding bulkheads remained, as did taps, mirrors and vanity units. But “we changed all the flooring, ceiling panels, fabrics, all the leathers, all the wallpapers, any feature wall and all loose furniture.” The large and beautiful master suite, the largest of six cabins on board, was stripped of its finishes almost entirely. “What was dark we made light, what was light we made dark,” the designer says with a laugh. “We were just stubborn.”

One of the biggest jobs, which involved metal work, was the reconfiguration of the sundeck and the spa pool, which was rotated to create a huge, private sunbed area and carve out space “for a champagne or tapas bar”. More changes happened on the main deck aft, where the seating area was expanded and reconfigured to accommodate an outdoor cinema , and the lower deck, where the large beach club had gym equipment added. One of the most complex tasks, surprisingly, was fitting a copper light fixture to the curved walls of the redesigned staircase. “This whole thing [the staircase] was the most challenging for Heesen. That and the bulkhead in the sky lounge [which was redone to take out a secondary crew passage and install a 2.2 metre mirror television in the reconfigured upper saloon],” the designer says.

“The structure of the stairs was there, but they had to take the whole thing out and rebuild every single step, do the millwork and the wall panels again; it was like a puzzle. We added stainless steel overhead, added the lighting underneath. They had to do electricity, wood, metal, leather, bringing all the trades in this tiny spot.” And it all had to be done in a compressed time period. After the first meeting – “a long day in Oss,” as Cardenas describes it – there followed two months of negotiating and drawing and four months of work. “It was extremely quick,” Radyca’s lead designer says.

To the credit of the builders, by August Laurentia was on her way. “It demonstrates the flexibility of the yard to be able to react in a quick manner and give the owner what he’s looking for,” says Thom Conboy, Heesen’s director of sales for North America. “It’s not ideal for the yard; the ideal situation is to have the boat sold a year or more before delivery so the client still gets all personalisation.” But the silver lining is that Heesen got two 55 metre yachts sold within a few weeks – Project Alida’s former owner decided to buy a later hull to have more breathing room in the construction schedule. “It was luck and great timing,” Conboy says.

What made this possible is that Heesen does nearly all of its own yacht interiors from two large furniture shops, including one off site near the German border, enabling the yard to keep control over its usually aggressive production schedule. Her unconventional story, and an interior by a design firm with a track record as impressive as its public profile is low, made Laurentia intriguing but she proved elusive. It was the end of the Caribbean season by the time I caught up with Laurentia and her crew of 13 in St Lucia’s Marigot Bay. The yacht was easy to spot against the backdrop of the emerald bay and a colourful local flotilla of fishing and excursion craft.

While resort dwellers craned their necks for a better look of the very private beauty from the nearby Capella resort, the crew was in full prep mode for the imminent trek north-west to Bermuda, then across to the Azores, Gibraltar and eventually to southern France. The captain had already brought Laurentia across the Atlantic and was looking forward to his “20th or so” transatlantic journey.

“She is designed for long-distance cruising,” he says. “She is very comfortable, very stable.” The naval architecture is by Van Oossanen, which made use of its patented Fast Displacement Hull Form. The 55 metre series is the first application of this hull to a full displacement yacht. “A traditional full displacement hull, while efficient at cruising speed, becomes very inefficient at hull speed,” Perry van Oossanen says. “When we tried the fast displacement hull, we discovered we could extend the top speed a bit without stretching the engines too much.”

This hull form resulted from an extensive parametric study that used computational fluid dynamics (CFD), this time “aimed more at efficient cruising than a high maximum speed”. Besides efficiency and low resistance, the studies also focused on comfort, especially roll at anchor. The yacht has large fins by Naiad, installed forward of centre, but Van Oossanen prefers not to reveal the details of what makes the hull so efficient. “There are some secrets of the trade in the fine tuning of the round bilge displacement hull, the bow, how you distribute the volume; it’s subtle differences with big advantages,” he says.

Some exterior features were streamlined from the first 55 metre for more efficient construction. “It’s a typical Omega design,” says Frank Laupman, the firm’s CEO, “because basically she is very simple. There is not a lot of engineering the yard needs to do – no wing door, no hatches – so she can be efficiently built. My background is from industry and, while I really like to create to owners’ ideas, I am passionate when it comes to shipbuilder requirements. I thrive for efficiency and rational design.”

The biggest difference from hull No 1 is the layout. There’s an open tender bay on the foredeck instead of an enclosed tender garage on the lower deck, which allowed for a large beach club. “Like any of our platform boats, the design continues to evolve,” Conboy says. The mast, which lowers from view when the boat is at anchor, doubles as a crane to lift off two 6.2 metre Castoldi tenders. And then there is deep storage for jet skis and other toys.  Laurentia , which will be selectively available for charter, has plenty.

The tweaking was a success from all angles. The owner, who finally got to see the yacht about six weeks after the contract’s signature, is reportedly very happy and the yacht’s relaxed and elegant interior was even nominated World Superyacht Award . But it is nearly as satisfying to witness how the confluence of technology and of a streamlined yacht-building process can change the way business is done. “Technology, if used correctly, might just save this old-school industry,” Cardenas says.

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Heesen deliver 80m superyacht GENESIS to her new owner

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By Katie Scott   4 September 2023

Dutch shipyard Heesen has successfully delivered the stunning 80m (262ft) superyacht GENESIS to her new owner, setting a new benchmark for the yard as the biggest yacht they have built to date.

Surpassing the previous record holders of Galactica Super Nova at 70m (229.6ft) and charter yacht ILLUSION at 65m (213ft), the new flagship is a custom-built motor yacht with design collaborations from Van Oossanen Naval Architects, Winch Design, and Sinot Yacht Architecture and Design. Embodying the classic, sporty DNA of the Heesen fleet, GENESIS is undeniably a true Heesen superyacht but with a contemporary and almost futuristic twist on previous builds.

Sporting a six-cabin layout, superyacht GENESIS hosts an army of indulgent features and amenities including a fully certified touch-and-go helipad that can also transform into an outdoor cinema, a glass-bottomed swimming pool, abundant exterior deck space for socializing and relaxing in the Mediterranean sun, plus an on-deck Jacuzzi and WiFi connectivity.

Enabling the owner and their guests seamless access to the sea, motor yacht GENESIS has a generous beach club environment with a wet bar, in addition to plenty of storage for adrenaline-fuelled water toys.

Currently, it is not expected that M/Y GENESIS will be made available for charter. However, if you’re interested in chartering a yacht of a similar caliber, you can view and compare all  Heesen superyachts for charter .

For more details on booking a luxury yacht charter , speak to your preferred  yacht charter broker  today.

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50m Heesen 2021

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Boat of the Week: Inside ‘Galactica,’ the World’s Largest All-Aluminum Superyacht

Heesen's behemoth has a high-tech "backbone" running its length to provide enough rigidity for the boat to reach a blistering 30 knots., julia zaltzman, julia zaltzman's most recent stories.

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What has an aluminum-plate backbone, more than one head, and runs faster than Usain Bolt? Heesen ’s superyacht Galactica— or “Project Cosmos,” as it was formerly called by the yard. The largest boat built by the Dutch shipyard to date is getting ready for its spring debutante ball. Fast, sporty and 262 feet long, the owner refers to Galactica as his “ultimate superyacht.”

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Hundreds of yachts around the world are larger than Galactica . None of them are built entirely out of aluminum. For the owner who likes to make a statement with his custom new builds, Galactica had to be his largest and fastest one yet. The owner decided he wanted a 30-knot top speed—greased lightning for a yacht this size and a conundrum for the shipyard.

A 262-ft. steel-hulled boat with conventional propulsion wouldn’t be able to reach that 30-knot mark. But an all-aluminum boat might, though that metal doesn’t provide the type of structural support that heavier steel does. Such a yacht had never been built, even by an aluminum specialist like Heesen. It would take serious creative engineering.

Galactica on her maiden journey through small Dutch villages.  Courtesy Galactica

The owner has history when it comes to these types of requests. His previous two yachts, Galactica Star and Galactica Super Nova are both all-aluminum with top speeds nearing 30 knots. At 230 feet in length, the latter was Heesen’s largest-ever build when delivered in 2016. Galactica is 30 feet longer, and while that doesn’t sound like much in the scheme of things, the technical ingenuity required to make it work had Heesen’s top engineers scratching their heads. The answer lay outside the boating industry, in the construction industry’s I-beam.

“Everyone knows the I-beam where you have the material on the outer veins of your structure,” Peter van der Zanden, Heesen’s general manager of design, development and engineering, told Robb Report . “That’s where our inspiration for the backbone came from, where we have the majority of materials in the bottom of the boat and on the main deck—our ‘outer veins’.”

The name “backbone” suggests a spine or something with flex, but the patented box-shaped structure is anything but. Composed of 15-mm aluminum plate, it’s lightweight and strong, running almost the full length of the yacht.

Glass was a main priority for the owner’s third boat in the Galactica series.  Courtesy Heesen

“We knew the design would work, our only concern was if it would work well enough,” says Van der Zanden.

Heesen created a scale model of the boat in water, divided into four segments, and simulated the pressures and forces at sea. When the results exceeded the requirements set out by Lloyd’s, the yard patented the design.

Of course, there’s more to Galactica than its hidden backbone. Key defining features of the Winch Design exterior include large sweeping panes of glass that trace the arching line of the superstructure. A bow helipad doubles as a cinema with seating and a screen that folds away into the deck. The glass-bottomed pool on the main deck reflects sun rays on the beach club below. Increasing the amount of light—both natural and artificial—throughout the boat was a chief request in this latest version of Galactica.

On its journey from the Oss shipyard to North Sea sea trials, the clearance between the top deck and some bridges was less than six inches.  Courtesy Heesen

“The owner’s previous experience has certainly influenced the way Galactica looks,” James Russell, exterior designer at Winch, told Robb Report . “It takes time to learn what you love, and particular focus has been paid to areas where more time will be spent, such as the beach club.”

Inside, an interior by Sinot Yacht Design & Architecture includes a central glass elevator, brushed oak and marble finishes, and in the main deck lounge, hand-cut glass ceilings. Galactica ’s windows incline at 45 degrees, rather than the standard 90 degrees, to give the illusion that the panes of glass are larger than they are.

Glass is a recurring theme, from the glass detailing in the straw marquetry and stainless-steel wall located in the main deck lounge, to the drinks display cabinet on the bridge deck with bespoke-sized backlit glass cubes sized to fit individual bottles. But glass is heavy. For the yacht to be fast, it needs to be light.

The helipad converts into an open-air cinema, with a screen that rises from the deck.  Courtesy Heesen

On a yacht of Galactica ’s size, everything is large, from the four MTU V20 engines (12 tons each) and the two gearboxes (13 tons each), to the air-intakes and the fuel tanks. But everything was made as lightweight as possible. The boat totals only 1,700 gross tons. The owner’s 30 knots will come from the MTUs’ 19,320 horsepower as well as the variable-pitch propellers.

Nothing has come easy with this yacht build. Its January journey from Heesen’s shipyard in Oss to the port of Harlingen where the boat is undergoing final testing in the North Sea was a game of inches. It passed through villages and squeezed beneath canal bridges with less than half a foot to spare, a hair-raising exercise for an undelivered superyacht. It will be turned over to its owner in April.

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Heesen Yachts: Building a Legacy

• By Diane M. Byrne
• Updated: December 18, 2020

This past summer, a handful of cranes lifted the massive aluminum superstructure for Project Cosmos into the air at Heesen Yachts , in preparation for joining the superstructure with the aluminum hull. The 1,700-gross-ton 262-footer is the largest yacht by volume and length in the Dutch shipyard’s history.

As exciting as the moment was for those reasons, it was arguably more exciting for the builder’s team because of Project Cosmos’ challenging construction and engineering. Incorporating a shipyard-patented hull component, the yacht is poised to cruise upward of 20 knots and top out at 30 knots.

The excitement in the air may have been reminiscent of a similar scene in 1979, when the 66-foot <i>Amigo</i> launched. <i>Amigo</i> was by far the largest yacht that a Dutch entrepreneur, Frans Heesen, had built. It was also the first yacht under his then-fledgling brand, Heesen Yachts.

With a business background in plastics, he had acquired the Striker Boats shipyard in 1978, initially for other purposes but ultimately deciding to keep boatbuilding operations going. He prioritized constructing aluminum yachts and marrying performance with luxury. In the ensuing years, Heesen Yachts earned a global reputation for both sport-fishing and performance designs.

While Frans Heesen sold the yard in 2008 and retired in 2012, the company hasn’t retreated from its pioneering path. During the past decade, it has delivered about two dozen aluminum yachts between 121 and 230 feet, as well as 18 steel-hulled yachts up to 184 feet length overall. While most have been semicustom and started on spec, Heesen replaces models regularly and is increasingly pursuing fully custom projects.

The builder can work on as many as eight yachts annually and is aiming for a larger share of the supersize-yacht market, with a 279-foot-long dry dock within a 295-foot-long construction shed. And Heesen Interiors recently added 24,000 square feet to its headquarters. The site now encompasses nearly 87,200 square feet. Staffed with draftsmen, cabinetmakers, wood finishers, upholsterers and more, Heesen Interiors is among the few full-service interiors departments under a superyacht shipyard’s ownership.

“It’s a constant evolution at the shipyard to try to stay current—because technology changes,” says Thom Conboy, US director of sales. Building on spec can run the risk of doing things the same way again and again, “but to try to continue to be on the cutting edge with spec boats is a fine balance between innovation and profit.”

A good example of striving for innovation is Heesen’s use of the fast-displacement hull form. Designed by Van Oossanen Naval Architects, it reduces hydrodynamic resistance throughout a yacht’s full speed range and reduces fuel consumption by about 15 to 20 percent. Heesen became the first builder to adopt it with the 213-foot <i>Galactica Star</i> in 2013. The hull form is now standard on several of Heesen’s series models in aluminum and steel.

The shipyard also adopted technical advances such as the Hull Vane, another Van Oossanen creation. Like a spoiler on a car, the Hull Vane is a foil, or a wing, that helps to create thrust while reducing drag, pitching and fuel consumption. The steel-hulled <i>Alive</i>, a 139-footer started on spec and delivered in 2014, was the first yacht to use the Hull Vane.

“With these spec boats, we’re not one of those shipyards that set out to build a run of 20, 30, 40 sisterships,” says Mark Cavendish, Heesen’s director of sales and marketing. Heesen limits each series to about 10 to 12 yachts, sometimes even fewer. “Then we’ll stop and redesign and engineer a whole new model. We’re not just taking the hull and tweaking it slightly; we’ll actually tear up the blueprints and settle down and look at what the latest technology can offer owners.”

Then, the Heesen team adds in owners’ ideas. “We’re known to be a flexible yard,” Conboy says. “If it makes sense and helps the sale, we’ll look at it.”

Even with its history of series builds, Heesen is fielding requests for fully custom yachts. Two notable contracts are Project Skyfall and the above-mentioned Project Cosmos. The latter’s quadruple MTU engines totaling 19,000-plus horsepower are expected to deliver a punch that requires rigidity and light weight in the yacht’s construction. Heesen’s in-house solution is a patented structure called the Backbone. Similar to an I-beam, the top of the Backbone runs port to starboard on deck, while the bottom forms the keel. The yacht’s hull spans the middle. Upon delivery in 2022, Project Cosmos should be the fastest all-aluminum yacht of its size.

That’s more than “something fresh in the offing,” as Cavendish describes Heesen’s operations. It’s bound to be a stiff breeze blowing customers’ hair straight out.

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