Balancing Form and Function
“The unlimited imagination and creativity of clients and marine architects has led to several breath-taking Heesen designs,” says Mark, “including the race-car-inspired Aurelia in 2011, the revolutionary Galactica Star, and our flagship Galactica Super Nova.” The latter features an aluminium fast displacement hull, which not only looks elegant and sporty, but slices through the water at remarkable speeds of up to 30 knots, making her one of the fastest superyachts in her class. She is a masterpiece of speed, space and style.
“Aesthetics are important and are often what single out a yacht from the competition, but function must always come first, form second. At the heart of every design is the lifestyle of the owner – how they wish to use the yacht, what their hobbies are – but to be a true success, a yacht has to balance its beauty with performance.”
Heesen’s fresh approach to the yacht industry goes beyond design, spilling into their sales and marketing, too.
Since launching almost 40 years ago Heesen has delivered more than 170 yachts. Originally the focus was solely on custom design, but at the turn of the century, demand was far outweighing supply and a market opened for yachts with a shorter construction time. “So to meet demand and to avoid compromising on quality,” says Mark, “we created a platform based on proven design and tested technology, reducing the standard delivery time of three to four years by approximately six months.” Uptake was strong, and remains so: their current order book and speculation pipeline consists of 12 yachts under construction, with deliveries that span to 2022.
As expected, there’s plenty more to come. “For Heesen to continue growing and developing it is inevitable we will start to build larger and larger yachts,” says Mark. “In 2017 we opened our new state-of-the-art 85m dry-dock and are now working on an exciting, radical new design with Clifford Denn Design called Project Maximus, which, at 83m, is the largest yacht we can build.
“We are also working on a highly-sophisticated 80m all-aluminium fast displacement motor yacht powered by four engines connected to two gearboxes with two shafts and controllable pitch propellers.” This requires a mind-boggling level of innovation, but given Heesen’s absolute aversion to risk, there can be little doubt it’ll be a feat of engineering excellence. Heesen truly are masters of the sea.