Today is D-day, aka Design Day, and John is finally going to see the design of his yacht. For the big reveal, Tanno invites him for a cruise on a small yacht from the Feadship Heritage Fleet: the Ammerland. As they glide through the beautiful lake district, Tanno reveals the process he and his team went through to translate John’s mid-century desert bungalow dreams into the blueprint of a yacht. He shares his visual explorations of geometric structures, interesting rooflines, ornamental...

You think buying a superyacht costs a pretty penny? It turns out building a superyacht is only the start. Keeping it beautiful is a whole different story. Now that John has made all the most important decisions for his yacht – an expedition-type, a creative workshop, a beach club, a Command Centre, an endless pool and a submarine – he turns his attention to safety and upkeep. The seemingly trivial things like software updates, insurance and a reliable real-time sat-navigation system. Thinking...

Finally, John gets permission to board his first completely finished Feadship, an enormous 90+ metre superyacht that is longer than the Statue of Liberty is tall. Even though it is moored at Feadship’s Amsterdam yard for service, there’s a full crew on board and a Chief Officer, Mies, to give him a tour. The tour is for inspiration, but he’s here today to meet with Captain Alex in search of some valuable insights into the Feadship experience from someone who has been living it for...

After 3 episodes of exploring the boundaries of Feadship’s never-say-no culture, John finally gathers the courage to the most contentious topic in superyachting: sustainability. If there’s one industry under fire for the size of its ecological footprint, it’s the superyacht industry. Without a radical shift towards more responsible material sourcing and non-fossil fuel propulsion, superyachts run of the risk of becoming Noah’s Arks. With owners willing to spend nine figures on a boat, a few...

The shed – if there’s one place at Feadship that comes close to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, it’s the shed. The shed is the shipbuilding equivalent of the Silicon Valley garage. Closed off from prying eyes, it is a space purpose-built for innovation and imagination, a playground where mastercraftsmen and women come together to actually construct a superyacht. No more sketches, no more discussions – just meticulous hands-on carpentry drawn largely from 16th century shipbuilding...

A typical superyacht has over a million components, all of which must be defined, calculated and engineered before the building even begins. And once the building starts, there’s little an owner can do to change it. So every detail, from the thickness of the glass to the type of propulsion, must be weighed against the owners’ intents and wishes in advance. That includes which innovations go on board. A lot can change in the three or four years it takes to build a Feadship, especially in the...

In this first episode of Feadship Uncovered , John gets his first taste of pure custom creation at Feadship’s ‘closed’ shipyard on the small Dutch island of Kaag. Strictly off-limits to anyone but billionaire buyers and master craftsmen, John has come to meet with Tanno Weeda, head of design, and Arjen van Elk, sales director. It’s their jobs to turn his ideas into reality and, more concretely, transform his yacht dreams into a blueprint of a real yacht. The Feadship journey begins for every...

In the hierarchy of human wants, superyachts sit atop the luxury pyramid. In terms of size, cost, complexity and prestige, today’s superyachts are rivalled only by private spacecraft. Of the many superyacht builders out there, one stands above the rest: FEADSHIP. Since 1949 this Dutch collaboration between two ‘royal’ shipyards and a naval architecture firm has become the pinnacle of custom yachtbuilding. In the past 75 years, only 460 Feadships have been built.    In the seven-part podcast...