Feadship New Classic Yacht Honors Cees Van Lent’s Legacy

As lately because the Nineties, the Royal Van Lent yard of Feadship bore the title C. van Lent en Zonen (C. Van Lent and Sons). The “C” was Cees van Lent (under), who earned renown for his design and boatbuilding expertise. The truth is, he continued designing even after taking up the yard in 1947, doing each via 1963. Similar to others in his career, van Lent had designs that remained on paper. Quick ahead six a long time, nevertheless, and a kind of designs is afloat, within the fingers of an current Feadship proprietor. She’s the Feadship New Traditional yacht, which is additional a limited-edition collection of six, with construct slots accessible.

It began slightly innocently. To honor Royal Van Lent’s 175-year historical past final yr, the shipyard workforce started trying via its intensive archives. The workforce particularly needed to honor Cees van Lent. A few of his yachts are nonetheless round immediately, akin to Santa Maria, the costliest Feadship of her period (under). “There, we uncovered one thing outstanding: a phenomenal design by Cees that had by no means been constructed,” Jan-Bart Verkuyl, the CEO, explains. Particularly, it was a Sixties-era challenge colloquially thought of a gentleman’s yacht.

Coincidentally, across the identical time, a Feadship shopper visiting the yard expressed curiosity in buying and restoring a traditional Feadship. Since he was born within the Sixties, he needed one thing from that decade, for dayboat use close to his residence in Miami. The difficulty was, although, that he couldn’t discover something becoming the invoice. In him, Royal Van Lent discovered the proper individual to, as Verkyul places it, “breathe new life” into Cees Van Lent’s design. “It’s our means of celebrating the previous whereas bringing it into the current,” Verkyul says.

At almost 79 toes (24 meters), the Feadship New Traditional yacht bears a profile and naval structure by De Voogt Naval Architects based mostly on Cees Van Lent’s authentic hand sketches. The design studio additional took inspiration from deliveries akin to Santa Maria, together with yachts like Aljazi, a 66-footer (20-meter) from 1960 for the sheik of Bahrain. The Feadship New Traditional yacht has comparable transom tumblehome, as an example. However, for modern-day cruising, the studio modified the hull traces for Volvo Penta’s IPS system, permitting speeds upwards of 20 knots. This notably was one of many wishes for the shopper with the Miami residence. Concurrently, the IPS system’s compact configuration frees up usable creature-comfort house.

Due to this fact, the all-aluminum Feadship New Traditional yacht can have three staterooms for six company. The main bedroom sits ahead of the eating space and galley, whereas two visitor cabins sit aft. A pleasant contact within the grasp is a gap skylight, too. Wooden paneling clads the partitions, whereas teak lays underfoot. Out on deck, wrap-around seating hugs the aft bulwarks, with a gap partition amidships yielding entry to a deploying swim platform. In fact, since fashionable cruisers love watertoys, stowage awaits beneath the deck. One crewmember has a cabin aboard beneath the saloon, although two can deal with the yacht throughout journeys.

Feadship New Classic yacht interior forward

The proprietor of the Feadship New Traditional yacht pictured at prime isn’t the one buyer who treasures reviving the storied previous. Feadship says it’s spoken with additional shoppers, who’re enthusiastic in regards to the yacht’s mix of traditional and modern design and engineering. Moreover, it’s contemplating providing hybrid propulsion to allow electric-mode docking comfort, amongst different advantages. Feadship nonetheless intends to maintain the collection restricted to 6 hulls, however says that if extra prospects come ahead, it may well faucet its archives as soon as once more for an additional almost forgotten treasure. Lastly, in one other nod to past-meets-present, the Feadship apprentices are contributing to the development of every yacht.

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