Feadship 1011: The Secretive Megayacht Wrapped in Glass That Defied Expectations

Feadship is one of the industry's most significant players when it comes to pure custom superyachts, so it was the most natural choice for a megayacht like Project 1011, which came with a very demanding brief and even more demanding time constraints. Project 1011, or Feadship 1011, as it's known internally, is not among the world's biggest or most expensive superyachts, but that doesn't make it any less impressive.

Project 1011 is a superyacht that stands out because its existence defies expectations, the kind that couldn't have been built had it not been for the team that worked on it. Its first introduction to the general public is, as they say, a harbinger of great things to come.

Earlier this week, Feadship 1011 left its construction shed at the Feadship facility in Makkum, Netherlands, just 15 short months after its technical launch. This marks the first time the megayacht is seen in full and the first time that the yard is offering details on the build, which was done on commission for a repeat Feadship customer and experienced seafarer who remained deeply involved in the process from start to finish. That alone is a Feadship first, the yard says.

Smaller, but just as big

Project 1011 is almost ready to start sea trials, which means Feadship and everyone else involved can finally reveal some specs about it since keeping it a secret won't be possible anymore. With an exterior design by Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design over naval architecture by Azure Yacht Design, it boasts interiors by Sinot and a total length on water of 102.6 meters (336.7 feet), which technically makes it a megayacht.

As noted above, this vessel is far from the largest out there, but its biggest achievement lies in its ability to pack the same kind of amenities as a vessel twice as large. The owner, whom Feadship describes as a repeat customer of the yard, had previously owned a 6,000 GT superyacht, and his brief for the new build was as straightforward as it was challenging: a smaller vessel with comparable amenities.

So, how exactly do you take the amenities you find in an interior volume of 6,000 GT and squeeze them inside 3,700 GT? Even Erik Spek and Onne Logger, owners of Azure Yacht Design & Naval Architecture, were doubtful it could be done, but they eventually achieved it by approaching the project in reverse and completely rethinking the engine room layout, which now occupies a single deck.

Propulsion is conventional with shaft propulsion and twin MTU diesel engines but with the engines facing "the wrong way" to compensate for the single-level layout.

Working against a very strict and short timeline added even more pressure – and a different layer of difficulty to a project that was already very challenging. Leo Boonstra, project manager at Feadship De Vries, says in one interview that the first design was completed in 2020 and that "three years and three months is an aggressive schedule for a very complex yacht of 3,000GT." He's being generous in that description.

Despite being smaller than the owner's previous superyacht, Project 1011 features the same kind of amenities and accommodation capabilities as its predecessor. In total, the vessel can sleep as many as 20 guests and 40 crew members, not including the captain.

Features include a spectacular winter garden that can open up to the elements in good weather, a glass atrium with a glass elevator as the centerpiece, a large pool and no less than four jacuzzis, a hidden helipad with a hangar underneath, and cavernous tender garages. At first look at the angular silhouette, you probably wouldn't be able to guess that this superyacht is such a fancy floating palace, and that's on purpose.

A boat swathed in glass

Another thing you might miss at first glance is the expansive glazing on Project 1011. Only on the exterior, the superyacht features 1,100 square meters (11,840 square feet) of glass, including a 15-meter-long (49.2 feet) tender garage shell door that's the biggest Feadship ever built and 6-meter-wide (19.6 feet) windows on the guest suites on the main deck, 20 sliding doors, 12 windbreaks, and the fully retracting doors (windows?) on the winter garden.

This heavy use of glass extends inside, allowing instant conversion of spaces according to the occasion and helping create a flow between spaces that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. The superyacht features a glass atrium with a glass elevator and a "towering" glass staircase, and a glass Kongsberg bridge that the shipyard describes as "futuristic" but is more likely akin to a work of art.

You probably anticipated this, but Project 1011 is swathed in glass, the most ever used on a Feadship build.

Who owns Project 1011?

No shipyard will ever disclose the identity of the client unless the client does it first, let alone a yard as exclusive as Feadship. But if we're to follow the breadcrumbs, they seem to be leading us to New Zealand billionaire and passionate yacht collector Graeme Hart.

The first clue as to the identity of the owner of 1011 comes from Azure's Erik Spek, who says in an interview that the owner came to them after Azure refitted his Amels-built Here Comes the Sun. The refit was so impressive it won the World Superyacht Awards 2022 for "Best Rebuilt Yacht," and probably weighed heavily in the $200 million handshake that saw it change owners earlier this year.

The second clue comes from Feadship, which stresses that the owner had previously sailed a 6,000+ GT superyacht but now wanted something smaller that was more manageable and had wider dock access. That's clearly not Here Comes the Sun, whose interior volume is just shy of 3,000 GT, but the 116-meter (380-foot) Ulysses, the largest expedition yacht by Kleven Shipyard, delivered in 2018 and offering 6,862 GT of interior space.

Both Here Comes the Sun and Ulysses, together with U81 and Odyssey, were once part of Hart's impressive and very secretive collection. If we're reading the crumbs right, Project 1011 is about to join very select company – and soon.