About Damen shipyard
The predecessor of Damen Yachting - the family shipyard of Amels - was founded in 1918 in Makkum, in the north of the Netherlands. They had been building commercial vessels, fishing and tugboats for years, and started thinking of building yachts only in early 1980s. Their very first yacht, Katalina, was a success. However, the shipyard changed ownership a few times – and was once even owned by Donald Trump. In 1991 as a result of another resale the shipyard joined Damen, a major Dutch shipbuilding group founded in 1927 and still run by the same Damen family members. Although it was a small family company, Damen had been successful for many years, too, but in 1969 Kommer Damen, who was the owner at that time, suggested the concept of modular boat construction, which ultimately turned Damen into a huge corporation with dozens of shipyards. Today they build commercial, military, rescue and fishing boats, and certainly yachts. After they acquired Amels, the latter gave its name to the yachting division of Damen Group, but with time they started building yachts under the name of Damen Yachting, too. While the quality of build is equally superb, the difference is only in their type.
Highlights
Initially Amels built only custom yachts based on individual projects, and it still occasionally builds them, but most of the shipyard’s success comes from various series of Limited Editions yachts. Amels owes this concept to the Damen Group, which decided to apply their revolutionary modular concept of commercial vessels construction to yachts. In fact, the company can be considered the inventor of ‘platform’ superyachts – the ones that are built on the basis of pre-engineered platforms with a maximum level of customization for an individual customer. Damen yachts are created in a similar way, but while elegant Amels superyachts look more traditional, Damen specializes in expedition yachts (SeaXplorer range) and support vessels for superyachts (Yacht Support range).
Achievements
Many of Amels/Damen yachts created in collaboration with the world’s best designers have received numerous international awards. But what matters most is that while preserving the highest level of customization and build quality, even really large yachts are delivered within rather a short period of time compared to full custom superyachts.
