About Heesen shipyard
Heesen Yachts, which is one of the most renowned Dutch shipyards, was founded by entrepreneur Frans Heesen in 1978. Just a year later Heesen launched two superyachts that were rather large for that time. One of them, the 28-meter Amigo, could reach the speed of 26 knots, which largely determined the shipyard’s specialization: at that time large yachts were normally slow. In 1988 Heesen built a 38-metre Octopussy, capable of accelerating up to 53 knots. By early 1990s the shipyard reached the mark of 50 meters and in addition to performance yachts started building calmer, displacement ones. In 1996, with its love for non-trivial projects, Heesen created a special superyacht for comfortable and fast fishing, anticipating the era of ‘sportfishers on steroids’. At the turn of the century Heesen extended their production considerably and became one of the first to build platform yachts with hulls of steel or aluminium, based on pre-engineered projects. As part of this series there appeared quite a few interesting yachts with unique features. For example, the 55 m Quinta Essentia launched in 2011 featured the first ever float-in tender garage. For today the largest yacht built by Heesen is the 80-meter Genesis, which was also known as Project Cosmos and Galactica at the stage of construction.
Highlights
The distinctive features of Heesen yachts are ingenuity, innovation and dynamic design, thanks to which they look sporty and elegant even with a steel hull. Heesen ‘platform projects’ are quite diverse in terms of technical characteristics and appearance: the shipyard builds performance all-aluminium superyachts and unhurried steel ones, and they specialize in FDHF hulls (Fast Displacement Hull Form), which combine good performance with a large range. Heesen is capable of building such projects very fast, which is a great advantage: the shipyard – can start building on spec and find the customer later. But for those who are ready to wait, Heesen can build a custom yacht, too.
Achievements
Heesen yachts have collected lots of awards for innovation and design. The Genesis, which is their largest 80 m yacht, can reach the speed of 29 knots, which makes it the largest and fastest aluminium yacht with a shaft drive.
