Feadship has shared its latest achievement: Project 86, an 80-metre yacht designed by UK sailing yacht specialist Malcolm McKeon. The yacht features the largest Feadship beach club to date as well as new design and engineering.
Project 826 has a low and clear profile with a noticeabel low freeboard and uncluttered, flat foredeck. The 80.00-metre graphite-coloured hull reveals a slight tumble home and a waterfall teak stern. It has just two decks above main and a silver superstructure atop full-height glass walls, their views scarcely interrupted by glass bulwarks and balustrades.
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Sailing yacht inspired
Its looks trigger thoughts of sailing yachts, which is no accident. McKeon has designed more than 200 yachts, 55 of them in the superyacht range, and most of them sailing yachts.
Taking a cue from his specialist knowledge of high-performance sailing yachts, the plumb bow is sharp and the hull slowly widens aft to reduce resistance and drag. The gentle curves of the windows and superstructure overhangs forward resolve in scooped, sculptural lines leading aft to the primary al fresco social areas.
Walkaround decks and folding glass panels
The design’s key focus is maintaining a connection with the sea and sky, with walkaround main and upper decks providing seamless access fore and aft, and a winter garden that transforms from an interior to an exterior space by virtue of folding glass panels.
The yacht has a main deck poolside lounge centred on a 6.37-metre pool. Steps descend under a curved glass bottom to the beach club below.
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Largest Feadship beach club ever
At 165 m2, Project 826 debuts the largest beach club on any Feadship to date. The open-plan layout is on two levels: a recessed, low-slung lounge with casual seating and a bar dominates the centre. A few steps up, a wide perimeter level links massive, teak-covered hatches that fold out to become terraces 700 mm over the sea.
The beach club’s 180-degree view is almost seamless due to the lack of hull structure framing the doors. Feadship met the design challenge to maximise the views and minimise blind spots by initiating new design and engineering that houses the powerful gears for opening and closing the hatches within the doors themselves, instead of inside thick hull sections and stern pillars. The result is an openness of space.
The generous beach club links to a watersports area, fitness spaces and a massage room. These spaces feature folding hull doors that open out into terraces. The bridge, captain’s cabin and ship’s office are farthest forward on the main deck with a full view of the touch-and-go helipad that doubles as a pickleball court with removable netting. The interior décor is by m2atelier of Milan, Italy.
Free from gimmicks
Supporting the brief for a yacht that blends with its environment, the yacht’s profile is free from gimmicks. Starlink flat receivers mean the mast is free from bulky satellite communication domes, and the sundeck’s minimal hardtop follows the straight horizontal rooflines of the decks below. Rather than pillars, its support structure has been widened into walls sheltering a circular bar and seating area, finished in a metallic silver paint.
The theme of simplicity extends to the propulsion, which is diesel direct to shafts and propellers. Three Scania gensets in a soundproofed room provide auxiliary electrical power. Two large tenders are housed in a forward garage.
‘This yacht represents a new design chapter in the Feadship story, and the look is proving popular,’ says Feadship Director Jan-Bart Verkuyl. ‘Achieving a profile this clean whilst accommodating the technical complexity of the stern architecture and the scale of the beach club openings demanded a high level of engineering innovation. McKeon’s brief challenged us in the best possible way, and the response from the market suggests we have delivered something the industry has been waiting for.’
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Project 826 particulars
- Project 826: Steel hull and aluminium/steel superstructure
- Length overall: 80.00m / 262’6”
- Beam overall: 13.40m / 44’
- Draught: 3.75m / 12’4”
- Fuel capacity: 194,000 litres / 51,250 US gallons
- Fresh water capacity: 46,000 litres / 12,152 US gallons
Design
- Naval Architect: Feadship De Voogt Naval Architects
- Exterior design: Malcolm McKeon Yacht Design
- Interior design: m2atelier
Propulsion
- Propulsion system: MTU 2 x 1840KW
- Stabilizers: SKF Hydraulic
- Speed (max/cruise): 16 knots / 14 knots
- Range: 5,500 NM @ 12 knots
Picture: Launch of Project 826 (photo by Feadship).
