The brand-new superyacht Breakthrough is unlike any other boat that has ever been built. Stand on the dock beside it – as I did on a crisp, cold Amsterdam morning this winter – and the first thing you notice is its sheer size. At 118.8m in length, with five decks (four above the waterline and one below) and weighing some 7,247 tonnes, it is vast, the biggest ever to have been built in the Netherlands.
Its exterior is striking too. The swooping, flowing lines conceived by British design firm RWD give the vessel a dynamism and grace that belie its size. But there are plenty of beautiful boats out there.
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The principal reason that Breakthrough (previously known as ‘Project 821’) is so named is hidden deep within its hull: it is the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell superyacht, capable of cruising and powering its onboard systems with zero emissions, and with water as its only exhaust.
‘The brief was to build the greenest and most environmentally advanced yacht ever built, without compromise,’ says yacht broker Jamie Edmiston when I meet with him at the facility of LVMH-owned shipbuilder Feadship. Edmiston, the CEO of his eponymous family-owned firm, and Jan-Bart Verkuyl, the CEO of the division of Feadship responsible for Breakthrough, are speaking exclusively to Spear’s as this magazine becomes the first media outlet in the world to set foot onboard the vessel.
Edmiston explains that in 2018 they began to work together on a plan for ‘an extraordinary boat that was not only super-advanced in terms of its technology, but was also built to an incredibly high standard and looked beautiful.’ He adds: ‘I’m a little bit biased, but I think on all those fronts we’ve absolutely hit the mark.’
The Feadship team was one of eight companies to put forward designs to Edmiston and the owner. It was not a requirement of the brief to incorporate hydrogen power into the design, but Feadship’s solution – which takes proven technologies and applies them to a yacht for the first time – was the one that was chosen.
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Feadship’s initial proposal was for the craft to be capable of using hydrogen to power its onboard systems (the ‘hotel load’, in yachting parlance) for one night. But the client’s team asked for more – and they got it. The design was altered to make room for a vast hydrogen fuel tank that holds 92m3 of hydrogen, roughly equivalent in volume to an entire double-decker London bus.
This feeds 16 hydrogen fuel cells that connect to a DC electrical grid. This grid provides power to propel the boat through the water and supplies energy for its hotel load. Using hydrogen alone, Breakthrough is capable of cruising without any noise or emissions at 10 knots, or of powering its hotel load for up to a week. According to the Yacht Environmental Transparency Index (YETI), the hotel load makes up 70-78 per cent of a typical yacht’s energy use, with heating and air conditioning making the largest demands.
But who is the owner? There is speculation on the internet, as you would expect with a world-first project of this nature, but both Feadship and Edmiston stick resolutely to their commitment to discretion and to maintaining their clients’ privacy. It was a condition of Spear’s gaining privileged access to the vessel that this article focus on the boat and the technology, rather than the online rumour mill.
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And the boat itself is an extraordinary thing – as I learn on an exclusive tour. Having stepped aboard, we begin on the ‘Nikki Beach style’ main deck aft, where there is an 8.2m pool with a glass floor that can be raised to make it shallower for children. The pool also has a jet to power a counter-current flow; an endless stream of water to create the swimmer’s equivalent of a treadmill.
There’s a separate hot tub with an infinity edge and a comfortable outdoor seating area. On the day of the Spear’s visit, dozens of workmen are on the boat, hammering, drilling, applying finishing touches and carrying out checks. But there is a clear sense of what the finished product will look like when it is delivered to the owner some time in the first quarter of this year.
Both the modern exterior and minimalistic interior are the work of RWD. Inside, light, neutral colours and natural materials set the tone; there are more than 100 different white and off-white fabrics and leathers on board, along with Travertine marble, rattan, eucalyptus and limed oak, which together make the boat feel like a huge luxury beach house, bobbing on the sea.
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There are also several subtle motifs. On the bottom deck, which is below the water-line, wooden panelling is decorated with the shapes of shells that seem to be resting on the seafloor. On one of the decks above, the design of the same panels evokes the rippled surface of the water. Other elements such as the trim around doors and railings are always the same shape but are rendered in different materials on the different decks.
Backlighting emphasises the curves of furniture and fittings.
Close attention to detail is evident everywhere you look. Great care has been taken to match the patterns where grained wood panels or patterned marble slabs join up, so that they flow seamlessly. ‘There’s nobody who builds to our level of detail,’ says Verkuyl as he points out an example. It reminds me of his company’s brand video, which jokes that the firm has ‘driven clients mad by our Dutchness’. But it clearly pays off. Feadship’s motto, after all, is that ‘there are yachts, and there are Feadships’.
Breakthrough has 12 guest staterooms, each with an extending balcony that cleverly provides an extra 1.5m of space. Eight of the rooms can be combined to create four spacious VIP cabins. In total it is possible to accommodate 30 guests, as well as 44 crew. There are also spa facilities, a hair and nail salon, massage room, steam room, a sauna with plunge pools and a gym. The cinema has seating for 12 and can be converted to a children’s playroom. There is also an underwater ‘Nemo room’ that has six nearly floor- to-ceiling windows, each 7cm thick, that allow inhabitants to sit and watch the submarine world drift by.
Through the windows of the wheelhouse – which are equipped with the largest windscreen wipers I have ever seen – you can see a helideck fully certified for the commercial use of an AW139 or Airbus 160. Handily, when not in operation, it doubles as a pickleball court.
But perhaps the most distinctive feature of Breakthrough’s interior design is the way in which it provides privacy to the owner and their immediate family. As is conventional on a megayacht over 100m in length, there is an entire deck dedicated to the owner, although here this has the added benefit of being accessed by a private ‘owner’s staircase’ and lift. There is also the option for the owner to access their quarters by ‘side-boarding’. This means that if other guests are already onboard, the owner and their family might choose to come aboard discreetly and make their way to their quarters to freshen up, before going to play host.
On Breakthrough, the owner’s deck (which is above the bridge deck) is effectively an apartment with two bedrooms, twin bathrooms and dressing rooms, a gym and a pantry. There’s an office and a conference room, equipped with a fireplace that also opens into the adjoining living room. The ‘principal stateroom’ – the master bedroom, if you prefer – is at the front of the owner’s deck and has curved floor-to-ceiling windows that provide a truly panoramic view of whatever seascape or coastline lies ahead. Just outside there’s a private deck with a hot tub.
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In addition to this, the owner has a cabin on the seadeck, which has an opening that allows them to pop out for a swim. Being lower down, it can also provide some respite if choppy conditions make life on the upper decks a little less comfortable.
The most remarkable part of the whole boat will usually be hidden from the guests onboard, not to mention the outside world. As we make our way into the ‘technical area’ below deck, pristine white components hum with noise that you realise has been insulated from the rest of the vessel. This is where the 92m3 hydrogen fuel tank, provided by a company called MAN Cryo, keeps its liquid contents at minus 253oC – just below the temperature at which it would boil and turn to gas.
The tank feeds 16 hydrogen fuel cell generators, each of which produces 185kW of power (3.2MW in total). For ocean crossings, or travelling at speeds closer to its 14-knot maximum, Breakthrough will call on five MTU generators which produce a total of 9.3MW. These can run on diesel but are intended to use hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is said to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 per cent and costs 10-30 per cent more.
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The yachting world is practically unanimous in its praise of Breakthrough as an achievement of engineering. However, some observers have questioned whether its hydrogen system will prove to be a viable long-term solution for the cleaner, greener future of yachting that Feadship and the wider industry hope to bring about.
The properties of hydrogen present several challenges. A given quantity of liquid hydrogen takes up eight to ten times as much space as the amount of diesel that would be required to produce the same amount of power. This means it is practically impossible to have a fuel tank on a yacht that is capable of providing enough energy to power the crossing of a whole ocean. What’s more, the availability of the ‘green hydrogen’ on which Breakthrough is intended to run – that is, hydrogen produced in a process powered by clean electricity from renewables – is limited. It is produced in places such as Iceland and Norway that use hydroelectric power to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis.
The hydrogen fuel may then have to be transported by trucks over hundreds of miles; the trucks that do this often have diesel engines and cannot easily reach all the locations where a yacht might require refuelling.
Moreover, hydrogen molecules are among the very smallest on the planet, which means they can leak through containers and ‘boil off’ into the atmosphere. It is also highly explosive and therefore can be extremely dangerous.
So, is hydrogen the future of yachting? ‘It is the future,’ says Verkuyl when we return to the Feadship facility after our tour of the vessel. ‘Because, ultimately, fuel cells are the future. And the fuel cells are powered with hydrogen. In the long run I think we’ll see a different way of storing the hydrogen, and that might be through methanol. The technology is not there yet But, yeah, I think it is the future.
‘While Project 821 may raise questions about safety, we have not overlooked the extensive measures taken to ensure the highest standards. These include detailed safety assessments known as Hazid reviews, certification by leading maritime safety organisations like Lloyds, and approvals from the yacht’s regulatory Flag authorities. Moreover, the system reflects exceptional engineering efforts, making it one of the safest and most forward-thinking designs ever implemented on a private yacht.’
Verkuyl adds that two long-route Norwegian passenger and car ferries will use the fuel cell system developed with PowerCell for Project 821. ‘The press often tends to focus on super-wealthy people building these assets, but we see a knock-on effect that’s a bit like Formula One. We learn things that can be transferred to the normal maritime industry and to other sectors as well. Fuel cells are extremely efficient and are able to be powered with energy sources that don’t depend on fossil fuels – and that’s our aim.’
Feadship has publicly declared its intention to build a carbon-neutral superyacht by 2030, and Verkuyl says environmental considerations are taking up more and more airtime in his conversations with clients. ‘I would say it is tabled at every design meeting we have with an owner. And if it’s not tabled by the owner, it’s tabled by their children for sure.’
As a whole, there is no doubt that the superyacht industry still has further to go, but what of Breakthrough’s future?
Interestingly, the person referred to as ‘the owner’ of this remarkable object has put their creation up for sale before taking delivery of it.
It is a ‘unique situation,’ admits Jamie Edmiston, who explains that his client ‘was really focused on the tech’ and making sure it was executed well. ‘It’s fine, because there’s lots of other people out there who will want to own it. It’s my job to go out there and make sure we find someone else to enjoy it.’
And if you have $645 million burning a hole in your pocket, that person could be you.
This feature first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 94. Click here to subscribe
