Major Milestone Achieved for Feadship on Journey to Carbon Neutrality

Recognised for its dedication to driving research into sustainability in yachting, Feadship’s latest announcement is a significant advancement towards its goal of a future with eco-friendly superyachts at the forefront of the industry.

Designing several innovative, sustainable and futuristic concepts throughout its history, the Dutch yard has now come one step further in making one of these designs a reality. 

Revealed to the industry in 2021, 81.75m PURE was designed to not only be the optimal vessel for owners and guests to enjoy, but also conceived to be fully-future proof in regards to propulsion and efficiency developments. 

Through the new approval-in-principal from Lloyds Registry for an ‘agnostic’ fuel system, the innovative thinking behind PURE is a showcase of the potential near future for Feadship. 

The fully integrated system that will be fitted within PURE and the next generation of Feadship yachts is able to store both non-fossil fuels, such as HVO and e-diesel, and alcoholic fuels, including bio- and e-methanol or ethanol, at full capacity. Coherently, the production of these alternative fuels is now being rapidly scaled up around the world.  

Feadship has already installed mandatory Tier III measures such as exhaust gas after-treatment, waste heat generation and DC electric systems for propulsion and hotel loads, on numerous superyachts. With these technologies now mature, the next step lies in more eco-friendly fuels. 

Giedo Loeff, Head of R&D at Feadship commented: ‘the crucial next step is that we need a flexible or agnostic fuel system, meaning it has to work with the fuels of today but also those of tomorrow, as we’re not yet talking of just fuel cells for propulsion purposes.’

This new, flexible ‘agnostic’ fuel system will allow an owner to make maximum use of these fuels as they become increasingly available in the coming years. 

As a mark towards this, Feadship has revealed that it is integrating dual- and single-fuel engines and fuel cell solutions into its new-build projects, as well as for refits and conversions, all assessed with the yard’s recognised Yacht Environmental Transparency Index (YETI) tool.  

‘Our announcement is significant because as of now Feadship plans to build yachts with tanks and systems that are certified for a whole array of non-fossil fuels,’ continues Giedo Loeff, ‘besides meeting the growing desire of our clients for carbon neutrality, it will help to minimise the environmental impact of our yachts wherever they may cruise in the world.’

Fuel storage systems are an integral part of the structure of a vessel and utilising alcoholic fuels as well as diesel requires an adapted design and layout, making this news a vital step forward for the design teams of Feadship. 

As the second step in Feadship’s journey towards a net zero carbon yacht, the third step will be integrating this fuel cell technology, which the Dutch yard expects to achieve at the end of this decade.