For Feadship, the 58m Najiba project began as an oddity in the sense that her owners had already decided on a particular Vitrivius Yachts design before even speaking with Feadship. The minimalist design, slender lines and vertical bow are a by-product of Philippe Briand’s experience with fast sailing yachts. The hope was that, by taking a leaf out of the sailing yacht market’s book, Najiba would prove to be an incredibly efficient superyacht. After weeks of extensive sea trialing, this prediction proved to be accurate.

Having been launched in January 2019, the sea trails that followed in February yielded some interesting results. Najiba’s average fuel consumption is as low as 11.4 litres per nautical mile at her cruising speed of 12 knots, which, according to the yard, is “20 per cent and 25 per cent less than any equivalent motoryacht of this size”. The vessel also has a top speed of 17 knots, outstripping the original goal of 16 knots, while her range came in at 6000nm, more than a thousand over the specified figure.

“These results mean that – despite the complexity of her development and build – we have outperformed all expectations with Najiba,” comments Roderick de Vries, technical director of Feadhip’s yard in Aalsmeer. “It was real ‘wow’ moment for everyone involved to see this level of efficiency achieved during the sea trials. It is one thing to design such an efficient full-displacement motoryacht but another to translate these lines and shaped into a stunning Feadship that is even fast and more fuel-efficient that we projected.

“Woking with Vitrivius, hull efficiency was the leitmotif of the project from an engineering perspective. It impacted every decision made about appendages like the bow thruster propeller shaft, stabilisers and main exhaust. We had to strike exactly the right balance between Philippe’s desire to minimise all sources of resistance and the Feadship values of ensuring total comfort for clients, ease of maintenance for crew and the smartest construction.”

Looking ahead, de Vries believes that the Najiba project has the potential to influence a number of future superyachts and yield even greater efficiency savings.

According to The Superyacht Agency, Feadship has delivered an average of 4.8 superyachts per year since 2015. With a further four deliveries scheduled for 2019, five deliveries in 2020 and three scheduled in 2021 Feadship’s new build enterprise is stable. In addition, since 2016, the average length of Feadship’s deliveries has increased consistently from 54.79m to 85.13m projected for 2021, which is consistent with the direction the market is generally moving in.

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