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Vripack's designer duo reveal all on six of their career-defining designs

17 January 2025 • Written by Holly Margerrison

To mark the upcoming 2025 Superyacht Design Festival, Holly Margerrison sits down with creative directors Bart M. Bouwhuis and Marnix J. Hoekstra of Vripack to discuss the studio's most memorable designs.

Undeniably a melting pot of innovation, Vripack's projects span everything from the world's largest sportfisher with a blistering top speed to a ground-breaking zero-emission yacht – projects that can feel somewhat at odds with one another. So what is the studio's core philosophy? What gets the designers' cogs turning? Bart explains: "I think our ability to approach a project holistically with a technical underpinning allows us to execute these projects successfully. It's not just about creating something beautiful both from the outside and the inside, but it's also about making everything technically feasible, so that it can be built and that it does perform."

1. Project Zero

Builder: Vitters
Year: 2025
Length: 69m

Marnix: We're keeping true to the original concept of Project Zero by relying on energy sources other than fossil fuel without compromising the yacht's aesthetics. As we speak, we're in the final eight to nine months roughly of outfitting, with plenty of challenges, including testing new battery systems. Finding the balance between heat and electricity on the boat is a daily research – we'll be working on it until we can present it at the last moment.

From our studio, and what I've heard from Dykstra and Vitters, requests [for similar projects] came in immediately after this. It's a relatively younger owner group who jumped on this, saying, "Wait a minute, tell me more about this, because I wasn't aware that we had options here and that we could yacht without fossil fuel or with on a much more sustainable level than currently is being done". And that's only going off what they can find online, the concepts aren't even out on the water yet. The first technical papers have been presented, and we have already seen other companies using them or with new product development on their end. That's exactly what the goal is.

The biggest challenge is fitting in all kinds of new technology which we simply haven't done before. This is more on the shipyard's side, but they've established a dream team to build and outfit this boat. Naturally, as with any project of this dimension in this given time, the pressure is on. As with a lot of projects, many people are working on a couple of square meters at the same time, really trying to do a good and neat job, which they are. It's looking amazing and it's coming together. The lid is slowly closing on the box.

Bart: I think Project Zero is, for me, the showcase that something amazingly sustainable and revolutionary can be damn beautiful. I'm so happy Marnix is working on Project Zero and I've been able to work on Special One, because it shows the spread of the studio's ability, and both are extremely revolutionary in their own way.

2. Special One

Credit: Guy Fleury

Builder: Royal Huisman
Year: 2024
Length: 52m

Bart: Like Project Zero, there is no reference for Special One. The biggest portfolio was 42 metres, a carbon boat, but we pushed it to another level with an extremely demanding owner. Vitters is doing an amazing job with Project Zero. So I responded and did a fantastic job with Special One at Royal Huisman because it's also been extremely challenging in a technical sense.

The studio's done a sportfisher before, towards the end of the 70s, but that was way before my time. It was interesting because the whole sportfishing community is a parallel universe – it's massive, it's crazy. It totals a very interesting learning curve about all the details, like the angle of the rods and the extra dimension of the tuna tube. Everything relates to the naval architecture for sport fishing, from the backing up to the manoeuvrability. We learned so much. We're already working on another big sportfisher – not bigger than this one – but already on to another. We had another offspring. So that's quite cool.

With Special One it was truly about combining true sportfishing with our superyacht lifestyle, superyacht interior, super comfort and superyacht environment. The owner was super supportive and challenged us where he felt it was needed. It was a very pleasant collaboration with both the owner and the shipyard. It's a success for everybody because the owner is in love with the boat, the shipyard is very happy with the build because it also sets it apart in the motorboat segment and, for us, it's also game-changing. It's win, win, win.

3. Project Thunderball

Builder: CRN
Year: 2026
Length: 70m

Marnix: The initial talks of the project started in a hotel in Paris, where we talked about how we could capture the feeling of a true yacht like we had before. Now, with all the quick and boxy shapes [of modern-day yachts], there's obviously beauty in it but, with this client, we all agreed that we're missing something which makes a yacht immediately timeless. And what makes it timeless? The sheer.

I still have those original drawings which, to an untrained eye, are just a lot of lines. And they would say, "Well, they will look the same". When working with this owner, we were saying, "We should put it one hair higher, just one hair higher – let's see how it works". It's rare to find yacht owners with that eye for detail on such elements. It's intense. Maybe not every project should be like that, but it's also very cool to do. As Bart clearly stated, our process lends itself to these unique projects. We ask questions, we listen and we're doing a lot of research because of our technical backgrounds.

It's the first time we have built with CRN and it's a dream to build with it. For sure, the Italians and the Dutch – that was an interesting combination, as much for them as it was for us. Now, I sense that we're completely together. I think the sheer was key in the project, but also all the architecture and the rhythm of the design.

Bart: The winter garden on the top [is a cool feature] but it's also very functional. The owner envisaged sailing a lot also in the West Indies and the Caribbean where there's a lot of wind, always constant, 20 knots. So you have to take care of wind protection. We did extensive CFD studies on the windbreaker doors so that every deck is well-protected from the elements.

Instead of a full windbreak door on the main deck, we've invented a kind of "spoiler". It's about two-thirds of a normal windbreak door, which only goes 45 degrees off of the superstructure, instead of a full 90 degrees, like a door, and it actually allows crew passage. At the same time, we found in our CFD that the airflow was much more positive, like the spoiler of a car. So we're not jamming the wind away, but we're gently guiding the wind away from the aft deck. That was a cool feature for us, where the connection between our technical knowledge and underpinning helped in creating comfort onboard.

4. Turmoil

Credit: Vripack

Builder: Palmer Johnson
Year: 1996
Length: 46.5m

Bart: Turmoil was one of Vripack's first icons when we did her in the early 90s. At that time, it was groundbreaking for its size, style and because it's very much an expedition/explorer yacht. It's rugged and built out of full aluminium but with a highly detailed interior, which being a displacement boat is unique. The owner was also unique because he sailed and has been sailing through his full ownership of the boat with a lot of students and researchers – that was quite a unique purpose. And I think one of the most famous travels of Turmoil is that it did the Northwest Passage. As Vripack, we are very proud to be the designer of most yachts that went through the North West Passage successfully, which is now in total six out of 25.

Marnix: Yes, six of the superyachts which have made a successful transfer have been designed by us, but only 25 superyachts have done that transfer successfully. I think in total, it's something like 300 ships but most of them are icebreakers and a cruise ship. Surprisingly, by the way, super small boats, like 10 metres.

Bart: The owner did this passage in Turmoil and I think it inspired a lot of owners to do the same because they got great footage. At that time, that was absolutely a no-go area with a yacht. It's becoming quite trendy now, but at that time, it was absolutely revolutionary. Turmoil is one of our early icons.

5. Doggersbank Offshore

The series' flagship, the 32-metre 105 Offshore.

Courtesy of Doggersbank

Builder: Doggersbank
Year: 1968
Length: 19.2m

Marnix: Dick Boon started the Doggersbank Offshore in 1968, seven years after he founded the company. He started the series, which we still build today and is surprisingly cool for us. They have grown with the market and it's not a superyacht but the following and ownership of them are so passionate. I was fortunate to be on board one of them this summer in British Columbia and within a 50-nautical mile proximity, there were five other ones. They all flock to those kind of areas. You will find them in Alaska, in British Columbia – that's where these little trawlers go.

If we talk about our designs, we're fond of this boat. Bart is very good at layouts and he sometimes takes a stint at trying something new, and we fail because what Mr Boon did there is functional. We can't change something which is already super good. One owner is a mid-30s South California owner who wasn't even born when the boat was designed, and he just loves that boat and thinks it's the greatest boat of all time. It's amazing how well it stands the test of time. So we said to each other, preparing this list, "Oh, we should talk about that, because that's a boat which we don't talk about often, but it's so dear to our heart. We just love that design".

Bart: I think one of the key aspects of these Doggersbank yachts is that you can run them with a small crew. It allows for a relatively large family to be in a relatively compact boat, which definitely has certain benefits when it comes to great comfort and safety. I think that's why they have such a dedicated group of owners.

6. Wajer 38

Credit: Vripack

Builder: Wajer Yachts
Year: 2013
Length: 11.3m

Bart: This is a story. At the start, the objective was to create a more sporty competitor, let's say, to Riva. More northern European in its look and feel but similar in its success and its strength of complicity of design, especially when you look at the older Rivas. And with a stunning performance. I remember because I was personally involved with the owner of Wajer. It took us over a year to design this little boat because we tweaked it over and over and over again.

Because it's a small boat, you can only do so much with the sheer, the proportions and the naval architecture because it was actually the first production boat with IPS units. So we worked with the professors from Volvo in Sweden who were elite, short, white hair, small glasses, old guys. It was a cool part of the project. Sure, it was a little bit of a slow start, but the timeless looks and the stunning performance were absolutely the pace of the success of the whole Wajer brand. If you compare the current Wajer 38 with the original design, it's very close to the same first models. It's timeless almost 20 years later.

Marnix: Bart is being a little bit too kind because when Bart presented this first sketch to the Wajer founder who asked Bart to draw it, he just steamed out of the office in anger, like, "I clearly asked you to design this next launch. And then you come in with this. How could you even do this?"

Credit: Vripack

It was so different for the Wajer founder that he had to get used to the idea of Bart asking, "Why not this?". [Of him saying,] "So I'm listening to what you're asking, and I believe this is the answer you're looking for". But the owner had made up his mind of what it should be. But that wasn't what we heard. Bart heard something else. He said: "No, no, I'm hearing you say this. I get the words, but if I listen to the story behind what you're saying, I think this is what you're looking for". And the next day, the founder came back and said "Let's work this out".

I think what we learned there is about how friction can work in a positive way. When you have a dedicated owner or somebody with a strong will and how to balance that when we have a strong will as designers. How if you bring all of that together and it sparks, that's fine because it gives energy to both parties. You don't know this upfront, but we've lost a couple of battles... We don't talk about those!

The Superyacht Design Festival will return to the alpine town of Kitzbühel on 2-4 February 2025 and tickets are available to purchase now. Bouwhuis and Hoekstra will take to the stage to offer an exclusive update on how the new energy technologies from the ground-breaking fossil-fuel-free ketch Project Zero are taking shape.