Heesen Yachts celebrated a milestone in the construction of its 80.07-metre flagship superyacht Cosmos this month when it joined the hull and superstructure of the vessel at its shipyard in Oss, the Netherlands. The custom project brings together Winch Design (exterior) and Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design (interior) who worked with Van Oossanen Naval Architects and Rolls-Royce Marine to create one of the fastest 80-metre plus yachts in the world.
At 80 metres overall, the all-aluminium Cosmos is 10 metres longer than Galactica Super Nova Heesen’s largest launch to date, but more importantly at 1,700GT she has around 50 percent more interior volume. Combining her size with such high speeds represented a challenge on numerous fronts, not least ensuring that she will be able to pass under the various bridges en route from the shipyard in Oss to the sea – a tight squeeze at the best of times.
“Project Cosmos is raising the bar once again not only for Heesen but for custom aluminium yacht building in general,” explains Arthur Brouwer, CEO of Heesen. “Both from a technical standpoint and from a performance point of view we are pushing boundaries. Not only has this 80-metre project been designed to reach close to 30 knots, but she has also been designed for fast, 20+ knots cruising in an efficient manner.”
To efficiently deal with the enormous amount of power (19,000 hp) that her four engines produce and to boost the structural rigidity of the vessel, Van Oossanen and Heesen developed an innovative method of construction called Backbone®, a method of construction that delivers the required stiffness in the yacht without adding weight that would have impacted on the yacht’s performance. This new innovation has now been patented by the yard.