Making her debut at the 2024 Monaco Yacht Show, Royal Huisman’s Special One showed the world just how special she is. Her list of superlatives is long, but to take it from the top, at 52 meters / 171 feet, she’s the world’s largest true sport fisherman and powers out to fishing grounds at 30+ knots. She’s also a superyacht in every sense of the word with five staterooms for the owner’s party, including two stretching full beams. Beautiful walnut joinery, exotic stonework, and bespoke furnishings dominate the interior. She features a unique, three-person pneumatic glass-enclosed elevator, and showcases the first yacht installation of a commercial grade 3D sonar fish finder. Designed for multi-generational living, Special One has indoor social spaces on three decks including formal dining, and exterior living spaces on six. She sets a new benchmark in the world of big game fishing boats, and she does all this while staying below 500GT.

Meeting the owner’s brief

The owner’s goal for this yacht – his first custom order – was for the ultimate luxury sportfishing yacht. He is a passionate fisherman who loves spending family time on the water. Now that his son and grandsons were taking fishing holidays with him, he had outgrown his US-built Viking 92 sportfish. While giving up nothing in terms of fishability or the speed at which he could access fishing grounds, he wanted to be able to accommodate the entire family on long expeditions, offering them a superyacht environment. His goal was to entertain larger numbers of people in comfort, especially for time aboard while the fishermen are not actually reeling in their catch. Because the yacht might be operating in remote locations while chasing large ocean-going fish, reliability was a top concern.  He assembled a team that included Pascarelli Consulting as his representative, Bush & Noble for expertise on sportfishing equipment, and Hampshire Marine for technical expertise, as well as trusted crew members to develop specifications for a new build. 

Two yards responded that it was, in their view, “impossible” to contain the conceptualized yacht within the specified 500GT; another declared it would have to be completely redrawn and re-engineered because the engine room was “impossible”. Someone commented that only a sailboat builder could build a yacht that dense and technically complex within a challenging weight budget. Sportfishing yachts have extremely fine entries and pronounced shapes in their forward sections, not unlike sailing yachts. For sailing yacht builders, working in tight spaces with a constant eye on weights and balances is all in a day’s work.

The owner’s team’s next inquiry was to Royal Huisman, a shipyard with an impressive heritage. Its reputation is largely built on a superlative portfolio of unique and tailor-made aluminum sailing yachts, at least 30 of which measure beyond 40 meters / 130 feet. Known for its ability to tackle complex and innovative projects and those pushing boundaries of traditional yacht design, Royal Huisman was then nearing completion of the extraordinary 58.5m / 192 ft motor yacht Phi, the longest motoryacht below 500GT. That yacht, too, was a project many said could not be built. 

Returning to roots

As cutting edge a project as Special One was for Royal Huisman, she brings the shipyard full circle to its roots. Building boats for local fishermen was the core business of Royal Huisman for decades after the shipyard was founded in 1884. Similarly, Vripack’s heritage from its founding in 1961 began with designing a range of sportfishing yachts and fishing boats. Thus, a shared Dutch background and a joint drive for innovation became an unspoken foundation for this project.

“While others said, “impossible,” we never say no,” said CEO Jan Timmerman. “Instead, we are happy to take on challenges, embrace innovation and ensure every project we engineer and build is tailored to the highest standards and as unique as every client. We were honest with the client that we had never built a yacht like this before, but we were certain that we could. With each project we sign, we begin by mapping the core competencies required and where we may need to add strength. Then we assess where we can find those skills or abilities in people we hire or in companies we partner with.”

Jan Timmerman continues: At Royal Huisman, our heart is still firmly in the sailing world. However, moving forward, we welcome more creative challenges, continuing to redefine possibilities in custom motor yacht building. I’m predicting that every now and then there will come along a special motor yacht project, perhaps one that others say is impossible.”

The owner says that building his first full-custom superyacht “has been a dream come true. To have shared every step of that experience with my family has made it even more memorable. The admiration from the docks that we received everywhere is quite unique, underlining that Special One is a worthy icon”.