The champagne flows, the teak decks gleam, and the engines… whir quietly? As the yachting world faces its carbon reckoning, an unlikely coalition of engineers, entrepreneurs, and enlightened owners is proving that you can have your caviar and a cleaner conscience, too. But can green innovation keep pace with the industry’s appetite for extravagance?
This tension was on full display this summer in Venice, when tourists and native Venetians alike watched a fleet of superyachts descend upon the city for Jeff Bezos’ Italian wedding to Lauren Sánchez. Among the boats of note were basketball legend Michael Jordan’s $115-million, 244-foot megayacht, the M’Brace, and Pakistani-American businessman Shahid Khan’s $360-million, 400-foot megayacht, the Kismet.
But recently, those who design, build, and own superyachts have had to deal with a different kind of problem. Unsurprisingly, superyachts burn a ton of diesel fuel, generating a surprisingly large amount of greenhouse gases.
Gregory Salle, a French social scientist at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, says as much in his recently published book, “Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and Ecocide.” Salle found that the “annual CO2 emissions of the top 300 superyachts is almost 285,000 tons, an amount more than the entire nation of Tonga.” And with almost 6,000 superyachts currently at sea, the real figure is undoubtedly far higher.
So, what’s a superyacht lover to do?
Well, there’s hope. Yacht and boat builders, ship designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and even superyacht owners themselves are working to build better boats.
Designing Tomorrow’s Superyachts
During this period of transition, numerous countries, especially those within the European Union, are introducing multiple alternatives to diesel fuel for powering superyachts. The list includes hybrid propulsion (diesel-electric, plus battery power), battery-powered systems, solar energy integration, hydrogen-assisted systems, methanol-fueled engines, and wind-assist systems, each with its pros and cons.
Currently, hybrid propulsion is the most mature, having been around since 2017. That also happens to be the same year the Dutch ship manufacturer Heesen introduced “Home,” a 164-foot lightweight aluminum superyacht, which was the first to include a hybrid propulsion system. It also included a fast displacement hull form, also known as FDHF.
Looking back eight years to the introduction of that superyacht, Tom-erik Buis, technical sales engineer for Heesen Yachts, says there were a few technical challenges that were important lessons to learn for building future hybrid superyachts. “From a technical perspective,” says Buis, “one challenge was simply the availability of the equipment.” The scarcity of resources forced Heesen to cooperate with various partner companies to develop the equipment and complete the project.
But another technical challenge provided Buis and the Heesen team with valuable insights into how battery-powered electricity operated differently from diesel. Buis said the energy management, or “the transfer between electric and diesel was the biggest challenge.” Why? “A diesel engine is a very forgiving component. It can take whatever you bring up to it, and it keeps running.”
But electricity reacts much differently. That insight enabled Heesen to prevent any equipment blackouts or failures on Home, as well as on future models. “Diesel,” says Buis, “is very good at absorbing power fluctuations. It reacts almost like a buffer. But an electric component is either on or off.” It’s not a slow or gradual change from on to off, Buis says.
Heesen’s Home won an award for being the most innovative yacht that year at the Monaco Yacht Show in 2017.
Zero Emission Yachts
However, although hybrid technologies are taking yacht design in the right direction, some designers and entrepreneurs are attempting to go further by designing and manufacturing zero-emission sea vessels.
For Sampriti Bhattacharyya, founder & CEO of the California-based start-up Navier, a company that produced the N30 Pioneer Edition, America’s first all-electric hydrofoil (which uses submerged ‘wings’ called hydrofoils that lift the hull out of the water as it gains speed). Bhattacharyya’s sights are set not only on producing sea vessels but also on redefining the future of coastal cities through zero-emission electric sea vessels. In many ways, she is tapping into an overlooked resource, particularly in the U.S.
“The United States used to lead in maritime until World War II,” she says, “and right now we are number 11.” That’s why she saw there was an opportunity in this space.
However, she wants to rebuild this industry “with the technology stacks similar to what’s driving innovation in the land and air vehicles,” says Bhattacharyya. “It’s all cheaper, with faster computing, scalable manufacturing, and electrification, or new sources of energy are fundamentally changing traditional transportation companies to more like tech companies that are scalable, sustainable, and with software at the core.”
And since the maritime industry “is a very fragmented industry, you can apply a technology stack to it, and you don’t just get a little bit of improvement, you fundamentally change how we think of moving on the water.”
Moreover, an electric hydrofoil is far more efficient than a gas boat. “The thing about an electric hydrofoil is that the combined efficiency is about 15 times more efficient than a gas boat,” says Bhattacharyya.
Navier isn’t the only company designing and creating zero-emission marine vessels. In July of this year, Vripack, a yacht design and naval architecture studio based in the Netherlands, announced that the SY Zero, the world’s first sailing superyacht designed to operate entirely without fossil fuels, was entering the final stages of construction, with an expected launch at the end of 2025.
Marnix J. Hoekstra, partner and co-creative director at Vripack, notes that what makes the SY Zero so unique is that it does not have an internal combustion engine. It will operate using only wind, solar, and thermal energy, supported by a five megawatt-hour energy storage system—the equivalent of the capacity of 88 Tesla vehicles.
Hoekstra says this type of retrofitting has been done with smaller vessels, but the SY Zero is the first time it has been attempted on a ship of this size. The Sy Zero is nearly 230 feet long. Furthermore, to encourage others to adopt sustainable technologies, Vripack is making all technical data and system designs openly available.
Bold designs and technical innovations are crucial in making sustainability and environmental efforts viable.
But so much more needs to be done, particularly in spreading awareness and education. For Daniela Fernandez, the founder and CEO of Velamar, the world’s first asset management firm dedicated to accelerating the blue economy transition, and the founder of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA), when it comes to sustainable yacht- or marine-vessel designs, “I would say they have to start with integrating sustainability at the core of how they’re designing, not just adding it as a feature, There’s a big difference.” Fernandez says they need to start “with the mindset that the boat is going to be created to be sustainable.”
For Hoekstra, he wishes the superyacht industry would have a more expansive mindset. “They’ve been very focused on just alternative fuels,” he says, “but there’s so much more, such as microplastics, in underwater noise pollution, cleaning of vessels, etc. We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”
The race to build the cleanest superyacht is on, but if the annual parade of superyachts dotting the coast proves anything, it is that spectacle still trumps sustainability. For every bold green promise, the industry launches a dozen new diesel giants. Until prestige shifts from size to stewardship, a truly green wake is likely to remain the exception rather than the rule.
