January 2015  –  Several years had passed since Royal Huisman launched the ketch-rigged sailing yacht, Ethereal. Noted for her pioneering hybrid propulsion system and incorporating 400kWh of stored energy in her Li-ion battery bank, Ethereal has now logged several hundred thousand miles traversing the world’s oceans propelled either by sail, or by mechanical propulsion, or via her stored energy source. Furthermore, her entire domestic load – in addition to sailing systems and anchoring functions – can source its power from this same set of Li-ion batteries, enabling true stealth mode operation.

Understandably, then, the Royal Huisman team was a little surprised by our Feadship colleagues’ claim to have launched “the world’s first hybrid superyacht” in January 2015:

Screenshot from the 2015 press release “Feadship launches Savannah, the world’s first hybrid superyacht” [link: opens in a new tab]

Ethereal, the world’s first hybrid superyacht, was launched by Royal Huisman in 2008 and delivered in 2009

Setting aside Ethereal’s six-year lead, eight months have also passed since Royal Huisman launched the 46m / 152ft NextGEN ketch Elfje (2014), incorporating the latest iteration of the hybrid technology that informed the Ethereal project. Whereas Ethereal’s ground-breaking hybrid system focuses on propulsion and power management, Elfje interprets ‘hybrid’ by supplying power via variable speed, variable output, variable fuel-consuming generators backed up by a Li-ion ‘peak shaving’ power storage bank and energy management system.

Since Ethereal was launched in 2008 and Elfje in 2014, what remains of Feadship’s claim can only be their definition of the word ‘superyacht’, which is commonly taken to mean any yacht over 30m / 100ft. Ethereal is 58m / 190ft, Elfje 46m / 152ft, and both have been successfully operating in hybrid mode for quite some time.

More information about Ethereal and Elfje can be found by folllowing the links on this website: yachts > delivered yachts [link]. Various Royal Huisman innovations can be found on this website: discover > innovations [link].