Feadship launched the 46.4-metre aluminium superaycht Kiss on Saturday – a fitting ceremony for Valentine’s Day. The yacht is styled outside by Ed Dubois and inside by Redman Whitely Dixon – the same team responsible for Feadship’s 43-metre Como, which launched last year, and has some clear similarities to Kiss. But Feadship director Henk de Vries says that this yacht is for a different owner, pointing out that six months after the yard signed the contract for Como, Ed Dubois came to Feadship with another client. “Ed was highly appreciative of the way that the Feadship yards work with outside designers as well as the in-house naval architects at Feadship De Voogt. Even though Como and Kiss have similar looks, they are very different yachts,” he says.
“The owner of Kiss required a more conventional speed of 16 knots, compared to Como’s 19, so she has a different power plant. And while Como has an open-top deck, Kiss has a complete master penthouse on the upper deck. This added both volume and weight to the yacht, requiring a revised lines plan,” he says. The yard describe the yacht as “the most complex object ever to have been metallically painted”. She features a metallic black hull with a red stripe on the waterline, that required Feadship to develop special mixing machines and electrically charged spray guns so that the metallic flakes would be in perfect order.
On the owner’s deck, an aluminium-plated sunroof opens up to bring natural light in and there is access to the Jacuzzi. There is accommodation for ten guests in five suites as well as four crew cabins, a staff room and a captain’s cabin near the raised pilothouse.
“With yachts like Como and Kiss, we are effectively building a sporty type boat around our average size of over 15 years ago, but now with all the know-how and intelligence Feadship has developed,” says Henk De Vries. “This facilitates a clever approach to high-end production, one which remains entirely custom while keeping the costs of a Feadship of this size within the bounds of reason.”
• you can read a full report on life aboard Como in the next issue of SuperYacht World, which publishes on March 4.