Heesen began in Oss in 1978 under Frans Heesen, and it was the first Dutch yard to build its hulls in aluminium. That early choice of a lighter metal set the direction for everything that followed. In 1988 the yard delivered Octopussy for the American owner John Staluppi, and she ran at 53.17 knots to claim the record for the fastest yacht afloat. The name still carries weight whenever Heesen talks about performance.
Speed at Heesen has never meant noise for its own sake. The yard learned to pair high top ends with sea manners that let owners actually use the extra knots. Decades of aluminium fabrication gave its welders and engineers a feel for weight that heavier yards rarely match. That craft is why a Heesen can carry full guest volume and still reach the numbers on the brochure.
When Frans Heesen retired in 2012 the yard deepened its work with the naval architects at Van Oossanen. Their shared project was the Fast Displacement Hull Form, a hull shape that behaves well across the whole speed range rather than only at one design point. The 65 metre Galactica Star launched in 2013 as the first yacht to carry it. Owners and captains noticed lower resistance and a softer ride, and orders followed.
The appeal of the FDHF is that it works for very different briefs. A steel 55 metre uses it to cross oceans quietly at displacement speed. An aluminium 70 metre uses the same thinking to reach thirty knots. Van Oossanen also brought the Hull Vane, an underwater foil at the stern that trims wake and saves fuel, first fitted to the 42 metre Alive in 2014.
In 2017 Heesen delivered Home, the world's first Fast Displacement yacht with hybrid propulsion. Two 127 kW electric shaft motors sit alongside her diesels, and in hybrid mode at nine knots she has recorded fuel use of around 45 litres an hour. That figure changed how the market thought about quiet running on a fast hull. Hybrid options have since spread across the Heesen range.
The yard sells in two ways. Its Heesen Series holds spec-built hulls on aluminium and steel platforms that a buyer can take at an advanced stage and personalise, which shortens the wait to launch. Pure Custom covers full one-off projects such as Sparta and Genesis, where the owner shapes the volume and the layout from a blank sheet. Both routes draw on the same hull science and the same yard in Oss.
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