Espen Oeino International

De Noruega a Mónaco

Espen Oeino nació en Noruega y se formó como arquitecto naval antes de instalarse en Mónaco, la capital náutica. Abrió su propia consulta en 1994 y constituyó formalmente la sociedad Espen Oeino International en 2006. El estudio ha crecido hasta ser un equipo multidisciplinar de arquitectos navales, diseñadores e ingenieros llegados de muchos países. Esa mezcla de profundidad en ingeniería y talento de estilismo bajo un mismo techo es central en la forma de operar de la oficina.

Oeino ha contado que dibujaba barcos siendo muy niño, y la disciplina de la arquitectura naval recorre todo lo que produce el estudio. La oficina se encarga de la parte dura del diseño, el casco y la estructura, junto al estilismo exterior que es lo primero que casi todos ven. Esta combinación permite a Oeino llevar un proyecto desde el primer boceto hasta una forma que un astillero pueda construir. También explica por qué los armadores con los proyectos más grandes y técnicos acaban llamando a su puerta.

Ingeniería con un traje audaz

La firma de Oeino es un perfil fuerte y decidido que se lee como sólido antes que delicado. Sus yates tienden a llevar su volumen con aplomo, y el estilismo nace de la arquitectura naval en lugar de aplicarse por encima. El estudio se maneja igual de bien con cascos rápidos y esbeltos que con formas explorer robustas hechas para alcanzar aguas remotas. Esa amplitud significa que un diseño de Oeino puede parecer deportivo o listo para la expedición según el pliego.

Detrás del aspecto hay una convicción: un yate tiene que funcionar en la mar antes de poder ser bello. La serie Silver de yates de aluminio largos y estrechos mostró hasta dónde llevaría la oficina la eficiencia y la velocidad. En los proyectos más grandes el estudio equilibra un volumen interior enorme con un perfil que sigue pareciendo resuelto. El armador obtiene un barco proyectado para rendir y dibujado para retener la mirada en el agua.

Ingeniería seria bajo un traje musculoso, a una escala que pocos estudios se atreven a abordar.

Una flota de hitos

El Octopus de 126 metros, entregado por Lurssen en 2003, fue el proyecto que hizo el nombre de Oeino y sigue siendo uno de los yates explorer más reconocibles jamás construidos. Skat, también de Lurssen, mostró una lectura más severa e industrial de la misma idea de expedición. El estudio dibujó el exterior de Serene, el yate de 134 metros de Fincantieri que en su entrega figuraba entre los mayores a flote. Cada uno de ellos llevaba el sello musculoso de Oeino a una escala que pocos estudios intentan.

La cartera recorre Solandge, Ocean Victory, Kismet, Cloudbreak y el imponente Dilbar de 156 metros de Lurssen. Galactica Super Nova llevó un perfil afilado y de aire veloz a un casco muy grande. Muchos de estos yates emparejan un exterior de Oeino con una casa de interiorismo de primer nivel, un reparto de tareas que el estudio maneja con comodidad. El hilo constante es la escala, la ambición y una forma que aguanta el paso del tiempo.

Trabajar con los grandes astilleros

Oeino ha construido una relación profunda con los astilleros alemanes, sobre todo Lurssen, que dominan la parte alta del mercado. Entregar yates de 150 metros y más exige un diseñador capaz de hablar el idioma de un constructor naval serio. El estudio trabaja codo con codo con el armador y el astillero desde el concepto más temprano, y sostiene la proporción a medida que la ingeniería se complica. Esa soltura con la construcción de gran astillero es buena parte del valor del estudio.

La oficina está acostumbrada a armadores que quieren algo singular y están dispuestos a construirlo desde una hoja en blanco. En lugar de adaptar una plataforma, Oeino suele arrancar del pliego del armador y dejar que la arquitectura naval siga detrás. Este enfoque a medida encaja con clientes que encargan en los tamaños mayores, donde nada de catálogo sirve. También significa que cada proyecto lleva una identidad clara en vez de una fórmula de la casa estampada sobre un casco estándar.

Una posición en la cima del mercado

Pocos estudios pueden reclamar tantos yates genuinamente grandes como Espen Oeino International. La oficina está ampliamente considerada uno de los nombres de referencia para grandes yates a motor custom y para explorer. Su trabajo aparece en lo más alto de las tablas de tamaño, lo que trae prestigio y también un escrutinio intenso. Para un armador de ese nivel, contratar a Oeino es una declaración de intenciones.

La influencia del estudio va más allá de su propia flota, porque sus formas explorer ayudaron a popularizar toda una categoría de yates de lujo robustos. Diseñadores más jóvenes han seguido la plantilla que la oficina estableció con Octopus y Skat. Ese papel de creador de gusto convive con un flujo constante de nuevos encargos. Oeino sigue siendo una presencia fija en la cumbre del diseño de superyates.

Lurssen, and the yards that can build this

The deepest relationship is with Lurssen, which built Skat, Octopus, Titania, Starfire, Dilbar, Amadea, Flying Fox and Luminance to Oeino drawings. Abeking and Rasmussen built the 72.5 metre Cloudbreak in 2016, Fincantieri built Serene, Oceanco built Infinity and the 111 metre DreAMBoat, and Feadship built Launchpad. Amels builds the Limited Editions range to his exteriors. Vard, a commercial shipbuilder, built REV Ocean.

That spread is worth something specific to an owner. A designer who has already been through a German yard's engineering review knows which drawings will come back marked up and which will not, and he knows how differently a Dutch yard and an Italian one price a compound curve. It also means the studio can be brought to a builder the owner has already chosen instead of steering him towards a favourite. At this end of the market only a handful of yards can take the work at all, and the designer is often the person who tells an owner which of them is honest about its order book.

The Amels route, for owners who will not wait five years

Oeino drew the exteriors for the Amels 60 and the Amels 80 in the Dutch yard's Limited Editions programme. The Amels 80 was developed over roughly two years with tank testing and computational fluid dynamics behind it and a hybrid propulsion package. The first Amels 60 was scheduled for delivery in May 2025. The hulls are built to a fixed platform, so the naval architecture, the engineering and much of the structure are settled before a buyer appears.

What the buyer still chooses is the layout below, the finishes, the tender package and a great deal of detail. What he gets in return is a delivery date measured in months instead of years and a price that is known at signature. The trade is that the exterior is the exterior, and it will be shared with other hulls in the series. For a first large yacht, or for an owner who has watched a friend endure a four year custom build, that is often the better deal.

Efficiency, and the work that is not a yacht

Silver Fast, delivered in 2015 by the Australian yard now trading as SilverYachts, is 77 metres of aluminium on a semi-displacement hull with a draft of 2.6 metres and a top speed above 27 knots. She was billed as the largest and fastest aluminium motor yacht with conventional propulsion. The Silver series as a whole was built around a long, slim, light hull that needs far less power for its length. Oeino drew all of them.

REV Ocean is the other outlier, a 194.9 metre research and expedition vessel built by Vard in Romania to an Oeino design, with an interior by H2 Yacht Design and a gross tonnage of 19,235. It is a working ship carrying laboratories and scientific equipment, and it was announced at a smaller 181.6 metres before growing. An owner ordering a long-range yacht benefits from that work directly, because the arithmetic on hull resistance and fuel burn is the same on a research ship as on a private one.

What the commission costs, and the point of no return

The design contract is a separate document from the build contract and it is signed first, so the studio is engaged and being paid months before a yard is. Work runs concept, then preliminary naval architecture and general arrangement, then contract design, which is the package yards quote against, then construction support. No studio in this directory publishes a fee scale. The one current market figure that puts a number on it is the SuperYachtReview 2026 price guide, updated March 2026, which lists the designer's fee at 1 to 5 per cent of build cost and project management at a further 2 to 4 per cent, both outside the price a yard quotes. On a build costed at EUR 100 million that band is EUR 1 million to EUR 5 million. Naval architecture and exterior without an interior sits in the lower half of it.

The gates matter more than the total. Concept and preliminary are bought in stages and can be stopped between them. A letter of intent reserves a build slot, and the yacht building agreement is the document that commits an owner to the yard and the price, as Oceanco sets out in its owner's guide published by BOAT International on 10 June 2024. The real lock-in is later and quieter. Once the yard has begun engineering to these drawings, changing studio means paying twice for the same hull form. This office does not suit an owner who wants one firm to hand over a finished boat including the interior, it is not the place for a sailing yacht, and it is not the place for a first boat under about 40 metres.

Who owns the drawings, and what happens without Oeino

The default across the profession is that the studio keeps the copyright and the owner buys a licence to build one hull. The ITIC standard trading conditions for naval architects, in the version dated 8 July 2025, put it plainly: all intellectual property created under the agreement is owned by the consultant, with the client receiving a non-exclusive royalty-free licence for the purposes of that agreement. Eric Sponberg, writing on the same point, notes that the owner of a custom yacht buys the right to build one boat and that a second hull attracts a royalty of about 1.5 per cent of its price. Superyacht practice is usually better than that, with the designer keeping title and granting an exclusive, irrevocable and assignable licence, which is what Federico Santini describes as the standard clause in Barche magazine, August 2018. An owner planning a second hull or a heavy refit should have that word exclusive in the contract, and the drawings released in native format.

The practice carries the founder's name and has done since 1994. Nothing in the ITIC conditions, and nothing in any marine standard form, says what happens if the named designer becomes unavailable in year three of a four-year build. Commercial practice elsewhere treats death or incapacity of a key person as a termination trigger and obliges the consultant to offer a replacement of equal standing for the client's approval. That clause has to be asked for. So does an escrow or step-in right over the drawing set, because a licence is worth nothing if the office that holds the files has closed. A studio of around 30 people with a formed company behind it is a better bet here than a two-person practice, and that is a real reason to prefer it.

What a name on the profile is worth at resale

Resale is the question owners are too polite to ask and it has a plain answer here. An Oeino profile helps, marginally, for a reason that has nothing to do with taste. More than 50 delivered hulls means a broker has comparables, and a comparable is what a valuation is built from. Ocean Independence, writing on 11 May 2026, puts builder pedigree at the top of the list of things that hold value and names the Northern European yards this studio works with. The exterior is also the part of a yacht that cannot be refitted away. An interior can be gutted in a season. A hull form and a superstructure profile are what the second owner inherits, which is why a heavy, purposeful shape that was never fashionable does not become unfashionable.

The offsetting truth is scale. Above 100 metres the buyer pool is a few dozen people worldwide and it thins further for ice class and long range, because those are expensive capabilities to maintain and only a certain kind of programme uses them. Denison Yachting counted 470 yachts of 24 metres and over sold in 2025, at an average 487 days on market and a median of 277, and the large end sits well above those averages. The Amels Limited Editions exteriors are the exception in this portfolio. A series boat has dense comparables and a known specification, and that is the single strongest resale position available in yachting short of a Feadship.

Para quién es: Armadores que encargan en los tamaños mayores y quieren arquitectura naval seria y un perfil con presencia real.