Heysea Signs a Second European Client for Its Asteria 116

What did Heysea just sign, and for whom?

Heysea Yachts has signed a contract to build an updated Asteria 116, a 35.9-metre semi-custom motor yacht, for a European client who plans to base her in the Mediterranean once she is delivered in December 2027.

BOAT International confirmed the contract on 1 September 2026, reporting that construction on the hull is already underway at Heysea's yard in Jiangmen, Guangdong. It is the Chinese builder's second disclosed European contract of the year, after a 20 August 2026 agreement for the first hull of an entirely different platform, a 35.96-metre aluminium-and-steel Explorer aimed at long-range cruising. The two contracts should not be confused: the Explorer is a new category for Heysea, while the Asteria 116 is an established semi-custom model the yard has already delivered at least once, in 2025, before reworking it into a new configuration. Delivery of this hull is set for December 2027, roughly fifteen months after the contract was confirmed, and the owner plans to cruise her in the Mediterranean once she arrives.

Heysea is not a newcomer to the water. The company states it was founded in 2004 and has delivered more than 200 composite and steel yachts since, building its name on the Asteria motor yacht series and, more recently, the Seaview sailing catamaran line. The Asteria range itself comprises three semi-custom models - the 96, 108 and 116 - plus a new flagship 142, all of which underwent a full redesign in 2025 aimed at broadening the series' appeal and strengthening the yard's position in the wider superyacht market. That redesign reworked every model from a raised-pilothouse configuration into a more contemporary tri-deck layout, which is the version this new contract covers.

What does the redesigned Asteria 116 actually offer over the original?

The tri-deck Asteria 116 sleeps 12 guests across four lower-deck cabins plus a full-beam owner's suite forward on the main deck, and adds a sea-facing Cabana lounge at the stern and a private bow terrace with a hot tub that the original raised-pilothouse layout did not have.

On the updated main deck, a large saloon, bar and dining area sit aft of the owner's suite, which is positioned forward and opens onto a private outdoor lounge and hot tub tucked into the bow - a layout choice that extends the owner's living space outdoors while keeping it away from guest traffic. The upper deck carries the wheelhouse and captain's suite alongside a skylounge that converts into a second owner's suite for a buyer who wants more private space. At the stern, a sea-facing Cabana lounge in the tri-deck configuration gives guests a place to sit at the waterline while others use the swim platform or watersports gear, a feature the raised-pilothouse original did not carry. In total the yacht accommodates 12 guests, split between the four lower-deck cabins - two of them VIP - and the main-deck owner's suite, with seven crew across three cabins.

Performance moved in the opposite direction from what a buyer might expect of a bigger, more voluminous boat. Heysea quotes twin 2,000 hp engines giving the updated Asteria 116 a top speed of 20.5 knots, a cruising speed of 15 knots and a range of 2,000 nautical miles at 8 knots. The pre-redesign Asteria 116, delivered in 2025, ran twin Caterpillar diesels to a 24-knot top speed and a 20-knot cruise, with a shallow 1.52-metre draft for beach access, and slept 10 guests across five cabins rather than 12. The comparison is not published anywhere as a single table - it has to be assembled from the two announcements - but the shape of the trade is clear: the tri-deck redesign buys volume, guest capacity and outdoor living space at the cost of several knots of speed and shallow-draft beach access, the same trade-off that separates a voluminous tri-deck from a leaner raised-pilothouse hull on any yard's range.

Is a Chinese-built 116-footer a credible alternative to an established European yard?

Neither Heysea nor the buyer has disclosed a price, so nobody outside the deal can yet weigh the value case; what is visible is a yard with more than 200 hulls delivered but only its second disclosed European client this year, competing for buyers against European names with decades of Mediterranean service networks behind them.

This is not Heysea's first Asteria 116 - the model has been in the water since 2025 - so the yard is not asking a buyer to take a chance on an unbuilt design the way its Explorer client effectively did in August. What it is asking is for a European owner to trust a Chinese yard's warranty and service commitments for a boat that will spend its working life largely in the Mediterranean, thousands of miles from the yard that built it. Established Italian and Dutch builders in the same size bracket - the kind of 35-to-40-metre semi-custom range where Sanlorenzo, Numarine and CRN compete - have spent decades building out parts networks, refit relationships and resale markets in the same waters this yacht will cruise. Heysea's own expansion suggests it knows this is the gap: the yard has now signed two disclosed European contracts in a single year, for two different product lines, which reads as a deliberate push into a market where it still has limited standing rather than an established presence extending itself.

The one number that would let a buyer weigh the trade-off directly - price - is not on the public record. Aggregator listings such as itboat and topboats cite a base price of roughly 11.8 million US dollars for an Asteria 116, but that figure predates the 2025 tri-deck redesign and cannot be relied on as the price of the configuration now under contract. Heysea has not published an updated figure, and no broker listing for this specific hull exists to benchmark against. A buyer comparing this yacht to a similarly sized European semi-custom build, which typically starts well above that older figure, is doing so on the strength of Heysea's own specification sheet, not on a confirmed number from either side of this transaction.

What is not yet proven about the redesigned Asteria 116?

No independent sea trial exists yet for the tri-deck Asteria 116, and with construction on this second hull only recently confirmed underway, every performance figure published so far - the 20.5-knot top speed, the 2,000-nautical-mile range - is the yard's own, not a third party's.

The 2025 redesign of the Asteria range rolled out model by model, starting with the 96 and 108 before reaching the 116 and the new flagship 142, and this contract is the clearest evidence yet that the reworked lineup is finding buyers rather than sitting as a paper update. Heysea has not said how many tri-deck Asteria 116 hulls are now under construction or sold beyond this one and whichever hull preceded it, which leaves an owner unable to judge how proven the new configuration already is in practice. Once this yacht is delivered in December 2027 and based in the Mediterranean, she will enter a charter and resale market where comparables for Chinese-built 35-metre-plus motor yachts remain thin, the same gap this desk has already reported on Heysea's Explorer program, and one that will not close until enough hulls of the redesigned Asteria 116 are actually on the water and changing hands.

For an owner weighing the decision today, the honest reading is that the Asteria 116 buys tri-deck volume, a demonstrated production line rather than a one-off, and semi-custom flexibility at what has historically been a lower price point than the established European yards charge for a similar footprint. Set against that is everything still unverified: no independent trial of the new configuration, no published price for it, and a Mediterranean service history that is, by the yard's own account, only two contracts old this year. Nobody who has actually owned or run the redesigned Asteria 116 has spoken publicly about her yet, which is normal for a hull this new and not a reason to invent a verdict that is not there - it is simply the gap the next owner, and the next sea trial, will have to close.