Van der Valk's 48m Project Zen Is Now Whole, Due Q2 2028

What did Van der Valk finish on Project Zen?

Van der Valk Shipyard joined the hull and the aluminium superstructure of Project Zen on 22 September 2026 in its Waalwijk build hall, so the 48m flagship now has her complete profile for the first time. Delivery is still set for the second quarter of 2028.

The yard calls the joining of hull and superstructure the marriage, and it is one of the defining moments of any build because the two largest sections have to meet with precise alignment. On Zen, yard number WV0149, the lift happened while the Van der Valk sales team was at the Cannes Yachting Festival, with the yard's own craftsmen doing the work in Waalwijk. The photographs the yard released show bare aluminium framing and plating with window openings cut and nothing fitted, moved by mobile cranes and heavy transporters between the build hall and the open yard. From here the interior, the systems and the finishing move into their next phase inside the hall.

BOAT International reported the milestone in early October and YachtBuyer ran its own account with the same facts. Neither adds a launch date, and the yard says only that she remains on course for Q2 2028. Counted from 22 September 2026 to the end of June 2028, that leaves about 21 months. It's a calendar worth holding the yard to, because fitting out a 499 GT yacht to custom interior drawings takes longer than welding her.

How big did Project Zen grow during design?

Project Zen began as a proposal of roughly 36m and finished the design phase at 47.83m, a 33 percent increase in length that followed the owner's requirements as they developed. The yard's technical director says everything simply wouldn't fit at the smaller sizes.

YachtBuyer traces the steps as 36m, 38m, 40m, 42m and finally 47.83m. Bram Kooltjes, Van der Valk's technical director, told BOAT International that it quickly became clear the yard couldn't fit everything in, so it stretched the design to 38 metres, then 40, and it kept growing from there. For a buyer that sequence is the useful part. It shows a yard that let the brief set the size instead of squeezing the brief into a catalogue hull, and an owner who kept adding requirements until the boat grew by a third.

It also makes Zen the largest yacht the yard has built once she's finished. YachtBuyer puts the previous high mark at the 40m Shine, 370 GT, delivered in July 2026, with the 31m Project Berlin and the 33m Project May still in the pipeline. Evan Kortmann became chief executive in July 2026 as the yard moved toward larger custom projects. The two big yachts aren't close relatives. Shine was drawn by Cristiano Gatto Design with Diana Yacht Design on naval architecture and reaches about 24 knots, while Zen comes from Guido de Groot and Van Oossanen and tops out at 17.5. Both share an 8.5m beam, which means Zen's extra eight metres are all length. The yard calls her an entirely new platform, so it's fair to ask how much of the Shine's experience carries across to a first hull.

What does Project Zen's specification actually deliver?

Zen is 47.83m long on an 8.5m beam with a 2.15m draft and 499 GT, powered by two MAN diesels of 1,066 kW each for 16 knots cruising and 17.5 knots flat out. The yard quotes a range of more than 4,400 nm.

Those figures come from YachtBuyer's specification, and BOAT International lists the same speeds and range. The engines are MAN D2862LE489 units, so the combined output is 2,132 kW, or about 2,860 hp by our own conversion. The hull is a fast displacement form with a Hull Vane mounted aft, a fixed foil under the stern that Van Oossanen Naval Architects use to cut resistance. YachtBuyer says the point of the pairing is to let a yacht of this size run on relatively modest engine power. The same article reports that the owner wanted extended cruising and put range ahead of maximum speed, and that the owner's interest in high-performance cars shaped the low, streamlined profile. A 16-knot cruise with a transpacific range says the same thing.

At 10 knots, 4,400 nm is 440 hours at sea, or just over 18 days without refuelling, if the yard's figure holds. That's a long way for a 48m yacht. The two numbers that would let an owner trust it are the tank capacity and the fuel burn at 10 knots, and neither has been published. There's no sea trial either, because the hull isn't in the water. Until one exists, treat the range as a design figure and ask the yard for burn and tankage in writing before planning a crossing around it.

How is Project Zen laid out for family life?

Zen is arranged around water access and shared space: a bow lounge with a spa pool, a sea terrace with fold-down bulwarks on three sides, a lower-deck garage with a side ramp and a full-beam owner's suite on the main deck.

The yard describes a generous bow lounge for the breeze at anchor or underway and a spa pool for a sunset soak. At the stern a large sea terrace has bulwarks that fold down on three sides and retractable self-levelling steps to the water, according to YachtBuyer, which also describes a dedicated watersports area for eFoils, Seabobs and wakeboards. A lower-deck garage opens through a side ramp so a larger tender and a jet ski can be launched and recovered without craning anything.

Inside, BOAT International describes a full-beam owner's suite on the main deck and a full-beam wellness area with a gym and a yoga room, plus a split-level sundeck with a wet bar and dining. The owner asked for renderings drawn from the waterline, as if seen by someone swimming beside the boat, which says a good deal about how the yacht is meant to be used. Guido de Groot Design drew both the exterior and the interior, so the two should read as one idea.

What should a buyer check before relying on Project Zen?

The public record leaves out three things: the price, the fuel burn behind the range and whether she is still available. Everything else about her is the yard's own specification, with no independent sea trial yet.

BOAT International names David Jakabovic of Morley as the broker on the project and says an experienced owner commissioned her. Neither BOAT nor YachtBuyer says whether she is still for sale, and no price appears anywhere. For a buyer comparing Zen with brokerage boats of similar size, the delivery date is the first cost: a 2028 handover means about 21 months of waiting that a used yacht doesn't carry.

Against that, a 499 GT custom aluminium yacht with a dated, photographed construction milestone is further along than most concepts that reach the market. She is also the first hull of an entirely new platform from a yard whose largest delivery so far is 40m, and that's the honest risk: first hulls carry teething costs, and it's the owner who pays for them in time. Ask for the payment schedule, the delivery-date terms in the contract and the class and flag the contract assumes before comparing her with anything afloat today.