Across ice and oceans: The epic circumnavigation of 55m Feadship yacht Shinkai

Built for adventure and armed with her own submarine, 54.9-metre Feadship yacht Shinkai was designed to go anywhere. Her owner recounts an extraordinary journey through the Northwest Passage, across the Pacific and down to Patagonia – a true circumnavigation in every sense...

Circumnavigation is the dream of many a yacht lover, but few have the opportunity or the experience to build a full-custom Feadship to achieve it. Still fewer undertake the route followed by the owner of 54.9-metre Shinkai and his family. Passing through the fabled Northwest Passage, they closed the loop on the land mass of the Americas, circling Canada to the north and Patagonia to the south.

Shinkai was conceived for nothing else by a man with decades of yachting experience under his belt. The project began in 2017 with a conversation with Vitruvius designer Philippe Briand, famed for his highly efficient, low-profile explorer yachts. He included an extra owner’s deck to the yacht, which otherwise displays his trademark no-nonsense lines. However, the design process really began with something far more elementary.

“I was growing older, and I feared I couldn’t scuba dive safely anymore. On the other hand, I had 12 grandchildren who are just a bit too young to start scuba diving. I thought to myself, isn’t this the right moment to have an explorer yacht with a submarine – useful for me and my grandchildren? And that’s exactly what we did.”

And it wasn’t just any submarine. This was a three-passenger submersible built by U-Boat Worx of the Netherlands. It could descend to 480 metres to observe bottom structure, corals and marine life and stay down for up to 16 hours.  “We began by working out the characteristics of the submarine – it was the first visit we made at the 2017 Monaco show,” remembers Briand. “That certainly influenced the design, but at the same time, the owner wanted to retain the superyacht side of things.”

Further design requirements flowed from the submersible. As it weighed 6.3 tonnes, there had to be a deck crane and a safe space to lash it down for oceanic crossings and, crucially, a system allowing for stability when the sub was launched and recovered in deteriorating conditions.

The crane was just a question of choosing a heavy-duty knuckle boom-type hydraulic system from Palfinger. Briand’s design allowed for a reinforced well in the aft deck into which the submersible could be lowered. The stability issue was more complex, and led the team towards a groundbreaking gyroscopic system, weighing a colossal 23 tonnes all-told and devouring 109kW of power at startup.

“Does the gyro do its job? Well, yes and no,” says the owner thoughtfully. “It works very well at speeds up to 10 knots, and at zero speed, stabilising the yacht for launching the sub. But crossing from Edinburgh to Bergen at the start of Shinkai’s voyage, the sea became pretty rough. Suddenly, the gyro stopped working, and the boat took 40 degrees of roll at that moment. The sub broke its lashings and started banging left and right, quickly causing damage to the yacht and to itself. We needed to spend almost a year in repairs.

“That was quite a surprise. I thought that if the gyro reached its maximum activity, it would keep working at maximum rate. We discovered that it’s not the case: there are a number of cut-outs for safety reasons. At the worst moment, the damn thing decided to stop, and that cost us a lot of money and the loss of one year in our cruising plan.”

Shinkai limped back to Feadship for repairs and the addition of a set of conventional fin stabilisers for use at higher speeds. “We had planned for this eventuality quite early in the build, leaving the necessary space for fin stabilisers and installing the necessary hydraulic capacity,” says Briand. The submarine also had to be trucked back to its builders, and that was not straightforward. None of the local hauliers in Bergen would accept the commission because they believed the yacht was Russian-owned. It didn’t matter that the owner could prove otherwise, because the idea had taken root on social media and the rumour mill was in full swing.

“It all began when we were alongside in Edinburgh,” the owner says. “A Scotsman thought we were a Russian boat belonging to someone in the KGB, and came on to the dock and started shouting at us. He had mixed us up with another yacht, which was in port around the same time. He also seemed to think that ‘Shinkai’ was a Russian name, which of course it isn’t. It means ‘deep sea’ in Japanese.

“This story followed us to Norway, and then all over the world. When our crew wanted services such as refuelling or renting a truck, they met refusal. When we arrived in Hawaii, it was the same thing.” He has this advice for other European yacht owners. “Don’t let one single stupid story get published about your boat without challenging it, because it will follow you around the world.”

With repairs made, the yacht was able to pick up the challenging itinerary for which she had been created. Greenland’s magnificent west coast was the first stop, and the owner rhapsodises about the experience. “A tender tour of Disko Bay is on the shortlist of the 10 most amazing things you have to see in the world – and I’ve been to about 125 countries. Big glaciers calve there and in this bay, you see a huge number of big icebergs, which all have the weirdest shapes. We spent several days there!”

At such high latitudes, the submersible’s launching system comes into its own. Passengers can board directly from the mothership’s main deck, in comfort and perfect safety. There’s no need to risk clambering into the sub from the tender in seas so cold that they can kill in minutes. That said, the owner has mixed reports of the underwater world here.

“Frankly, we saw almost nothing at high latitudes,” he says. “We saw krill, some tiny shrimps. We did dive among the icebergs, which is considered dangerous, because they can flip over without warning. That was beautiful. But there was surprisingly bad visibility.”

Built to withstand young ice, Shinkai’s hull meets Ice Class notation, and the yacht has been assessed for the Polar Code. “That means the steel plates of the hull are heavier than usual, with reinforcement around the waterline,” explains Briand. “The original plan was to be capable of doing the Northeast Passage, but that didn’t come off because transportation of a submarine would not be allowed along the Russian coast. Due to accelerated global warming, the Northwest Passage, carried out at the right time, is no longer an adventure. We had no ice sheets to cross or other difficulties.” It nevertheless could have been useful because growlers and bergy bits can still clog the Lancaster Sound and the Prince of Wales Strait in summer.

Hopes of observing the timid narwhal were buoyed by having one of the world’s foremost experts on the creatures aboard. Not only was Dr Martin Nweeia a font of wisdom regarding the “unicorns of the sea”, he had also followed them every year for decades and knew where they were likely to be found. Alas, even the best-laid plans sometimes come to naught, and the narwhals remained out of sight.

Although the owner doesn’t rave about this section of the voyage, he and his family were at least extremely comfortable aboard. Two master cabins with king-size beds and adjoining offices occupy the forward section of the upper deck, where the wide windows give phenomenal views. There is direct access out onto a private foredeck cockpit for observation and an impressive dining area aft – both indoor and outside. Four further guest cabins are positioned on the deck below, supported by 12 crew. Styling inspired by Japanese Zen is functional and elegant, using natural colours and materials to create a homely environment where guests can spend long periods in comfort.

With the aft deck given over to storing the sub, a Land Rover in a protective container and the eight-metre limo tender, there is space for only a modest bathing platform at sea level. Swimming and sun worshipping activities are instead concentrated higher up aft on the bridge deck, where there is a plunge pool surrounded by sunpads. Another stand-out feature crowns the superstructure. 

“The mast was designed to house the elevator, thus enabling all guests to visit the sundeck and enjoy the views while travelling,” explains Feadship’s chief commercial officer Bas Nederpelt. “The yacht is truly custom. The owner was very much involved with the technical side but together with his wife, they really created the interior to their requirements.”

Shinkai steamed on west to Alaska, dropping off the owner to return to Europe before turning south through the Aleutian Islands. Drawing on her impressive range of 5,500 nautical miles, there was no pause until Hawaii. The owner flew out to join the boat again for this section. He describes the diving here as fair, but not world class. “The prettiest island is Kaua’i in the north, particularly the Napali Coast in the west, which is absolutely stunning,” he says. “Its rocky coast was part of the Jurassic Park filming set.”

If locals here didn’t warm to the presence of a large yacht, it was a very different story at the other end of the Pacific, on the remote French island of Rapa Iti. No more than a tiny speck 600 nautical miles south-east of Tahiti, it took three days to reach by sea – still the only way to get there. The island is the tip of a volcano covering just 39 square kilometres and home to some 450 souls.

“We were the first motor yacht to reach the island ever!” says the owner. “If we hadn’t made contact before through an anthropologist, we wouldn’t have been authorised to go. But we made friends with the mayor and arranged visits for the school to the boat. We also brought them things they needed from Tahiti.”

The people here live a traditional life still, with the mayor deferring decisions to a council of elders. They have internet access, phones and TV, but there is no hotel and they recently refused funding to build an airstrip. A supply boat visits every two months from Tahiti, with people surviving day to day on limited farming and the weekly catch. They declined an offer for a more regular supply.

Shinkai’s submersible was put to unexpected use here, as the mayor approved a mission to try to find evidence of past devotion among the islanders. “There was a story of an ancient tiki [a religious statue], lost in deeper water at the mouth of the island’s lagoon,” he says. “There were reports that it was untouched by seaweed or coral, which indicated that the tiki was still alive and had powers. We were given permission to look but not to move it. Unfortunately, we found no trace.”

More than 3,500 nautical miles of empty ocean beckoned before the next landfall near Puerto Montt on the Chilean coast. The owner was eager to see a little of the wild splendour of Patagonia before rounding the southern tip of the continent and working back towards Europe.

“Honestly, it was even more beautiful than I expected,” he says. “We were in the Torres del Paine National Park – this area is amazing for scenery. You can reach big mountains with the yacht through the network of rivers. We were in a place called Puerto Natales, where hotel bookings must be made a very long time in advance because the good ones are busy.”

Here they marvelled at high snow-covered mountains plunging into deep fjords, waterfalls cascading over cliffs and abundant wildlife. The Cordillera of the Andes fragments into thousands of rocky islands and islets that make navigation complex. Nevertheless,  Shinkai wove her way south through the main channels to reach the Strait of Magellan and  the south Atlantic, cutting off the wild waters of Cape Horn.

They made occasional stops up the eastern seaboard for fuel and provisions, but the main goal was to reach diving sites in Brazil. First was Paraty, near Rio de Janeiro, where fresh rumours caught up with Shinkai. Here, local press ran a story about how the yacht was searching local wrecks for gold and precious porcelain. In no time, the coast guard came knocking.

“In Brazil, the coast guard is part of the navy. Every 48 hours, they would come on board and search the boat completely for treasure,” says the owner with a trace of the bitterness he must have felt. “They would shadow us when we moved and drastically reduced the locations that we could dive with the sub – mainly just sandbanks, no fish and of course no gold!”

Steaming far offshore to reach the little visited island of Fernando de Noronha, the rumours of treasure hunting pursued them. At first, the local authorities were very suspicious.

“I had to invite the head of the national park and her assistant on board for a dive,” the owner says. “Then finally they mellowed and understood that we were not there to steal gold or antiquities.”

Just the Azores now stood between Shinkai and Europe. Looking back on the voyage, it’s clear to the owner that some  of the fondest moments were those completely unscripted and unexpected – such as Rapa Iti, home of the kindest people one can imagine, or diving among the icebergs. And as the yacht prepares for its homecoming in Europe, the owner’s mind is already running ahead to his future circumnavigations on other oceans. He yearns for the deeper waters the yacht is named after, so his gaze is turning east to Indonesia and the Philippines.

First published in the October 2025 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.