Broward Shipyard of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, confirms an order for two new 41 metre Vripack-designed motor yachts — “steel boats, a little different for Broward,” says Philippe Brandligt, the consultant Broward hired to help bring in new builds. These will be the first steel-hull yachts for the builder as well as the first new builds since the yard’s new ownership in 2009. The yachts will be topped by an aluminum superstructure and measure in at 455 gross tons.
The buyer is WorldSea Yachting, headed by Francis Liabres and Philippe Swolfs, the latter who is a naval architect and managing director of Euroshipyard in Belgium. WorldSea’s aim is to attract a niche clientele of small-cruise ship clients to yachts that can be chartered by stateroom or in its entirety.
Both yachts are purpose built for this type of charter, forgoing a master stateroom with six equal guest staterooms. However, the two staterooms on the main deck and two of the four staterooms on the lower deck will have movable walls to convert into larger VIPs.
WorldSea chose to build in the U.S. for flagging purposes, but according to Brandligt, his customers were also attracted to the infrastructure that Fort Lauderdale offered. Broward estimates the new builds will create 100 jobs, though most will be subcontracted. “We will work as a project organization,” Brandligt says. “We like to work with specialists.” Subcontractors include Performance Marine Coatings for the paintwork, Palladium Technologies for the electrical installations and Quantum Marine for the hydraulic installations. The recyclable decking system Esthec Decks is one of the environmentally friendly systems to be utilized on board.
Broward is in the engineering phase and the keel laying will take place later this summer.
Broward Shipyard
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