Dutch shipyard Feadship has taken the opportunity of the Monaco Yacht Show 2026 to unveil its latest superyacht concept, known as Hive.
At 115 metres, the yacht stands as the yard's largest concept to date and has been developed to explore a new approach to life on board - dictated not by the conventional arrangement of spaces but by the owners and guests who use them.
A team from Studio De Voogt - led by senior designer Jan Schaffers alongside Feadship’s naval architects and engineering specialists - is behind the new concept, which is described as creating a "radically different approach" to space, packed with ready-to-build technology.
According to the shipyard, the starting point for Hive was life on board. A fictional family of four was created to provide a human context to the concept and understand how owners live, what they desire and how they spend their lives at sea before building the architecture.
Ideas for Hive also developed through Feadship's Young Designer of the Year competition, held in partnership with BOAT International, with finalists invited to work alongside Studio de Voogt to gain experience while bringing their own perspective to the idea of life on board. For the 115-metre, discussions are said to have repeatedly revolved around the yacht's convivial area where guests congregate before enjoying time on their own. From here, "hive" emerged as the leading principle: "many different activities coexisting around a shared centre".
The salons of 1930s Paris provided another influence for the yacht's design, including the social areas for "conversation, culture, entertainment and exchange". Core to the design is a vast open space which extends over four decks; on the main deck, it can become a large saloon, stage or auditorium, with terraces opening to port and starboard and curved staircases connecting balconies and more intimate spaces above.
Service pantries, furniture storage and a green room allow the central space to accommodate "anything from family life to performances, lectures and large gatherings".
Closer to the water, a two-storey beach lounge offers water-level dining for up to 24 guests, while a circular, glass-enclosed foredeck library opens onto a secluded garden area. Other notable areas on board include an underwater lounge with views below the surface, or, for views above, an observation lounge stands out with its retractable glass roof for uninterrupted night-sky vistas.
The owner's deck is host to a 20-metre pool with Feadship’s patented ContraWave™ technology, which extends indoors as a suspended, glass-bottomed infinity pool.
Feadship shared that Hive introduces a new direction for Studio De Voogt’s exterior design language - its elongated, low profile expands on those presented in its concepts Pure and C, including rethinking the conventional bridge arrangement.
For Hive, the yard has designed a virtual command centre, freeing up the forward section of the superstructure for the owner’s accommodation and observation lounge. Cameras and sensors provide the required information for navigation, while retractable glass wing stations offer a direct view outside during close manoeuvring.
In terms of propulsion, a DC electrical architecture on board combines three 900 kW variable-speed permanent-magnet generators running on HVO with fuel cells and a 5MWh battery bank. For zero-emission operation, power can be supplied by seven 75kW solid oxide fuel cells or nine 250kW fuel cells combined with a methanol reformer. The yard shared that the battery capacity is approximately five times that of Savannah’s 1MWh installation within a comparable battery-room footprint.
"Hive is designed around the idea that experiences can change people," said Schaffers. "We wanted to explore what becomes possible when you start not with what a yacht has always been, but with how people might want to live on board in the near future."
Read More/All the news from day two of the Monaco Yacht Show 2026