Rejuvenating both yacht and soul with Samadhi's refit

It was important to the owner that the ice bath would be able to reach the same dizzyingly cold temperatures as his on-shore tub, and Feadship was able to knock off crucial degrees with its custom design. “If you can go in it for three minutes, I’ll give you a free charter for a week,” the owner of Samadhi tells me. Sounds like a good deal.

The work on Samadhi is a reminder of the jigsaw-style assembly that goes into a refit where the structure and layout are pre-determined, and the short six-month time frame meant that gutting the yacht and starting from a near-blank sheet wasn’t an option. But the owner still wanted a big-impact change.

Kroesen says the pool is something the team should be immensely proud of, considering the technical challenges that went into installing it. “[The owner] wanted a dump tank to hold onto the freshwater, without having to throw [the water] overboard,” he says.

“We realised there was not a lot of preparation time.” The yard went into “fast forward” mode

It started out as a seawater pool, and the engineering, calculations and tests that were required to turn it into an eight-metrictonne freshwater pool with heating capacities presented a huge headache for the refit team. But the owner was undeterred in his wishes.

“He had a very clear idea of what he wanted to achieve,” says Laura Pomponi, founder and CEO of Luxury Projects. “And he went in really quickly. I mean, the decoration was decided in a blink.”

With a motivated owner at the helm, Samadhi’s refit lasted from January 2024 to July 2024 and earned the yacht a Judges’ Commendation at the 2025 World Superyacht Awards. Feadship has previously described the pre-refit Samadhi as conservative. “The yacht is modernised now. It’s dated today instead of the build year,” agrees Kroesen.

Samadhi went from a classic American glossywood extravaganza to a peaceful, tastefully eclectic modern boat that would be optimised for the charter market and tailored for the new owner’s big family. The refit took place shortly after the yacht was bought by her current owner, a Dutch businessman and experienced yachtsman. He came into the purchase with the same decisive attitude that he brought to the refit.

“The owner had a very clear idea of what he wanted to achieve. The decoration was decided in a blink”

“I spotted it in the port of Monaco and Googled it,” he explains. Seeing it was for sale with a broker he had worked with before (Alex Busher at Edmiston), he managed to get on board three days later, with all of his children in tow. Ten days after that, an agreement had been ironed out between the current and former owners and the sale was completed just 92 days after the yacht joined the market.

I’m meeting the current owner on board the boat, which is anchored just off the coast of Monaco. He has an interesting approach to his work and his life. On the one hand, he is determined, rarely slows down to second-guess and has a fondness for the party lifestyle.

On the other hand, he takes a keen interest in wellness and healthy living. Mornings begin with ice plunges, sessions in the sauna in the owner’s suite and long swims in the sea (usually between the yacht’s anchored position and the shore). Meals are largely plant-based and packed with superfoods and days on board are spent in a flurry of activity putting the yacht’s mammoth toy chest to good use.

When I arrive for my tour, the owner’s children are zooming around on Seabobs, and his youngest son is going into his third hour in the aft deck pool (the harnesses overhead hold swimmers in place while they swim, simulating a counter-current).

On shore, the family will often rent five-a-side football pitches and challenge the crew to a match. Ensuring the boat was family-friendly was another big checkbox for the owner, who has several children aged from eight years old to their late twenties. “[The owner] always said [he wanted] the children to feel at home here, like they want to come back,” says Rouse. “Not like it’s a chore to be on board.”

Translating that into the yacht was part of Luxury Projects’ mission. One of Pomponi’s favourite features is a custom-made, waveshaped sofa in the upper saloon, the central chill-out zone on board, which was conceived to feel like “a big lounge seat”.

Spanning two tiers to create a cinema-room effect, it required huge bolts of continuous material, because its unique shape meant there was nowhere to hide any seams in the fabric. The fabric itself is a heavyduty velvet specifically selected to stand the test of time. “He is very clear in how he wanted to use areas,” says Kroesen. “He did very well in personalising areas so that they become functional for his use.”

Lightening up the yacht was another priority for Pomponi, and it was achieved by covering many of the walls in the owner’s corridors with fabric panels to mask the dark wood. The tall side cabinets that flank the dining space have the same wood detailing, so Luxury Projects introduced Vetrite glass slabs to brighten the space.

The lower deck was fairly gloomy as well, but because the overheads on this level had to be removed and reinstalled to run cables through them to accommodate the pool, Pomponi seized the opportunity to reupholster them in a new shade.

The second thing on the agenda was colour, something which both owner and designer shared a love for. In the owner’s cabin, a dusky antique rose is complemented by a delicate pear green, evident in the custom-made fish-shaped bedside lamps and the watercolour-effect carpet from Oliver Treutlein. Some of the wood has been kept, though, because the original marquetry was so detailed.

Prior to the refit, the floor in the master cabin was made of a weaved leather, “very expensive but difficult to maintain”, says Pomponi. It was removed during the refit and replaced with a burnt-oak parquet floor.

The design itself can be described as “modern and eclectic in style”, according to Pomponi, with no high-gloss surfaces. Samadhi leans into different textures and bespoke touches. Nature has been introduced into the decor, for example the table in the main saloon designed by Luxury Projects, hand carved from a slice through a tree trunk set on cast bronze roots, and a resin-based artwork in the owner’s corridor, created by an Ancona resin artisan.

With Pomponi’s direction, he used crushed seashells and sand from a local beach, with gold resin poured across it to add a hint of sparkle. There are some personal touches too. A painting of the yacht during her post-refit party at the Amsterdam National Maritime Museum is not only a celebration of the refit works, it also reminds the owner of his grandparents, who owned a small shop that sold herring not too far away from the museum.

Kroesen also believes that the owner’s Dutch roots played a role in helping the refit run so smoothly. “It was very helpful,” he says of the Dutch synergy. “We do understand each other very easily, it was very direct, very easy communication and he’s open [to] explanations [on] why things might be a bad idea.”

It was important to the owner that the ice bath can reach the same dizzyingly cold temperatures as his on-site tub

But perhaps the most personal part of Samadhi is something that came about by accident. In the ceiling panels across the yacht, Pomponi used a type of liquid metal that was specifically chosen for its waved, organic look and feel.

When the owner’s children jump up and down on the huge sofa in the upper saloon, their fingers leave a lasting mark on the metal; it’s a surface that will change, aging with the boat and the family. It means the owner’s love for his family is literally ingrained into the yacht’s design.

“Samadhi” means the state of intense concentration achieved through meditation, and it was already the name of the yacht when the current owner picked her up. He was familiar with the term.

“Two weeks ago I was in India for 10 days doing yoga and meditation,” he explains, “and I loved that feeling”. But, the etymology of the word samadhi means “collect” or “come together” – something that feels very fitting for a yacht designed around family living.

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