Back to previous page    Language   Italian   Spanish

Feadship HIVE, 115 metres designed around life on board

HIVE is Feadship’s largest concept yet, combining four connected decks, a 20-metre pool and an electrified energy system

Feadship reveals HIVE, a 115-metre concept shaped around life on board with batteries, fuel cells and alternative fuels

With HIVE, Feadship uses a 115-metre concept yacht to challenge one of the conventional starting points of large-yacht design: arranging the spaces first and then deciding how people will use them. Revealed at the 2026 Monaco Yacht Show, the Studio De Voogt project instead begins with people, shared activities and the ways different experiences can coexist on board.

A concept designed around people

HIVE was developed by the Studio De Voogt team led by senior designer Jan Schaffers, working with Feadship’s naval architects and engineering specialists. A fictional family of four was created as a reference for understanding different needs, habits and ways of spending time aboard.
The process reflects a principle applied to Feadship’s pure custom yachts: understanding how an owner intends to live aboard before turning those requirements into architecture. With HIVE, that approach becomes the central idea of the entire concept.

A shared heart extending across four decks

The name HIVE describes the organising principle of the yacht. Different activities can take place simultaneously while remaining connected to a central gathering point. Feadship also cites the social character of Parisian salons in the 1930s as an influence, with spaces created for conversation, culture and exchange.

At the centre is a vast open area extending across four decks. On the main deck it can become a saloon, performance stage or auditorium, with terraces opening to port and starboard. Curved staircases connect balconies and more intimate areas above, while service rooms and furniture storage allow its purpose to change.

Surrounding this central space are a two-storey beach lounge, water-level dining for 24 or more people and a circular glass-enclosed foredeck library opening onto a secluded garden.

A pool, underwater lounge and observation space

The owner’s deck includes a 20-metre pool fitted with Feadship’s patented ContraWave technology. The pool extends indoors as a suspended infinity pool with a glass bottom.

The relationship with the surroundings changes again in the underwater lounge, which provides views beneath the sea surface. Above, an observation lounge features a retractable glass roof designed to provide an uninterrupted view of the night sky.

These are very different environments, yet they follow the same principle: life on board is not concentrated into one type of space, but distributed between collective areas and quieter retreats that remain connected to the yacht as a whole.

A low profile reshapes the conventional arrangement

At 115 metres long with a 17.50-metre beam and a 4.05-metre draught, HIVE also introduces a further development of Studio De Voogt’s exterior design language. Its long, low profile builds on ideas previously explored through the Pure and C concepts.

One element that makes this arrangement possible is the virtual command centre. Cameras and sensors provide information required for navigation, while retractable glazed wing stations give direct outside visibility during close-quarters manoeuvring.

Moving functions traditionally associated with the bridge allows the forward sections of the superstructure to be used for the owner’s accommodation and observation lounge. Large expanses of glass and integrated terraces also visually connect the levels instead of presenting them as a conventional stack of decks.

HVO, fuel cells and batteries within a DC system

The technical side of HIVE was developed alongside the design. Feadship states that the concept uses technologies that either already exist or are in active development, rather than relying solely on hypothetical systems.

Its DC electrical architecture combines three 900 kW variable-speed permanent-magnet generators running on HVO with fuel cells and a 5 MWh lithium-ion battery bank.

For operation without local emissions from the generators, the concept considers two configurations: seven 75 kW solid oxide fuel cells, or nine 250 kW PEM fuel cells combined with a methanol reformer. According to Feadship, battery capacity is approximately five times that of the 1 MWh installation aboard Savannah.

Propulsion would be provided by Voith Schneider Propellers, which can deliver omnidirectional thrust without conventional rudders. Feadship specifies a projected cruising speed of 12 knots and maximum speed of 16 knots.

Range and alternative fuels

Total proposed fuel capacity for HVO or methanol is 410,000 litres. According to Feadship’s design figures, HIVE would have a range of 9,500 nautical miles at 12 knots using HVO, compared with approximately 5,000 nautical miles at the same speed when operating with methanol.

These figures belong to a concept and are not sea-trial results from a completed yacht. They nevertheless illustrate the work undertaken to integrate architecture, energy generation and storage from the earliest design stage.

A laboratory for future Feadships

Since 2006, Feadship has also used concept designs as a research platform. The yard notes that ideas originally investigated through such projects, including hybrid propulsion, structural uses of glass and alternative fuels, have subsequently appeared aboard completed Feadships.

HIVE continues that process from a different starting point. Before asking which rooms a 115-metre superyacht should contain, it considers how the people aboard might live together. Its significance therefore lies not only in its scale, but in the attempt to develop spatial architecture and technical feasibility as parts of the same design process.

__
Feadship, HIVE concept design

28 September 2026
© MED Yachting Editorial Team
Feadship HIVE, 115 metres designed around life on board
__
The information in this article has been sourced from and adapted from official sources and/or press releases, in accordance with our editorial code of ethics.