Feadship and Lurssen are the two shipyards an owner commissioning a $100M-plus build should consider, and in most cases the only two. Both have been building yachts at the top of the market since the 1960s, both run vertically integrated operations with in-house engineering, naval architecture, and project management at a depth no other yard matches, and both deliver yachts at a build quality the rest of the industry uses as the reference standard. We rank Feadship at No. I on our best shipyards page and Lurssen at No. II, with a margin under one point. The decision between them is rarely about build quality. The yards are at parity on hull, paint, engineering, and finish. The decision is about LOA band, design culture, project tempo, and a handful of structural factors we name below.
This comparison sits behind the Feadship review and the Lurssen review and tracks both.
The 30-second verdict
Pick Feadship for builds at 60m to 90m, particularly where the design language is led by a Dutch or British studio (De Voogt, RWD, Bannenberg & Rowell, Studio De Voogt) and the project has a 36-to-48-month delivery window. Pick Lurssen for builds at 90m to 180m, particularly where the technical specification (heli-pad, submarine garage, ice-class, hybrid propulsion, naval-architecture innovation) is the load-bearing variable and the project has a 42-to-72-month delivery window. The 80-to-100m contested band is the close-call zone and the five edge cases that decide it are below.
The structural similarities
Both yards operate as private companies (Feadship is a Dutch consortium of Royal Van Lent and De Vries; Lurssen is family-owned, based in Bremen) with multi-generational continuity, capital structures that allow long project cycles, and order books deep enough to require slot acquisition 2 to 4 years in advance of the build start. Both have invested in build halls that take yachts up to 180m LOA (Feadship's new Amsterdam facility, Lurssen's Bremen-Lemwerder and Rendsburg). Both have engineering departments of 200 to 400 people at the company level [VERIFY: engineering headcount].
Both yards deliver yachts at a resale-value premium to the rest of the market. A 60m Feadship from 2018 will sell at 75 to 90 percent of replacement cost in 2026. A 90m Lurssen from 2018 will sell at the same band. Comparable yachts from other top-five yards run at 55 to 75 percent of replacement cost. The Feadship and Lurssen premium is the most reliable indicator the market gives that the build quality is at the reference standard.
The differences sit in design culture, LOA preference, and project temperament. We work through them next.
Nine dimensions, side by side
| Dimension | Feadship | Lurssen |
|---|---|---|
| Country | Netherlands | Germany |
| Founded | 1949 (consortium) | 1875 (yard); 1960s in superyacht segment |
| Sweet-spot LOA | 50m to 100m | 90m to 180m |
| Largest delivered | 102m (Symphony, 2015) [VERIFY: current largest] | 156m (Dilbar, 2016) [VERIFY: current largest] |
| Annual deliveries | 4 to 8 yachts | 4 to 8 yachts |
| Design culture | Dutch refinement, often paired with British exterior studios | German engineering rigor, often paired with multinational exterior studios |
| Project tempo | Tighter on shorter builds | Calibrated for longer builds |
| Hybrid and alternative propulsion | Strong, including methanol fuel-cell work | Strong, including hydrogen and methanol work |
| Resale premium vs replacement | 75 to 90 percent at 5 to 10 years | 75 to 90 percent at 5 to 10 years |
The two dimensions that decide most reader decisions on this page are sweet-spot LOA and project tempo. At 60m to 90m with a 36-to-48-month window, Feadship is the natural choice. At 100m-plus with a longer window, Lurssen is.
Where Feadship wins
Feadship is the yard we recommend on four specific kinds of builds.
The first is the 60m-to-80m motor yacht with a Dutch or British design studio at the helm. The De Voogt internal studio, the long-standing RWD relationship, and the Bannenberg & Rowell history mean that a Feadship build at this LOA will route through the design studios that have shaped the band over four decades. Lurssen can match the studio access but the Feadship-studio combination has more depth.
The second is the build with a tight 36-month delivery window where the owner wants the yacht in the water by a specific summer. Feadship runs a slightly tighter project tempo on shorter builds than Lurssen does, and the slot availability at the Amsterdam and Aalsmeer facilities is easier to align with a specific season delivery.
The third is the build where the build hall and the engineering team need to coordinate on a high-volume design-change cycle. Feadship is calibrated to handle late-stage design changes with less project disruption than Lurssen, which works best with frozen specifications by the 30 percent build mark. An owner who knows they will change minds on interior or systems through the build cycle should default to Feadship.
The fourth is the build where the post-delivery refit relationship is part of the decision. Feadship's owner-base loyalty across multiple builds (the brokerage market refers to "Feadship lifers" for a reason) is supported by a refit-and-service operation in the Netherlands that runs through the same yard relationships. A Lurssen owner does most refit work at third-party yards. A Feadship owner can route major refit through the original build hall.
Where Lurssen wins
Lurssen is the yard we recommend on four specific kinds of builds.
The first is the 100m-plus build. Lurssen has delivered more yachts above 100m LOA than any other yard in the world. The engineering and project management at this LOA is structurally tuned to the scale, and the build halls (Bremen-Lemwerder and Rendsburg) handle yachts up to 180m with the right hull-handling infrastructure. Feadship has delivered 100m-plus yachts (Symphony at 102m is the headline) but the band is not where the yard is calibrated. Lurssen runs the band as its primary segment.
The second is the build with a complex technical specification. Helipads with certified clearances, submarine garages with crane integration, ice-class hull notation, multi-fuel propulsion systems, redundant naval-grade dynamic positioning, and hybrid-electric drive trains all run more naturally through Lurssen's engineering culture than through Feadship's. Feadship will deliver any of these specifications credibly. Lurssen will deliver them at engineering depth.
The third is the build with a 42-to-72-month delivery window where the owner is willing to spend the time on the project. Lurssen's project tempo on long builds is calibrated to the timeline and the build hall flow handles 4-to-6-year cycles without the disruption a shorter-cycle yard would face.
The fourth is the build where the naval architecture is led by an in-house team or a partner studio with engineering depth rather than aesthetic depth. Lurssen's relationship with the Espen Oeino design studio, with the Winch Design exterior studio, and with the Andrew Winch and Reymond Langton interior studios runs through engineering rather than through aesthetic taste. The Feadship-RWD relationship runs through aesthetic taste. Both are credible. The Lurssen route favors owners who prioritize the technical specification.
Where it is too close to call
The 80-to-100m contested band is genuinely contested. Both yards run the band as a strong secondary segment, both will deliver to specification at the reference build quality, and both have credible slot availability in 2027 to 2030. The decision comes down to design culture preference (Feadship for Dutch refinement, Lurssen for German engineering rigor), to specific designer relationships, and to the owner's tolerance for project tempo.
The hybrid and alternative-fuel build is similarly contested. Both yards have invested aggressively in hybrid-electric drive trains, methanol fuel-cell work, and hydrogen storage research. Lurssen has a slight lead on the regulatory side (the yard's engagement with the IMO emissions framework runs deeper) and Feadship has a slight lead on the integration side (the yard's hybrid drive trains have been in service longer in real-world conditions). The lead changes with each new delivery and we expect this dimension to be at parity within the next 36 months.
Three myths to ignore
The first myth is that Feadship is the more refined yard and Lurssen is the more industrial. This is a sales-cycle talking point and does not survive a yard visit. Both yards finish yachts to the reference standard. The "refinement gap" was real in the 1990s. It is not real in 2026.
The second myth is that Lurssen does not build below 100m. The yard does build below 100m, and well; the most recent sub-90m Lurssen deliveries are at a build quality indistinguishable from the larger ones. The reason owners default to Feadship below 90m is sweet-spot calibration, not Lurssen's capability.
The third myth is that the yards are interchangeable on the 60m-to-100m band. They are not. The design culture, the project tempo, and the post-delivery service relationships are different enough that the owner who is choosing between them should make the decision on those grounds rather than on build quality, which is at parity.
What we would change about both
Feadship we would change on the slot transparency for new-build inquiries. The yard's slot availability is communicated through the brokerage channel and the data is harder to read than it should be. A buyer interested in a 2027 or 2028 slot is at the mercy of the brokerage's information flow. Lurssen runs the same model and shares the same weakness.
Lurssen we would change on the design-change cycle tolerance. The yard's project workflow is calibrated for frozen specifications by the 30 percent build mark. An owner who changes minds late will pay materially more at Lurssen than at Feadship. This is the engineering rigor working as designed, and there is nothing wrong with it in principle, but the owner should know it before signing.
How to inquire
A new-build inquiry at either yard runs through the broker-of-record channel. Burgess, Edmiston, Cecil Wright, and Moran Yachts all hold broker-of-record relationships with both yards. We discuss the broker-of-record route on the how to buy a yacht page and the broker rankings on the best yacht sales brokers page.