Royal Huisman
The Huisman shipyard was established in 1884 and has remained a family-owned business specialized in the building, repair and refit of sailing yachts. In the 1960s Wolter Huisman migrated the shipyard materials from wood to aluminium, building production hulls, extruded masts and gradually tapping into the international racing circuit. In 1976, the shipyard built the 65ft Flyer for Conny van Rietschoten, who entered the 1977–78 Whitbread Round the World Race and won. Their success was repeated in the following Whitbread race with van Rietschoten's 76ft Flyer II (1981) which took line honours in all four legs. In turn the shipyard developed successfully in large cruising yachts and Maxi yachts. The shipyard was awarded the Royal seal by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1984 and became known as Royal Huisman.
Construction takes place in a 30,000 m² purpose-built facility with several sheds. Some bespoke yachts are the 47 meter sloop, Hyperion, the 90 meter three mast schooner Athena,[1] the 58 meter ketch Ethereal with hybrid propulsion,[2] and the replica of the Super J-class yacht Endeavour II, Hanuman.[3] and the 57.5 meter performance flybridge ketch Twizzle.[4]
References
- Cornelis van Rietschoten & Barry Pickthall (1979). Flyer: the quest to win the Round the World Race. Stanford Maritime. ISBN 9780540071845.
- Jack A. Somer (1993). Juliet. ISBN 9783884121726.
- Jack A. Somer (2005). Athena. Stitching Foundation. ISBN 9789090195179.
- Stephen Chipperfield (2009). Royal Huisman - 125 years. ISBN 9789081448611.