Heesen Yachts has revealed Project Ananda, a striking new 72.3-metre Smart Custom superyacht created in collaboration with Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design. Sleek, serene and quietly spectacular, the project marks the first new design to be unveiled under Heesen’s new owner, Laurens Last, and signals a fresh chapter for the Dutch shipyard.
Scheduled for delivery in 2030, with keel laying planned for November 2026, Project Ananda brings together Heesen’s formidable engineering pedigree with a more emotionally intelligent vision of life on the water: private, flexible, wellness-led and deeply personal.
Named after the Sanskrit word for “inner joy”, Ananda is conceived not simply as a yacht, but as a floating sanctuary. Across five expansive decks, she has been designed to create a feeling of ease, flow and quiet pleasure, where sculptural architecture, soft transitions and generous living spaces come together in a refined world of movement, light and calm.
Project Ananda is the first design revealed since Laurens Last acquired Heesen last year, and it arrives with a sense of intent. This is not a departure from the shipyard’s DNA, but a polished evolution of it.
Her silhouette retains the muscular elegance for which Heesen is known, yet the language has become softer, more fluid and more lifestyle-driven. The exterior lines are clean and poised, with a contemporary profile that feels powerful without being aggressive. She has the presence of a serious ocean-going yacht, but the atmosphere of a private retreat.
At 72.3 metres and approximately 1,750 GT, Ananda offers substantial volume without losing grace. Her five decks, Lower, Main, Owner’s, Bridge and Sun Deck, have been carefully arranged to create a seamless rhythm between interior and exterior life.
At the centre of the concept is an unusually flexible Owner’s Deck, available in two distinct configurations.
Owners can choose a forward-facing private deck, creating a more secluded and contemplative residence at sea, or an aft-facing layout that opens into a more social, expansive environment. Both versions have been designed as deeply adaptable living spaces, allowing the yacht to be shaped around the owner’s daily rituals, entertaining style and personal sense of privacy.
This flexibility gives Project Ananda a rare intelligence. She is not designed around a rigid idea of luxury, but around the way people actually want to live: sometimes quietly, sometimes socially, always beautifully.
Accommodation aboard Project Ananda has been imagined with modern yachting families and multi-generational travel in mind.
Alongside the principal suite on the Owner’s Deck, a second full-beam master suite on the Bridge Deck offers comparable space and comfort. This removes the conventional hierarchy often found on board, creating a more generous and democratic arrangement for families, close friends or charter guests.
It is a subtle but important shift. Ananda understands that today’s superyacht experience is no longer only about spectacle. It is about comfort, privacy, choice and the ability for every guest to feel properly considered.
Embarkation has been designed with the same level of precision. Amidships, a shell door opens onto a dedicated docking platform, creating a discreet and cinematic arrival point. From there, guests are led directly to a central glass elevator, allowing them to move through the yacht without crossing private or social spaces.
The result is a sense of quiet exclusivity from the very first moment on board. Arrival becomes smooth, private and beautifully choreographed, less a practical necessity than the opening scene of the experience.
Project Ananda places a strong emphasis on the elegant dissolution of boundaries between inside and out.
Her pool deck, finished in luminous travertine, connects directly to the main lounge through fully openable glass panels. When opened, the two areas become one continuous living space: airy, sunlit and effortlessly adaptable from long, languid afternoons to glittering evening gatherings.
The deck has been deliberately kept clean and uncluttered, with mooring equipment concealed to preserve the yacht’s serene architectural lines. Every gesture is considered. Every surface has room to breathe.
It is this restraint that gives Ananda her sophistication. Nothing feels overworked. Nothing shouts. The luxury is in the spaciousness, the quiet detailing and the way the yacht seems to open herself to the sea.
Wellness sits at the heart of the onboard experience. A dedicated spa and beach club spans approximately 100 square metres, creating a refined private retreat at water level. The space includes a sauna, steam room, ice bath, snow shower, treatment room and hyperbaric chamber, offering a complete ritual of recovery, restoration and calm.
Developed in collaboration with Heesen’s human health engineering specialists, the wellness area responds to the growing desire for yachts that support not only leisure, but genuine physical and emotional wellbeing.
This is superyacht design for a more conscious age: restorative, sensorial and quietly advanced.
The interiors of Project Ananda will be crafted entirely in-house by Heesen Interiors in Winterswijk, ensuring consistency, precision and exceptional finish throughout.
The Smart Custom platform gives future owners extensive scope for personalisation, from materials and layouts to decorative detailing and atmosphere. Working closely with the shipyard and design teams, owners will be able to shape Ananda into a yacht that feels unmistakably their own.
This is where the project’s name becomes most meaningful. Inner joy is not a decorative concept here. It is expressed through choice, tactility, privacy and the ability to create a world at sea that reflects the people living within it.
Beneath her elegant exterior, Project Ananda is engineered for serious long-range performance.
Her ultra-fuel-efficient steel hull is paired with hybrid propulsion, combining twin MTU 12V4000 M65L IMO Tier III engines with PTI/PTO gearboxes. The system allows for silent cruising for up to four hours, reducing noise and vibration while underway and enhancing the yacht’s sense of calm.
Naval architecture and tank testing have already been completed, with construction scheduled to begin in November 2026.
Project Ananda: Main Characteristics
Project Name: YN 21872 Project Ananda
Length / Gross Tonnage: 72.3 metres / approx. 1,750 GT
Hull: Ultra-fuel-efficient steel hull
Decks: Five — Lower, Main, Owner’s, Bridge and Sun Deck
Hybrid Propulsion: Twin MTU 12V4000 M65L IMO Tier III engines, 2 x 1,920 kW, with PTI/PTO gearboxes enabling silent cruising for up to four hours
Customisation: Built on speculation as a Smart Custom platform with extensive personalisation options
Interior Construction: Crafted in-house by Heesen Interiors
Interior & Exterior Design: Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design
Delivery: 2030
Keel Laying: November 2026
With Project Ananda, Heesen presents a yacht that feels both commanding and contemplative. She is technically sophisticated, aesthetically poised and emotionally attuned to the way contemporary owners want to move through the world.
Her strength lies not only in her scale, but in her softness. Not only in her engineering, but in her atmosphere. From her flexible Owner’s Deck and dual master suites to her travertine pool deck, private arrival sequence and expansive wellness sanctuary, Ananda has been designed as a place of privacy, pleasure and renewal.
As the first new design of Heesen’s next chapter, Project Ananda makes a quietly powerful statement. Under new ownership, the shipyard enters a more dynamic and exciting era, one defined by sharpened ambition, elevated lifestyle thinking and a bold desire to shape the future of superyachting.
