Feadship’s new 84m Obsidian luxury yacht runs on HVO

In the Netherlands, the recently built 84.20-meter Obsidian is the first of Feadship’s new generation of large yachts furthering carbon reduction through hulls optimised at cruising speed instead of top speed, weight control, advancements in electric propulsion, and the ability to run engines on HVO. In fact, the yacht’s trials were conducted with the generators running on this second-generation biofuel, reducing carbon emissions by 90% compared to yachts operating on fossil fuels.

The brief for the yacht was to be more energy efficient and emit less carbon than Feadship’s ground-breaking hybrid yacht, Savannah, which launched in 2015. Reducing the environmental impact by more than 30% would have been a tall order in any case, but the entire 12-month design period for Obsidian occurred at the height of a global pandemic. With Covid-19 lockdowns, none of the designers, engineers, or other parties were able to collaborate in person.