Once modestly sized and human in scale, over the past 20 years yachts have grown exponentially into floating villages that typically top 100m in length. In terms of size, cost, complexity and prestige, today’s superyachts are rivalled only by private spacecraft. In ‘Feadship Uncovered’, journalist and writer John Weich explores why billionaires are willing to line up to own a Feadship, or, to avoid the waiting list, buy one second hand.
“We deliberately chose to preserve the mystical aspect inherent in storytelling. It’s all about using your imagination to visualize what we convey,” says Feadship’s Chief Marketing Officer Farouk Nefzi.
“In the past 75 years, around 450 Feadships have been built,” says host John Weich, who worked closely with Feadship’s project management team and with podcast makers Tonny Media on the production. “Scarcity explains part of its appeal, but for someone to spend hundreds of millions on a yacht I knew there had to be more to it. That’s what this podcast is about.”
For the series, Feadship gave John unprecedented access to its people, craftsmen and shipyards. Across seven 30-minute episodes, listeners can follow John through his design process. He interviews influential people in design, innovation and research & development, as well as captains and crew, shipyard directors and apprentices. In his effort to design a yacht of his own, he touches on everything from ethical sourcing of materials and hydrogen propulsion to finding the right crew and maintenance. While John is familiar with the luxury world, he knows little about the ins and outs of yachting, making the series exciting for casual listeners.
“It is of course fascinating to view Feadship through the lens of a prospective owner, which is basically what John is in the series,” adds Nefzi. “But it’s also personal to me. I wanted to tell the story of Feadship in a way that mimics the way my own grandfather told us captivating stories in the old days, which is so much more powerful than a visual documentary. I think we’ve succeeded in this.”
‘Feadship Uncovered’ is available on Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon and other major podcast platforms. New episodes appear each Sunday with the grand finale on Sunday 20 August.
