Frans Heesen, former owner of Heesen Yachts, whose expertise comes from being a joiner, a yard director and businessman, when the time came to design and build his own yacht after selling the company, chose the somewhat unorthodox move of personalizing a Heesen semi-production yacht rather than building a custom yacht from the ground up. The result of the trust he put in his former company that he built up of 34 years is the architecturally stunning, friendly, efficient and roomy yet private 154 ft (47 m) Lady Petra.
The Heesen yacht was completed and delivered in June of this year, and the Lady Petra is the seventh yacht in the company’s award winning 154 ft. full displacement class.
Although Heesen and his wife purchased the 44 m semi-displacement My Petra in 2009, both felt the boat wasn’t quite the right fit. Hence the customization of the Lady Petra, which could better accommodate the growing Heesen clan. Customization occurred wherever possible, with the interior spaces being tweaked to appear more “friendly” and warm.
Features of the Lady Petra include a family/media room at the main deck’s forward end, an owner’s suite where an upper saloon would usually be, with the aft bridge deck serving as a private seating area. Although the crew areas are standard, guest accommodations are quite spacious. Exterior areas feature a spa pool and sun decks.
Heesen further insisted on having a say on the technical side of things: everything had to be arranged and built for maximum efficiency, comfort, and ease of use. Many technical features are unique to the Lady Petra.
The fact that Heesen selected a semi-production yacht goes to show the excellent quality of the company he played a major role in forming. While it is not a custom ship, one can definitely say that the Lady Petra is truly Frans Heesen’s yacht.
