Feadship’s Royal Van Lent shipyard has announced radical plans to expand its premises on Kaag Island in the Netherlands. Due to the limited spatial options around the yard, Royal van Lent will extend underground in order to build even larger yachts over the coming years. Like its fellow Feadship yard Koninklijke De Vries Scheepsbouw, Royal van Lent has been building increasingly longer yachts over recent years. The first part of the expansion will see the hall doors being widened and the dry-dock door moved five meters forward to provide the space necessary to fit the long propeller shafts on larger yachts. Construction is due to start in August 2012.
Another change will be to one of the yard’s two slipways, which is currently built on wooden piles and is unsuitable for yachts over 45 meters. With Royal Van Lent planning to concentrate primarily on yachts over 60 meters, the modernization of the slipway is scheduled to start in August of this year and will involve underground work. The overall investment in new facilities totals some several millions of Euros.
Royal Van Lent will also see widening the locks in the nearby city of Gouda from 12 to 14 meters. The bridges in the towns of Oude and Nieuwe Wetering will also be extended to the same width, with an expected completion date of 2012.