Founding Shipborn
In 2016, Alber van Ekeren had the idea of building a luxury sailing yacht of his own. The idea
seemed intimidating at first, yet he decided to gather advice from different experts in the industry.
After a while, he became more excited about the challenge to build a yacht of his own, and later
that year he took the leap and ordered the hull of the Truly Classic 90, which would form the basis
of the yacht. Shipborn was born.
In 2017, Alber formed a team of young-minded builders with a creative problem solving mindset.
At this moment, a team of five people are building the yacht full time. The team includes two
engineers, a furniture-maker, an all-round employee and a manager. Also, from 2017 there have
been numerous students from technical studies who have researched and developed innovative
solutions for challenges like developing a hybrid engine, a fully automatic swimming platform and
a design of the machine room that is conveniënt for maintenance.
And then I saw videos of a TC90 on Claasen Shipyard’s website: pfff, to build this would be so cool!! I can’t show the videos here, unfortunately, but you can have a look on Claasen Shipyard’s website here:
Mission
Being sailing enthousiasts ourselves, we know how it feels to sail the seas with such a beautiful
classic sailing yacht. It is incredible when the conditions are right. Yet, we also know that sailing
on a classic sailing yacht comes with hassle as well. The misery of mooring with 20 knots of wind
is not something to get excited about, and the necessity of hiring personnel while you would
rather be taking friends aboard is not exactly convenient either. Leave alone the awkward feeling
of having to lay a gangway between the shore and your luxury yacht by hand. We think it is
ridiculous that in an era where everything is possible, there are still so many luxury yachts that
come with these inconveniences.
As a team of young creative thinkers, it is our mission to build a yacht that takes away all the
misery that comes with a classic sailing yacht, leaving the user with the sheer joy of owning a
classic sailing yacht.
