Steeler Heritage

The Next Generation line was how Steeler announced its presence in the premium motoryacht world over a decade ago. It also captures the innovative spirit which has driven our yard and its people since the get-go.

The NG line was designed to be totally different from all the slow displacement boats built in steel in the Netherlands. The NG hull offers one and a half times its theoretical hull speed, a far superior performance to the everyday displacement hulls available elsewhere. What’s more, the NG yachts don’t look like a steel boat above the waterline, the standard boxy aesthetic of which are rarely a statement of beauty.

One of the reasons why the NG line came out so well is because we did not know what we were getting ourselves into! Determined to create a steel yacht that looked impressive, we did not realise how difficult it would be and that you need to design a yacht with at least three times as many steel parts. If we’d appreciated how challenging it is to bend so much steel to get the nicely rounded and unmistakably Steeler forms we might never have embarked on the journey!

But we did and the results were very well received. The name Next Generation was chosen as we’d created something that genuinely did not exist in this size range a decade ago.

The idea for the Panorama initially arose over lunch with a client at the London boat show who only had two years boating experience. He was thoroughly enjoying his new hobby but asked us why motoryachts had to have so many different levels, with lots of steps and stairs to navigate. We explained how motoryachts have traditionally been organised around the engine room and that glass hadn’t been suitable to use as part of the construction.

And then we stopped… Engines are much smaller today, the flexibility for the design of the underwater ship is much higher and glass can be part of the structure – so yes, of course we could build a single level living boat for this client. The result was the Panorama Flatfloor: a boat that is like an apartment from stern to bow. As some sort of structure is required to drive the boat we added a comfortable wheelhouse and sun terrace on top of the apartment, easily reached in just a few steps. This concept was a great success – winning the European Powerboat of the Year award in 2015 – and has since been copied, although never emulated, by many others in the industry.