Inside the Feadship sales psyche
Marsha van Buitenen, sales director, Feadship. (Photo: Feadship)
The client was poised over the contract, ready to sign, when his wife piped up: “Is this the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought for yourself?”
He paused, flushed and grinned. “The emotion came in,” says Marsha van Buitenen, sales director, Feadship. “These clients have spent money on corporate things, purchasing companies, buildings, planes, when emotion is much less of an issue. But a yacht purchase is deeply personal.”
Another time, Feadship sent a client a birthday card decorated with a drawing of the yacht they were discussing. The card arrived a day early, but the client called back on his birthday to advance the talks. “That personal gesture reinforced the relationship and helped build confidence for the next step,” she says.
For yacht buyers there is the “smart deal, the emotion and the nitty gritty of the whole thing”, adds Van Buitenen. “That last part is usually not what they’re interested in, but it all makes for an interesting situation,” she says.
Taking resale value into account is part of the deal, but often those conversations are kept to the team surrounding the buyer, according to Van Buitenen.
“It isn’t often a discussion you have with the owner,” she says. “These people are smart enough to make this money so they’re smart enough to make a good deal. Resale value is part of the deal, but in the end, it is an emotional product, they are focused on their dream.”
‘Big deal’ for owners
For a brand such as Feadship, flogging its wares might seem like one of the easier sales jobs out there. But discussions, at least with more inexperienced buyers, are often about the “tangible difference”.
“How do you measure quality? Sometimes it can be in noise levels and vibrations. How do you measure comfort? That’s an interesting discussion, always,” says Van Buitenen, who runs the sales team with Pier Posthuma de Boer.
She adds: “Your operational costs are so much lower when the quality is higher. In addition, your downtime is much more limited, which is a big deal for the owners. And then, of course, there is a sense of pride in owning something truly exceptional.”
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Reflecting on 2025, Van Buitenen acknowledges that Feadship is not immune from geopolitical uncertainty, suggesting times of upheaval can lead to a “slowdown” across the board.
“Whether it’s stable good or stable bad, that doesn’t matter, it’s the uncertainty that locks our industry,” she adds. But as the tariff traumas of last year subsided and inquiries picked up, she notes an increase in requests for large yachts, often over 100m.
“You see it in the whole industry, the movement towards larger yachts,” she says. “And then for ourselves, we’re seeing interest in what we call smaller yachts, about 50m, that are fully custom.”
Feadship unveiled Project 717 in January. (Photo: Feadship)
Like most companies acting in the ultra-high-net-worth space, Feadship is focused on understanding the dynamics of the world’s wealth. With the US as the clear epicentre, it is sensitive to the shifting geographics of wealth and the knock-on effect to the superyacht industry.
“It is wealth migration on the one hand and it’s the inclination to buy a yacht on the other hand,” she says. “The inclination to buy yachts is only moving very, very slowly.”
Cultural differences
Van Buitenen says the growing number of billionaires in Asia means it is a market “you should not ignore”.
She suggests different regions show different usage patterns and expectations, influenced by local infrastructure, lifestyle and regulatory environments.
“In Asia, specifically China, the cultural differences are a bigger impact than anything else,” she adds, explaining how the “concept of leisure” was not traditionally part of the Asian culture. The mentality is changing and infrastructure developing accordingly, but it will take time, she adds.
“It is something you need to be patient for, but it will come,” says Van Buitenen.
As a full-custom yard, catering for the nuances of different cultures throws up some interesting observations. For example, in Asia, a lot of yachts are also used as a business tool and so are used more for day cruising than long trips.
“So that’s a completely different yacht than for an American client, who will go on board for a longer time, make a huge exploration trip, and work from his boat,” she says. “And in the Middle East, it’s a bit in the middle of that. In the US, you’ll have clients who want huge sun decks. And in the Middle East, we’ll see that a little bit less. So there is just that subtle difference.”
Feadship’s 101m Moonrise was delivered in 2025.
American clients, she adds, tend to be “a little bit more out there” in their wishes and more insistent on “vocalising” them to ensure they are met.
“Once you come to Feadship, it is the pedigree, it is the quality, but it’s also, can I get what I want?” says Van Buitenen. “As long as the laws of physics will allow us, we can try to make it happen. And then you have a breakthrough yacht.”
That is a neat segue into Feadship’s 118m Breakthrough, the world’s first hydrogen fuel-cell powered superyacht which was delivered in May 2025.
“It was a client wish, where we collaborated together with the client to make it come true,” she adds. “So it pushes us in new directions. As a company, that’s very interesting. It’s also interesting for our employees. It gives an energy and a buzz in the company.”
‘Just people’
Buitenen joined Feadship in 2017 with a masters degree in architecture, an MBA, experience running large investment portfolios and 20 years in real estate. Her lack of yachting knowledge was viewed as a positive. “It is the different angles people can bring and the different types of knowledge you can bring,” she says.
“I did have a lot of knowledge of the front end of the process, whether that’s sales and developing the products or bringing all the stakeholders and the legal and the financial together in a sales process.”
A comprehensive revamp of a sales contract in her early weeks was a significant value add.
“If I look where my strengths lie, it’s keeping the big picture and making sure everything aligns on all levels,” she says. “And can we actually build what we promise?”
One key learning she has developed over a varied career is about the wealthy individuals she deals with.
“In the end, they’re just people,” she says. “Each client is different, but ultimately the motivations are human: family, experiences and meaningful moments.”
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