How to build a luxury fully customized yachts with a short building time at a competitive price? The answer is: pre-determined operational platform. That is Icon Yachts' approach and it works very well.
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At Icon Yachts engineers complete the hydrodynamic and technical design in 3-D engineering software before any construction is started. With this approach, they virtually build and optimize the yacht, and that process enables them to do a great deal of pre-fabrication of systems and bring these on board as factory tested modules.
The main man power behind Icon Yachts are two well-known maritime experts: Wim Koersvelt and Jen Wartena. Wim Koersvelt brings with him about 36 years of experience in the luxury yacht building industry and is recognised as an industry expert, witness his regularly invitations as guest speaker and contributions to articles and discussions.
Wim has worked as project manager in the United States and Europe and set up the first yacht building yard in the People’s Republic of China.
Since 1994, he has successfully operated Koersvelt Yacht Projects, during which period he has managed the interests of about fifty yacht owners during the construction of their new yachts at just about all the leading builders in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the Middle East. Jen and Wim are passionate about their chosen profession and are motivated to make ICON Yachts a new industry leader.
This dedication and drive is reflected in the organisation of the company around a key team of Technical Specialists each with matching knowledge and enthusiasm about a specific aspect yacht- and ship building construction process.
Jen Wartena studied at the Delft Technical University and started his career at one of the commercial ship builders in the Netherland’s northern province Groningen. Here his talents were recognised and Jen was given the opportunity and freedom to organise the construction of a series of tankers in a non-traditional manner. He introduced modular construction principles, extensive use 3-modeling tools and moved inefficient man-hours away from the ship into efficient workshops.
Then, to broaden his horizons, Jen worked from 2000 through 2004 at one of Holland’s leading yacht builders, where he was responsible for improving operational and production management procedures. Jen and Wim are passionate about their chosen profession and are motivated to make ICON Yachts a new industry leader. This dedication and drive is reflected in the organisation of the company around a key team of Technical Specialists each with matching knowledge and enthusiasm about a specific aspect yacht and ship building construction process. ■