The odd thing about Niels van Dinther is that he is not covetous. For 12 years he has built superyachts for billionaires, refining and redesigning them according to their shifting whims, yet he is content with the two sailing dinghies he owns. “I’d be happy to sail on some of the yachts we produce, but I’ve no great desire to own one,” he says.
Van Dinther, who began sailing when he was four, is a natural seaman who rides the waves for the love of it, whereas the huge vessels he oversees are floating status symbols for the over-rich who might spend thousands on a light fitting to replicate something glimpsed in a manor house or film. Not that Van Dinther admits to seeing it that way, although part of his job involves inventing methods to indulge the sometimes impossible-seeming fantasies of his clients.
“No boat is the same, so there’s always a new challenge,” he says. “The biggest headache was a guy who wanted huge windows in the hull of a sailing boat which has rounded sides,” he recalls. “We had to seek planning approval, for if the glass breaks in the hull, the sea comes in.”
Van Dinther, 48, is project manager at Pendennis shipyard, Britain’s only customised superyacht builder and refitter. It’s his job to plan and run the revampings of existing superyachts, and the building of new commissions.
Demand for superyachts has more than doubled over the past decade with over 5,000 currently sailing globally. And as the wealth of the world’s elite has ballooned, so has the size of their crafts. The largest currently in service is 164m and cost €340m to build. “When I started 12 years ago a 50-metre boat was considered large,” Van Dinther says. “Now the average is 70 metres, for which you’re talking around £60m, and a lot of them are over 100 metres.”
Boats can take up to three-and-a-half years to build from scratch, by which time fashions have altered and technology evolved. “Clients can be quite demanding and quite often change their minds or come up with a new idea after chartering an interim yacht and seeing a new piece of technology or design,” Van Dinther says. “One owner decided that his boat was too short and wanted an extra five meters added to the middle, so we had to cut it in half and add a central section.”
Van Dinther’s expertise was garnered on the ocean where he lived and worked for 34 years before regaining land. He was 13 and at school in his native Holland when his parents sold up – house and possessions – and equipped themselves to sail round the world. He was given the choice of moving in with relatives while he finished his schooling or going too. He went too.
For four years the family shifted from marinas in the Caribbean and Mediterranean and Van Dinther and his brother began earning pocket money by cleaning and polishing the yachts moored alongside. “We ended up cleaning bilges and behind engines because we were small,” he says. “I automatically wanted to get a job on a boat so I started at 17 as a deck hand, became a skipper at 21 on a private yacht, and carried on captaining boats until 2002 when my wife and I were expecting our first child and I decided to hang up my sea boots.”
The family moved to England where his wife was born, and Van Dinther sought work in the field he knew best. He sent his CV to Pendennis on spec and was hired two days later as a joinery supervisor. “I had no background in joinery, but when I was working on boats as captain I did lots of hands-on work so had experience of repairs,” he says. As the company quadrupled in size, he was promoted to project manager.
Priorities have evolved as much as proportions during his years in the industry. Currently there’s an emphasis on “toys” – expensive recreational kit ranging from water skis to – in one case – an amphibious plane. “There’s a vogue for really elaborate inflatable water slides into the sea, and for helicopters, and clients want cunning ways of turning the heli hangar into a swimming pool,” he says. “I spend a lot of time trying to find ways of incorporating something the client demands – one wanted a running machine that could be removed from view when required so I had to devise a way of hiding it under the floor.”
In cases where wealth eclipses taste, it can be hard to fulfil fantasies without a secret shudder. “You can get very blingy clients and it’s so over the top you think ‘Oh my God this is terrible’,” Van Dinther admits. “You do put more of your heart and soul into it when you like the design.”
He’s been asked to recreate everything from London gentlemen’s clubs and art deco palaces to gilded bathrooms, and to replicate obscure taps or light fittings. Frustratingly, the most lavish fittings might have the briefest survival rates as billionaire tastes shift with the seasons and craft are resold. “We once refitted a motor yacht and gave it a new £2m interior, and a year later the client sold it and the new owner ripped it all out.”
Bling apart, the superyacht industry, which is worth around €24bn worldwide, incorporates the traditional skills of carpentry, rendering, plastering and welding, and applicants with expertise in any of these could try their luck at a shipyard.
Pendennis runs a four-year general apprenticeship scheme and 70% of the 160 people trained so far are still employed by the firm. Otherwise, the seafaring route taken by Van Dinther is a good way in. “It helps if you can show an interest in sailing,” he says. “Get experience as a crew member by flying to the south of France in season and looking for work. Or do a catering degree and find work as a steward or cook on board. If you can be versatile and turn your hand to painting or woodwork, that makes an impression.”
The rewards are when, after months or years of labour, the vessel emerges from its plastic shroud under which the teams will have been toiling and the full drama of their handiwork is revealed. With luck the billionaire client will share the thrill.
