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Feadship delivers the latest Gallant Lady to longtime clients Jim and Jan Moran.
by Marilyn Mower-Doering
photography by Richard Hoch
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06/01/2007
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| Feadship 168 |  |
Sometimes it is more meaningful to measure a yacht not by its
overall length, but by the span of time it represents, and to measure its range
not so much in nautical miles, but by the distance it covers in technical and
aesthetic achievements. Launched in November 2006, the 168-foot (51.21-meter)
Gallant Lady, the eighth Feadship built by Jim and Jan Moran, is a
milestone effort, not only for her builder, Henk de Vries III, but for her
owners as well.
 Sliding glass panels, along with the option of
heating or air conditioning, enable all-season use of the aft main
deck. Photograph by Pamela Jones. (Click image to enlarge)
Every Feadship has a unique hull number that not only
identifies the vessel, but indicates whether it was built at the Royal De Vries
yard or the Royal Van Lent yard. Yacht names come and go, but hull numbers are
forever. In 1983, Jim Moran called on Feadship America in Fort Lauderdale with a
request for an aluminum sportfisherman to replace his 58-foot Rybovich. The boat
would be big enough for open oceans and lovely enough for corporate
entertaining. Moran liked the design by Frits de Voogt so much he ordered two of
them, 87-footers to be built at the De Vries yard as Hull Nos. 629 and 630.
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"I was in my twenties then and at university," recalled de
Vries, who now runs the yard. "My cousin Tom was working at the yard, assisting
his dad, Cees de Vries, who was a stickler for interior finish and quality, with
the first Gallant Ladys." Their two sportfishermen were followed by Hull
No. 631, a 131-foot steel yacht. "When I joined the company in 1987, we were
busy building [Moran] hulls 637 in steel and 638 in aluminum," de Vries
added.
 Photograph by Richard Hoch and Pamela Jones. (Click image to enlarge)
Gallant Lady 637, a 167-foot ultra-contemporary four-deck
yacht with rows of tinted windows hidden in sweeping bands of black paint, was a
radical departure for De Voogt Naval Architects, de Vries and for megayacht
trends. Gallant Lady 638, a 27-knot 116-footer later known as
Detroit Eagle, established the direction of yachtfishermen. With all
of the boats, Moran was pushing the design envelope, and pushing the designers
to look toward automotive styling trends for inspiration. Moran has, after
all, spent his entire adult life in the automobile business.
For their fifth Feadship, Jim and Jan Moran departed from their
previous insistence that the boats have a fishing cockpit. Gallant
Lady 645—the Morans, their crews and their entire marine department refer to
the boats by hull number—splashed in 1992. This 130-footer pushed the envelope a different way by demanding all amenities of a major, high-volume yacht in a
boat with shallow enough draft to run the Gulf Coast’s Intracoastal Waterway.
 The hand-cut inlays topping the low salon tables
feature the 17 stones used aboard. Photograph by Richard Hoch and Pamela Jones. (Click image to enlarge)
"On the maiden voyage of hull 645, while I was on summer
holiday, the yard received messages from the boat en route that they were
designing a vessel with three massive vertical windows. Many meetings followed,"
said de Vries. "This was the first that I had been involved with the Morans.
Jan Kops, chief designer at De Voogt at that time, had a fine understanding of
their instructions, which made reference to car and airplane design, and
industrial design in general. After about a year of meetings, we signed the
contract for what became hull 651. I think it was the Morans’ favorite, of
course, until Gallant Lady 672." De Vries delivered such comments
with a knowing wink.
So much has changed and so much has remained the same at De
Vries since 1983 and Hull No. 629. And although the Morans have built at other
shipyards, after eight Feadships, it can be said chemistry exists.
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