Abeking & Rasmussen has delivered the 68m megayacht Soaring to her owner on time, despite the huge challenges facing Germany and the rest of the world during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Abeking & Rasmussen yard handed over the 68m Soaring in a small-scale ceremony

The owner originally wanted to celebrate the handover of the 1,500GT custom build with family, friends and all involved in the build at the shipyard in Lemwerder. However, due to restrictions placed on group gatherings, the formal procedure was held on a far smaller scale, in the presence of just the Captain and crew, project managers and the owner’s management team.

Abeking & Rasmussen says flexibility is one of the yard’s key corporate values, although the unprecedented coronavirus outbreak has forced all the staff to adapt their usual procedures with much more versatility than ever before. Because of the special circumstances, final acceptances as well as various closing meetings of internal and external experts had to be conducted via alternative means.

On the premises, preventive measures have been implemented to reduce human contact as far as possible in order to protect all staff, sub-suppliers and business partners. Management have split work schedules into a strictly separated two-shift system, organised extensive hygiene measures, enforced the use of protective face masks by the entire workforce and set up mobile working possibilities.

Till von Krause, Sales Director Yacht, also paid tribute to the flexibility of Abeking & Rasmussen’s numerous sub-suppliers. “With many of these partners, we’ve already worked together for many years or even decades. We do trust each other very much,” Von Krause said.

“Many individual work flows are well known by everyone involved, which has made it easier to implement all these inevitable protective measures. Therefore, there has never been a risk of delaying the scheduled delivery date of Soaring.”

During the very last stage of the new build, Andy Tree of Superyacht Technical Services professionally steered the delivery process with the Soaring project team.

Soaring will not only be used by the owner but also as a charter yacht. Ocean Independence, based in Zurich, has been appointed as both yacht manager and charter central agent, with Operations Director Daniel Küpfer as the main point of contact.

www.abeking.com