Which Shipyards Have the Largest Superyacht Order Books?

Heesen Yachts and Tankoa Yachts jointly lead the current Superyacht Guide active-project database with seven not-yet-delivered yachts each, followed by Amels with five and Damen Yachting and Feadship with three apiece. The result is a snapshot of verified public projects on 10 September 2026 rather than a claim to reproduce every confidential contract held by every shipyard.

Order books are difficult to compare because yards disclose projects at different stages. Some announce a sale before construction begins, others remain silent until a hull is visible, and secretive custom projects can stay outside public databases for years, so the most defensible method is to count identifiable active yachts rather than repeat promotional totals that may use different definitions.

Largest verified active order books in the SYG database

1. Heesen Yachts — 7 active projects
2. Tankoa Yachts — 7 active projects
3. Amels — 5 active projects
4. Damen Yachting — 3 active projects
5. Feadship — 3 active projects
6. Moonen Yachts — 2 active projects
7. CRN Yachts — 2 active projects
8. Royal Huisman — 2 active projects
9. ISA Yachts — 1 active project
10. Oceanco — 1 active project
11. Bilgin Yachts — 1 active project
12. Vitters Shipyard — 1 active project
13. Sirena Marine — 1 active project
14. Lürssen — 1 active project
15. SES Yachts — 1 active project
16. Delta Marine — 1 active project
17. ICON Yachts — 1 active project
18. Sirena Yachts — 1 active project

Heesen’s seven active projects span several sizes and stages, including Project Ananda, Project Setteesettanta, Project Evita, Project Diana, Project Angelica and other current hulls in the public fleet. Tankoa’s seven-project count is similarly broad, with multiple T450, T500, T55, T560 and full-custom projects showing how the Italian yard has built a deep pipeline across roughly 45–61 metres.

Amels sits third with five active yachts in the dataset, including several 80-metre and 60-metre projects. Damen Yachting is listed separately because the database treats the Damen explorer and Yacht Support portfolio as a distinct builder entity rather than merging it with Amels at group level.

Why corporate groups can look different from builder records

A corporate view would alter the table because related brands can sit under the same parent organisation. Combining Amels and Damen Yachting, for example, would create a larger group total, but doing so selectively would make the methodology inconsistent unless every builder group and historical brand were also consolidated in the same way.

Superyacht Guide therefore counts the builder linked to each YachtPage exactly as stored in the fleet database. This preserves reproducibility and lets readers understand whether a project belongs to an Amels Limited Editions lineage, a Damen Xplorer or Yacht Support platform, a Feadship custom build or another distinct builder identity.

The same caution applies to yards that have changed ownership, names or operating structures over time. An order-book ranking should measure current identifiable work, not retroactively reassign every historic brand relationship to whichever corporate group owns the name today.

Project count does not measure order-book value

Seven 50-metre yachts are not economically equivalent to one 120-metre giga yacht, so a count-based ranking should not be mistaken for a revenue or workload table. Lürssen has only one active public project in this particular dataset, yet that project is the 122.5-metre Project Elusive and may represent more engineering, labour and contract value than several smaller builds combined.

Gross tonnage would provide another perspective because two yachts of equal length can have very different interior volume and technical complexity. A wide, high-volume explorer can require more structure and systems than a slender performance yacht of the same length, while helicopters, hybrid propulsion, pools and specialist equipment can dramatically increase project scope.

Contract value is usually private, making a true financial order-book comparison difficult without company disclosures. Project count is therefore useful precisely because it can be independently reconstructed from verified public yachts, provided the limitation is stated clearly.

The Dutch and Italian pipelines are broad

The top of the table shows different national patterns. Heesen, Amels, Damen Yachting and Feadship give the Netherlands several builders with multiple active projects, while Tankoa and CRN give Italy a strong presence despite the active fleet being spread across more individual yards.

Moonen and Royal Huisman each have two active projects in the current dataset, adding smaller but significant Dutch pipelines in very different sectors. Royal Huisman’s projects are large sailing yachts, while Moonen operates closer to the 37-metre range, demonstrating why order-book count alone cannot describe the kind of work a yard is undertaking.

CRN’s two active projects sit in the large custom motor-yacht segment, while ISA, Bilgin, Vitters, Oceanco, Lürssen, Delta, ICON, SES and the Sirena builder records each contribute at least one qualifying project. The long tail matters because the superyacht construction market is not controlled by only three or four yards.

Why confidential projects are excluded

A yacht can be genuinely under contract yet absent from this ranking if its existence, builder, size or status cannot be verified sufficiently for a public YachtPage. Including rumours would make the list appear fuller but would undermine the site’s permanent rule that production data should be grounded in official or primary information.

Similarly, projects with unclear delivery status remain active until handover is confirmed, while a launched yacht is not automatically removed. A launch can be followed by months of outfitting and sea trials, so the order book is defined as not-yet-delivered rather than not-yet-launched.

This method also means the table can change suddenly when a yard announces several previously confidential hulls. That is a feature of transparent live data rather than a flaw: the ranking reflects what can be verified on the extraction date, not what insiders may privately know.

What the 2026 snapshot tells us

The leading seven-project counts for Heesen and Tankoa show strong pipelines at yards specialising mainly in the 45–72 metre range, while Amels demonstrates the ability to carry several much larger platform yachts simultaneously. Feadship’s smaller count hides very large custom projects, reinforcing the need to read quantity together with length and project type.

The table also shows that platform strategies can increase visible order-book depth because repeat engineering allows several hulls to progress in parallel. Fully custom builders may have fewer identifiable projects but devote more design and engineering resource to each one, so neither model should be judged superior solely from the number of active YachtPages.

On 10 September 2026, the live SYG data identify Heesen and Tankoa as having the largest verified builder-level project counts, with Amels close behind. As deliveries occur and new contracts become public, the order will change, and the ranking should be understood as a dated operational snapshot rather than a permanent league table of shipyard strength.