Superyacht Innovation: How Rondal and Royal Huisman Connect Wind, Power and Design
From automated wing sails and dedicated hydrogenerators to hydrogen fuel cells and carbon-fibre structures, Rondal and Royal Huisman are developing a connected approach to yacht engineering. Hermen de Jong explains why the relationship between these systems matters as much as the technology itself.
A yacht under sail can still depend on a diesel generator to keep its air conditioning, galley and electrical systems running. That disconnect sits at the centre of an important shift in superyacht innovation: treating propulsion, power generation and life aboard as parts of the same engineering problem.
At Rondal, Hermen de Jong approaches that problem with a background in aerospace engineering and a sailor’s understanding of how boats behave. His work as Innovation Manager extends into technologies for Royal Huisman, connecting aerodynamic development with composite structures, energy storage and the practical demands of operating a yacht.
The resulting ideas are brought together in AERA, a 50-metre catamaran concept developed by Royal Huisman with Rondal, Cor D. Rover Design and Artemis Technologies. Its most visible feature is a freestanding wing sail. Beneath it sits an arrangement of propulsion, regeneration and energy-storage systems intended to support a less generator-dependent experience.
AERA remains a concept. Its relevance lies in how it connects technologies that are often discussed separately, and in the questions that connection raises for future yacht design.
Superyacht innovation starts with the whole energy system
A conventional conversation about yacht propulsion tends to begin with engines, fuel and range. Sailing introduces another source of power, but moving the vessel is only part of its energy demand. Accommodation, cooling, cooking and other domestic services continue to draw electricity whether the yacht is crossing an ocean or lying at anchor.
De Jong describes an approach in which wind propulsion reduces the demand for mechanical power, hydrogeneration supplies electricity during suitable sailing conditions, and stored energy supports periods when the yacht is stationary. Hydrogen fuel cells offer another way to extend those periods without running combustion generators.
Each part affects the others. Lower demand makes stored energy last longer. Efficient regeneration can replenish batteries underway. The choice of storage system influences weight and the space available within the yacht.
That interdependence changes the design brief. The useful question becomes how a particular combination will serve the way an owner actually intends to use the vessel.
What an aircraft wing brings to a yacht
The relationship between aircraft and sailing yachts is particularly clear in Rondal’s Aero Wing Sail. Its composite structure rotates around a vertical axis, while adjustable flaps alter its camber, or curvature, to control aerodynamic force.
Individual flap control allows the shape to change along the height of the wing. In stronger winds, de Jong explains, this creates opportunities to reduce power higher up, lower the centre of effort and manage the loads transmitted into the yacht. Automated control is intended to make those adjustments part of normal operation.
The wing also addresses a practical question that follows any permanently elevated sailing structure: what happens when the yacht stops sailing? Straightening the flaps allows it to feather with the wind, reducing aerodynamic resistance. It can also be lowered into a horizontal position when required.
These features make the wing relevant to owners interested in wind-assisted cruising without the familiar arrangement of standing rigging, sheets and sail-handling equipment. The engineering effort moves into the structure, its foundation and the control system, with the aim of simplifying the experience on deck.
Design freedom comes with a concentrated structural challenge
Removing stays changes the options available to a yacht designer. Chainplates and their load paths no longer dictate the same constraints around the vessel, and the deck arrangement can be considered without accommodating a conventional network of supporting rigging.
The loads still have to be carried. A freestanding wing concentrates a significant structural task at its foundation, where bending forces must be transferred into the yacht.
“The designer doesn't have to care about all that additional complexity in other parts of the boat, like the chainplates or the running rigging.”— Hermen de Jong
For a catamaran, this changes the way the rig and bridging structure are considered together. De Jong distinguishes the wing’s weight and bending loads from the compression associated with a stayed mast. It is a different structural problem, requiring its own engineering response.
AERA’s open, lattice-inspired superstructure demonstrates the design possibilities around that approach. The freedom above deck depends on careful decisions about how forces travel through the vessel.
Generating electricity without compromising the propulsion brief
Regeneration under sail is already part of the wider sailing-yacht conversation, including the engineering explored in Yachting News’ feature on Black Pearl. Rondal’s work asks whether a device dedicated to generating electricity can offer advantages over asking a propulsion propeller to perform two jobs.
De Jong explains that designing around both propulsion and regeneration can involve compromises. A propeller optimised to drive a yacht is working to a different brief from one intended to extract energy from water flowing past a sailing vessel.
Rondal’s Hydro Generator separates those functions. The company developed the system with SeaDrive and MARIN, using a dedicated propeller and validating its performance through towing-tank testing.
The objective is useful electrical output with carefully managed drag. When conditions allow generation to exceed the yacht’s immediate domestic demand, the surplus can charge batteries for later use. There is an operational connection between a passage under sail and the hours subsequently spent at anchor, rather than a complete break between the two.
Hydrogen and batteries have different jobs to do
Batteries provide a familiar route to quiet operation, but extending that period requires considering the weight, volume and cost of additional capacity. De Jong sees compressed hydrogen as a potential complement, allowing batteries to handle buffering and peak demand while a fuel cell supplies energy over a longer period.
The approach uses hydrogen stored as a high-pressure gas rather than as a cryogenic liquid. This avoids the very low storage temperatures associated with liquid hydrogen, although compressed storage has its own space and integration requirements. The choice follows the yacht’s intended use and the engineering trade-offs involved.
Royal Huisman received Lloyd’s Register Approval-in-Principle in 2024 for a hydrogen fuel-cell concept for sailing superyachts. That was a development milestone, rather than confirmation that a completed AERA had demonstrated its proposed performance.
For AERA, the shipyard describes an ambition of up to 72 hours at anchor without local operational emissions. De Jong’s emphasis is also on the experience: swimming beside the yacht or sleeping aboard without combustion-generator noise and vibration. The hydrogen supply chain remains relevant to the wider environmental assessment.
Quiet operation is an owner benefit with an engineering foundation, shaped by the available energy and the demand placed upon it.
The production capability behind the concept
Large composite structures require manufacturing methods capable of delivering repeatable results. De Jong describes growing interest in automation for spars and superstructures, drawing on techniques already used in aerospace.
His account of a mast programme around 90 metres in length illustrates how scale changes production planning. Smaller components must ultimately become a continuous, full-length structure, with curing capacity and assembly methods considered together.
He also distinguishes high-pressure autoclave curing from out-of-autoclave production. Different equipment serves different parts and processes; the capability is in matching the method to the structure being built. Rondal’s published account of its facility expansion similarly places larger curing capacity within a wider investment in sailing systems and testing.
The connection to innovation is direct. A design that promises lower weight or a more ambitious geometry needs a credible route through manufacture, assembly and verification.
Progress also reaches the mooring line
Rondal’s development work extends to familiar deck operations. Captive winches long associated with sailing yachts are finding applications in motor yacht mooring, applying controlled line handling to an operation involving substantial and changing loads.
The company’s mooring systems are designed around remote control, load monitoring and a discreet installation below deck. De Jong sees the opportunity in adapting a mature product to another demanding application.
This brings the wider engineering approach into focus. A wing sail must respond to changing wind, an energy system must match generation to demand, and a mooring winch must manage a working line. In each case, the value depends on controlled performance under the conditions the yacht will encounter.
For owners and the teams specifying their next vessel, the most useful developments will be those that connect technical capability with everyday operation. Rondal and Royal Huisman’s work makes that relationship tangible: sailing, supplying power, building the structure and handling the yacht all belong within the same design conversation.
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