Name: Firmship FS55
Brand: Firmship

The FS55 is a steel ship built to be kept, not replaced. Just under seventeen metres (55 ft), twin engines, and room for six who already know each other. She runs at the pace the hull was drawn for, unhurried, and that is the point.

Drawn and built in the Netherlands.

Explore the design,
the life on board, or the engineering.

The design.

The engine came out of a catalogue. Nothing else did.

The life.

You stop looking at the clock somewhere on the second day.

The engineering.

Two engines. 2 × 93 kW.

Life aboard

Nothing to prove.

The coast slides past at walking pace. Somewhere on the second day you stop looking at the clock. The engine has been off since the bay came into view. A jumper that belongs to someone else is drying on the rail, and the game of backgammon that started on Tuesday still has no winner. Most yachts are built to be looked at from the quay. This one was built for the people on it.

A swimmer pulls on her fins on the stern steps, the aft deck and its teak furniture behind her

Kornati, Croatia

The swim comes first. Breakfast can wait.

A man laughs as he rolls the dice over the backgammon board, a woman watches, the coast behind them

Ligurian coast

The same two have been playing since Tuesday.

Amalfi coast

The coast slides past at walking pace.

A woman pours coffee at the teak table on the aft deck in soft morning light

Sognefjord, Norway

Coffee first. The chart can wait.

A couple in woollen hats lean on the white rail with a mug of coffee, a snowy Lofoten fjord at dawn behind them

Lofoten, Norway

Snow on the rail. The whole fjord to ourselves.

The design

Drawn, not configured.

The FS55 was designed by Studio Job, with Sea Level as naval architect. Four things are worth a closer look.

Stained glass, on a ship.

Leaded glass in the cabin, designed by Studio Job. Nautical symbols set in lead, drawn for this ship and no other.

Backlit leaded glass panels with nautical symbols, framed in teak, above a teak bench in the cabin of the Firmship FS55

Look twice at the cushions.

Small pale motifs on a grey ground, anchors, skulls, fish and ship's wheels among them. Drawn small enough to read as texture from across the deck. You only see what they are when you sit down.

The pattern of maritime silhouettes on the cushion fabric

Why RAL 7035.

Job Smeets only works with RAL colours, the German colour system from 1927. For Firmship, he chose 7035: a light grey from the middle of the scale, with no warm or cool undertone.

Soft and quiet, it is the colour chosen where a serene atmosphere matters. It sits well against steel, teak and glass, and it is the grey of machinery and public transport, which is why it reads as reliable.

Subdued and classic. It will never be dated. A colour you can live with for decades.