Inside Story

Lady Di is Hull No. 3 of the Nordhavn 80, and the first one with a highly personalized interior by Vripack.

Mike Kugler stood outside the headquarters of the Vripack design firm in the Netherlands, looking up at the American flag. It was flying in honor of the visit he was making that day alongside his mother, who was nearly 90 years old at the time.

They had sure come a long way from the town of 8,000 people in southwest Nebraska.

“I didn’t realize they were that big and did all these superyachts,” Kugler says. “They treated us great.”

Indeed, Vripack is known for more than 7,500 completed projects. It has designs such as the 230-foot CRN Project Thunderballunder construction in Italy, and the 141-foot Project Triple X being built at Alia Yachts in Turkey.

The award-winning firm is now also partnering for the first time with Nordhavn, offering customizable interiors on the N80. Kugler bought Hull No. 3, christened Lady Di in honor of his mom. It’s the first N80 with a Vripack interior—and as far as the team at Vripack is concerned, the Kuglers are just as worthy of special treatment as any other yacht owner.

“He bought an 80-foot Nordhavn. Do you know how big that boat is?” says Marnix Hoekstra, Vripack’s co-creative director. “That’s a serious boat. They came all the way from America to our little studio. How awesome is that?”

Marnix Hoekstra at Vripack says the bridge is one of his favorite spots aboard Lady Di. The elevated guest seating area, in particular, is a space that he finds “lovely.”

The décor is unusual for Nordhavn, and an even bigger leap for Kugler. He’s a traditional kind of guy who worked his way up from a 19-foot Bayliner to a 35-foot Carver, a 42-foot Sea Ray and a Nordhavn 63 that he took delivery on in 2017, to cruise down the West Coast to the Sea of Cortez.

“I’m a pilot too, so I’m kind of used to doing things that are hands-on,” he says. “The Nordhavn guys trained me. They worked with me quite a bit and went with us down to La Paz. They said I did a really good job. I picked it up kind of quick.”

Kugler thought the 63 was all the boat he’d ever need for cruising with his friends and meeting up with his wife and mother. The first time the team at Nordhavn said an 80 might better suit his lifestyle, he said it would be too big. “But then I thought about it, and with the whole family showing up, it would be nice to have more room,” he says.

Vripack’s Hoekstra says the galley aboard Lady Di is another of his favorite locations: “But I’m a little bit of a food addict. I like to make food. It’s open, it’s light, there’s a big stove.” 

His mother, who used to be an interior designer, convinced him that the Vripack interior was the way of the future. He placed the order about a year before the pandemic began, which meant he couldn’t get over to the shipyard to see the boat being built.

“They sent us pictures, and I was thinking, that’s a lot of light wood,” he recalls. “I don’t know how that’s going to turn out.”

The first time he saw Lady Di was in person after the yacht’s delivery to Nordhavn’s facility in Dana Point, California.

“I was getting pretty nervous and thinking we’d made a mistake, but once we saw it, I thought it turned out well,” he says. “I was thinking maybe we should’ve gone more traditional, but it’s pretty amazing when you see it.”

Light woodwork dominates in relaxation spaces throughout the yacht.

It’s also pretty darn personalized for a series-built 80-footer. Nordhavn asked Vripack to give N80 buyers a totally different option than traditional styling. Vripack figured out what types of materials could be used to offer high-quality options without breaking the bank. The base design shies away from mahogany and teak, instead focusing on American oak with textile ceilings, painted surfaces and what Hoekstra calls “hidden gems” such as barstool wraps.

Nordhavn 80 buyers then work with Vripack to customize the design. Hull No. 5 of the N80 will also have a Vripack interior, but it will be different from Lady Di’s.

“That’s a Canadian family,” Hoekstra says. “They also came and enjoyed the same treatment as the Kuglers, but their taste is different. They’re of Italian descent, not from the Midwest. So theirs has more of a European focus with nudes and grays.”

Lady Di’s many personalized details go right down to the throw pillows, which are the exact same fabric as the ones in Hoekstra’s office. Kugler’s mother loved them.

“If you select our interior, you get a trip to our studio for a couple of days,” Hoekstra says. “We personalize it with exactly the right green, exactly the right blush pink, exactly the right copper. It’s our job to propose things, knowing what’s in the budget and what could work in the shipyard.”

Kugler says that having spent time now aboard Lady Di: “There’s not a thing that I would change on the boat. It’s pretty perfect the way it is.”

Vripack’s Hoekstra says the interior works because it balances textures, tones and materials. “We add a little sparkle with the details,” he says. “If you look closely, you’ll see fiddle rails and liners and a wrap on the barstools. Those are like hidden gems in the interior.”

Nordhavn 80 Lady Di Specifications:

LOA: 82ft. 3in.
Beam: 23ft. 4in.
Draft: 6ft. 9in.
Displacement: 280,358 lbs.
Fuel: 4,670 gal.
Water: 675 gal.
Power: 2x 375-hp John Deere 6090SFM85
Info: nordhavn.com

This article originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of Passagemaker magazine.