The Most Detailed Boat Van Dam Has Ever Built: 35,000 Hours, One Vision

From the beginning, the owner challenged us to push the boundaries of creativity, design, and engineering—an exciting opportunity that led to our most intricate build yet. 

The team accepted—and over the next 35,000 hours, made good on it.

Van Dam’s 2024 flagship build, ★★★★★, is a 30-foot modern wooden runabout that began construction in March 2022. By the time she hit the water, she had involved four departments, a naval architect, a patented invention, and details that most people will never notice unless someone shows them where to look.

What It Took to Build Her

The Boat Building Department alone contributed 18,000 hours over the 2.5-year design and build process. That’s for a 30-foot boat. For comparison, most production fiberglass boats of this size take a small fraction of that time — because they’re pulled from a mold, not built one layer at a time.

Van Dam uses a wood composite construction process — thin layers of wood laminated together with epoxy adhesive to form the hull and structural elements. The result is a boat that’s stronger, lighter, and more durable than traditionally built wooden boats, designed for generational use rather than a decade of ownership before the first major problem.

The Features That Define ★★★★★

• Aviation-inspired cockpit chairs — not adapted from marine furniture, conceived for this boat
• Fiber optic lighting throughout the interior
• A patented Van Dam Push-to-Start (PTS) system — a world-first whole-boat push-to-start that manages battery switching, startup sequencing, and all electrical systems from a single button at the helm
• A wake-adaptive rudder system
• Twin Ilmor 6.2L GDI engines producing 860 HP combined
• Custom LED navigation lights and custom bottom paint
• A geometric hull paint pattern made from 8,200 triangles and 25,000 hand-taped edges
• Exhaust tips machined from 351-pound billets of 316L stainless steel, reduced to 29 pounds after 85 hours of CNC work
• A custom cutwater with integrated bow lights, engineered and polished to a mirror finish

Specs: 30 feet, 9’6″ beam, 10,500 lb displacement, twin Ilmor 6.2L GDI producing 860 HP combined.

The Details You’ll Never See

That last point is worth dwelling on. The hull’s underside carries an intricate painted pattern—8,200 individually masked triangles sprayed in black—that disappears completely once the boat is in the water. It only reveals itself when she’s on her lift in the boathouse.

What began as a way to resolve a break in the bright-finished hull became one of the boat’s most distinctive details. The solution evolved into a complex, faceted design with more than 25,000 precisely laid edges, finished to a gloss that reads as seamless from any angle.

Commission Your Own

No two Van Dam boats are exactly the same. If you’re curious about what a custom wooden build process looks like — from first conversation to launch day — the Concept Phase is a no-obligation, flat-fee experience designed to help you develop your vision before committing to anything. Contact us to start the conversation.