When you’re aboard a superyacht and look toward the windows, what do you see? You might see the harbor she’s sitting in, for example, or the marina. But, what about the windows themselves—do you see them? If the craftspeople at Tilse have anything to say about it, the answer is no. A manufacturer of superyacht windows and skylights for four decades, Tilse is responding to owners’ desires for glass as clear as possible, and as large as possible. Yacht glass has fully transitioned from mere portlights to crucial design and architecture features.
From floor-to-ceiling windows to double-curved windows, Tilse fields and fulfills numerous requests. The German company got its start in 1974 when the late Hans-Joachim Tilse acquired a glass company employing him as its marine representative. Notably, he had grown the marine division to represent 75 percent of the business. Although ship windows were initially the focus, a decade after its founding, yacht glass became a further business line. Superyachts naturally followed, to the point where they are overwhelmingly the company’s specialty.
Currently owned and operated by Frauke and Henning von der Thüsen, Hans-Joachim Tilse’s daughter and son-in-law, Tilse does everything in house, from measuring to manufacturing and installation. Primarily, projects are with European builders like Feadship, Abeking & Rasmussen, and Oceanco. Two-thirds of the business comes from new builds there, in fact, though some American and Finnish shipyards are clients, too. The remaining one-third of its projects are refits.
Regardless of whether a yacht is new or not, owners have one thing in common: an essentially barrier-free experience of the outdoors. The owner of the Oceanco yacht DAR (above and below) is a prime example. At her debut in 2019, the 295-footer (90-meter) wowed onlookers with nearly 4,300 square feet (400 square meters) of black glass stretching from the main deck to the sundeck. It’s all with custom-developed glue, and therefore no framing, mullions, or mechanical fasteners. Altogether, 188 glass panes, each 6 feet by 10 feet (1.8 meters by 3 meters), create the effect, perfectly clear from inside but as black as night from outside. After all, no one likes to feel as if they’re inside a fishbowl.
Making the glass—via chemical toughening techniques to avoid the distortion problems that thermally toughened glass sometimes suffer—is one thing. Installing these massive pieces is another. Tilse therefore custom commissioned a massive mechanism it appropriately calls the Monster. Picture a huge, red-painted apparatus with a long arm (below) that can extend dozens of feet out over yacht decks to position the giant panes properly. It’s a delicate operation as important as making, bending, and cutting the glass in the first place.
From taking measurements to inspecting each pane for imperfections and ultimately to installation, Tilse has a team of 40 craftspeople. Equally remarkable, the factory is in the German countryside, far from major cities. An in-house-created apprenticeship program is ensuring not just the company’s future, but also the future of the local residents. The same can be said of the next generation of yacht owners.
Tilse tilse.com
Leave a Reply