In the thick of the Cold War, during the late 1970s, Netherland’s Royal Navy was building warships like there was no tomorrow. (This was quite understandable, given that the threat of nuclear apocalypse was such that there was a distinct possibility, at times, of there being “no tomorrow”). One of those warships was HNLMS Piet Hein. She launched in 1978 and was primarily used as a submarine-hunter. Fast forward to 1998. That’s when the Dutch decommissioned the ship and sold her to the UAE’s Navy, where she operated in various capacities for the next decade.
In 2009, a prominent member of the UAE’s royal family, Hamdan bin Zayed, decided to re-purpose the warship into something else entirely. And that brings us to today, where the frigate formerly known as HNLMS Piet Hein is now YAZ, a sleek & sexy high-performance superyacht. At 142-meters long, she’s currently the 11th largest yacht in the world.
You can get all of the details – including some incredible pics of YAZ – right here: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23607/the-striking-and-fast-superyacht-yaz-was-born-from-a-40-year-old-dutch-frigates-hull?fbclid=IwAR04dxdKz3crJ2y_sPzlXKrKeYYUa_UsQQwNqhsfB5m_IweeJYssjrr2EbI