Zeelander Owner Wins Voyager’s Award with M/Y Zeepaard

Monte Carlo, Monaco, May 08, 2014 –(PR.com)– The Zeelander team is delighted to announce that Sietse Koopmans, the CEO and Owner of Zeelander Yachts, has been awarded the conveted Voyager’s Award at last nights World Superyacht Awards ceremony in Amsterdam.

The Voyager’s Award recognizes an owner that has made extensive use of their yacht in long distance voyaging and exploration over the past few years.

Sietse spent 3 years and 3 months circumnavigating the world on board M/Y Zeepaard. During this amazing once in a lifetime trip, Zeepaard visited 39 countries, sailed over 50,000 nautical miles with Sietse taking more than 40,000 photographs.

MY Zeepaard is a 37.2m explorer designed by Vripack and built by JFA Yachts. The world tour began in July 2009 in Malta. There was no exact route planned and no time schedule had been set. The journey started in the Mediterranean and continued to Florida, the Caribbean, Cuba and Panama cruising on to the Galapagos Islands through to Polynesia, Fiji, down to Australia, then on to Indonesia up to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, across to Sri Lanka, through the Suez Canal and back to the Med.

Commenting after the prize giving ceremony Sietse added ,“We are honoured to receive such a prestigious award and especially when up against such stiff competition from CaryAli, Exuma and Sherakhan.”

As CEO of Zeelander Yachts, Sietse Koopmans has used all his previous engineering experience and his time on Zeepaard to develop and bring to market the prestigious line of Zeelander yachts that are taking the luxury yachting market by storm.