The story of the Nordhavn 100 is really the story of somebody wanting a little more boat than the N96. Which is actually the story of somebody wanting slightly more boat than the N86. Which, if we’re going all the way back to the beginning, is pretty much the story of just about every boat that Nordhavn has ever built.
“It’s kind of the natural progression of most of our boats,” says Jeff Leishman, co-owner and chief designer at Nordhavn. “Somebody will come along and say, ‘Can you extend it a little bit?
Give me a bigger cockpit and this and that?’ The 96 was extended from the 86, and now it’s at 100 feet.”
In the case of the Nordhavn 100, the idea was to lengthen the N96 enough to give it a bigger cockpit and lazarette, more comfortable crew space and other design tweaks that make life aboard more roomy for everyone.
And with this extended length overall, Leishman says, the boat’s exterior profile transforms into more of a megayacht look. Those extra feet create a whole different feeling when people see the boat out on the water.
That evolution might seem as if it’s exclusive to bigger designs, but it’s also a principle that holds true for Nordhavn models that are half the size of the N100. Leishman says that they, too, seem to approach proportional perfection by adding that same 5 feet or so to the original designs, no matter how big or small those original designs are.
“It happens every time we’ve designed a boat. Take the 47. It’s good, but you cram as much as you can into 47 feet. You get an aft deck that’s adequate, but when you extend it another 5 feet or so, it changes the whole look of the boat,” Leishman says. “Compare the 60 to the 55. It’s the same basic boat, but the 60 looks way more proportional. It lowers the profile of the boat and makes it look more yachty and sleek instead of more tall and stubby.”
Furthering that point, a three-time Nordhavn owner is currently looking at the N120, Leishman says, and asking how the boat might transform with about 5 more feet tacked on to the length overall. “We’re looking at a real serious prospect on a 125, which would be the first one, an evolution of the 120,” he says. “That’s an exciting project. It would be the biggest one yet. We have designs for bigger boats, but we haven’t built one yet.”
Adding 5 feet nowadays isn’t the same as it was a few decades ago, either. Builders like Nordhavn can do a lot more with a handful of feet and inches. As an example, consider the Nordhavn 46 MKII, a wholly new version of the original N46 that first splashed in the 1980s. The MKII is just 6 inches longer overall, but it’s also more than 6 feet longer on the waterline for less pitching and better cruising speed, and it adds tons of interior volume along with substantial fuel and freshwater capacity.
Leishman is thinking similarly about that kind of potential in the N125 and how much could be gained compared with the N120. “We would extend it from the aft end and make a new mold for the transom,” he says. “It’s still the 120, but that extra 5 feet, it would get the running gear back in a better flow of water further aft from the actual keels, so you get more efficiency out of your propellers, and it runs quieter.”
And lest anyone think that Nordhavn is only considering bigger designs that typically cruise the world with crew, Leishman dropped the news to Soundings that right now on his “super top-secret drawing board,” he’s working on a design for a new model that will likely end up being in the mid-50-foot range. He says he can’t reveal the exact length yet; apparently, it’s still being debated and modified, what with every few inches able to make such a big impact on the final version.
No matter what length the new design ends up being, that 50-foot range is a size that has long been popular with Nordhavn owners—plenty of whom want about 5 feet more than the N46 that was just reborn as the N46 MKII. These owners are typically standing at the helm themselves, making serious plans for long-range passagemaking but doing so with more creature comforts today than in years past.
It’s the same kind of hands-on cruising that Leishman says appeals to him, too, whenever he’s out for a day of exploring. “That’s where our hearts are, with the boats that we can relate to,” Leishman says. “Not that we don’t relate to the 120s and the 100s, but my world doesn’t include crew and that kind of money. When I’m on a boat, I like to be running the boat. That’s my idea of fun.”
This article was originally published in the September 2026 issue.
