The beach club and spa are gone. In their place Draak now carries a six-person decompression chamber, the first to be installed on an Oceanco yacht, and it is the clearest way into what the 92.9-metre vessel has become. Delivered in 2014 as Equanimity and later renamed Tranquility, she has been rebuilt at Oceanco's Zwijndrecht facilities to support scientific research and marine exploration as part of the Inkfish fleet.
After her debut at the Monaco Yacht Show alongside Leviathan, the yacht she was designed to operate with, Draak will be shown by Oceanco at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, which runs from 28 October to 1 November 2026.
The rebuild team included Oceanco's Life Cycle Support and Design departments, its Co-makers, owner's representatives YTMC, Y.CO and Inkfish, and the crews of Draak and Leviathan. Working from the yard's original design and engineering data, they built extensive structural changes and new systems into the existing platform.
As with Leviathan, the brief centred on the people who live and work on board. "Leviathan and Draak represent the second generation of our thinking about the community onboard and how we can optimize the vessels to serve them and achieve their goals," said owner Gabe Newell. "I've always found it useful to think about the individuals you're involved with and how your actions impact them. It's a funny way of talking about a yacht, and one of the ways Oceanco had to adapt to what I was asking for as an owner."
Crew members were involved throughout, and their operational experience shaped decisions on spaces, ergonomics, materials and working practices. Vedder upgraded the interior for the new role and reorganised it to bring guests and crew together. The former main saloon is now a shared dining room, while the upper deck saloon has become a Chef's Lab for smaller dinners, menu development and chef training. Accommodation was adapted and expanded to include an owner's stateroom and eight guest cabins.
"One of my favorite spaces onboard is the communal mess, where we all eat," said Newell. "It's very much the heart of the vessel - always lively and buzzing, and just a fun place to be. It has the energy of a really good neighborhood café or bar."
The dive centre that replaced the beach club holds diving equipment, a medical treatment room and the chamber, developed with specialist manufacturer Hytech-Pommec. It supports both oxygen and Heliox decompression through an integrated Built-In Breathing System (BIBS), which allows Draak to support deeper dives where oxygen-only decompression would not be suitable.
Rather than cut a new opening in the structure, Oceanco had the chamber custom-built around the dimensions of the existing access route into the dive centre. Its profile was redesigned to lower its overall height, windows, pipework and other components were moved to fit the space, and a dedicated rail system was developed to bring it on board with only millimetres of clearance. The control panel layout, exterior paint colour, seating, upholstery and interior details were all customised, and an entertainment system was integrated.
"Achieving a yacht-quality exterior preparation and paint finish on a decompression chamber was new territory," said Ozkan Sag, Engineering Manager at Oceanco. "Hytech-Pommec embraced our requirements and remained flexible throughout the process, allowing us to deliver a highly specialized piece of equipment that feels fully integrated into Draak."
On the upper deck aft, the helideck was removed to clear space for a dedicated tender operations area on the main deck aft. It houses the dive boat Scylla, the RIB tender Minotaur, a Nautique Paragon sports tender and two Ribeye SOLAS rescue tenders. A 12.6-tonne Van Driel jib crane with an 11-metre outreach was fitted on the upper deck aft, and a custom C-davit system with twin 6.7-tonne units on the main deck; according to Oceanco, it is the largest Van Driel has produced. Modular chocks allow containerised transport and compatibility across the fleet. The swim platform was extended to take an extendable boarding platform and a retractable fender system, adding just over one metre to Draak's overall length.
"Draak demonstrates what can be achieved by rethinking an existing yacht platform for an entirely new operational purpose," said Edwin Schneider, Life Cycle Support Project Manager. "By combining original build knowledge with operational insight and close collaboration across all stakeholders, we have created a yacht that offers greater operational versatility while enhancing onboard capabilities for research, exploration and extended cruising."
After the rebuild, Draak has a beam of 14.5 metres and a gross tonnage of 2,894GT. Exterior design is by Oceanco, with naval architecture by Oceanco and Azure Yacht Design & Naval Architecture. Oceanco's Life Cycle Support division covers maintenance and refit through to complex rebuilds, upgrades and lifetime extensions, while the yard builds custom yachts up to 150 metres.