Nausicaä Is a Marc Newson Yacht. The Aft Deck Suggests a Second Name.

The credits say one designer. The owner's history says otherwise.

When Lürssen delivered the 114.2 metre Nausicaä in May 2026, the design credits read cleanly. Marc Newson designed the exterior. Marc Newson designed the interior. One designer, one vision, from the glass Skydome down to the sculptural hull. Formerly known as Project Cosmos, she belongs to Japanese entrepreneur and art collector Yusaku Maezawa.

The official credits do not tell the whole story. A detail on the aft deck points to a second name, one that Lürssen has not put in a press release.

He Wants You to Look

Maezawa is among Japan's most visible entrepreneurs, and he has built much of that visibility on a single instinct. When he experiences something rare, he shares it. He documents his art, his projects, and his travels for a large public audience, and he has been open about doing it to inspire people rather than to impress them.
The clearest example sits in orbit. When Maezawa flew to the International Space Station in December 2021 on a 12-day mission, he did not go alone. He paid for a second seat and brought a producer, Yozo Hirano, whose entire role was to film and document the journey for his YouTube channel. Before launch, Maezawa said he wanted to find out what life in space was actually like and share it with the world.

That habit matters here. A man who brings a camera to space is not a man who hides the details of his yacht. If there is a design story aboard Nausicaä, it was almost certainly meant to be found.

A Pattern Worth Reading

Maezawa does not commission quietly, and he does not commission once. His Bombardier Global 7500, delivered in 2021, carries an Oribe Green livery and an interior outfitted by Hermès. His one of one Rolls-Royce Phantom Oribe was a documented collaboration between Rolls-Royce and Hermès, finished in Hermès Enea Green leather and built, by Rolls-Royce's own account, to resemble that jet.
Two of his most personal objects, the way he moves through the air and the way he moves on land, were shaped by the same French house. So when a third object of this scale arrives, the interesting question is not whether Hermès was in the conversation. It is where to look for the evidence.

The Tell

Look at the aft deck. The pool reads as two interlocking oval forms, a rounded and linked geometry that does not occur by accident on a vessel this deliberate. To anyone familiar with Hermès, the shape is recognizable.

It echoes the Chaîne d'Ancre, the house's signature motif of linked oval rings, drawn by Robert Dumas in 1938 from the anchor chains he studied along the Normandy coast. A French house's most enduring shape, born from a ship's chain, set into the deck of a Lürssen. That is either a remarkable coincidence or a quiet signature.

Around it, the soft goods break from the expected palette. Instead of the safe whites and grays that cover most large yacht decks, there is a deliberate run of yellow, a warm and confident color that most owners would never approve. It is the kind of decision a fashion founder makes. It is the kind of decision Hermès enables.

We want to be precise here. Lürssen credits Newson, and only Newson, for the design. Hermès has not been named in connection with Nausicaä by the yard, the designer, or the owner. What we have is a man with a documented Hermès habit, a deck that behaves like a Hermès commission, and a builder known for keeping its most interesting details off the record. Readers can draw their own conclusion. We have drawn ours.

What Might Be Inside

We have not seen the interior. Given the pattern, it is reasonable to expect Hermès leather, Hermès stitching, and a color story pulled from Maezawa's own world rather than a seasonal catalog. Two shades are already on the record as his. Enea Green is the exact Hermès leather used throughout his Phantom.

Oribe Green is the ceramic glaze behind his jet and car livery, drawn from the antique Japanese pottery he collects. Add the yellow now visible on deck and the signature Hermès orange, and the result is a palette that is specific, personal, and unmistakably his, rather than anything pulled off a shelf.

For a yacht this considered, that is the point. The best details are the ones the owner never has to explain.

Wherever Nausicaä goes from here, we hope her travels eventually bring her home to Japan, the country where Maezawa was born, where she can explore the coastlines, islands, and landscapes that shaped her owner.

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