David Tydeman

A keen yachtsman with a remarkably diverse career in strategic management, David Tydeman is now targeting the market for semi-custom sailing superyachts.

- Jake Kavanagh

One of the most striking events to happen along the UK’s South Coast in recent months has been the delicate craning of a 118ft (36m) composite hull down a pebble beach near Portsmouth, and onto a barge for shipping to Southampton. The hull, moulded by Oyster Yachts, with help from local composite specialists, was the first of a new generation of sailing superyachts to be built entirely in the UK. Amongst the spectators and TV crews watching the beach transfer, but with a lot more trepidation, was David Tydeman, Oyster Group’s CEO.

Oyster was founded in the UK in 1973, and has been owned by HTP investments since 2012. It began as a yacht marketing consultancy based in Ipswich, on England’s East Coast, where it managed several build partners and specialized in semi-custom sailing yachts.

In 1998, the company acquired a 50 per cent stake in their most reliable yard, Southampton Yacht Services (SYS), a company that also undertook some notable refits of classic yachts. In 2002, Oyster acquired the remaining share of SYS, and for the next decade, the yard operated a ‘hybrid’ business model, with each new build project partly created internally, and partly outsourced. When HTP became involved, Tydeman saw the opportunity to bring the entire operation in-house, and took over Oyster’s sub-contractor E.C. Landamores in Norfolk.

Oyster currently has a nine-model line up (with two more just announced at the Dusseldorf Show) which it builds across two yards. Three of them, the 825, 885 and 118 are in the superyacht sector, and are built at its Saxon Wharf facility, now renamed Oyster Yachts Southampton (OYS). The smaller models, starting at 14.8m, are built at the east coast facility, now renamed Oyster Yachts Wroxham. In 2013, all the finance, design and engineering teams were relocated to new offices within the OYS footprint, which is now the Group HQ.

Racing background