On 29 May, Vard Group, the Norwegian shipbuilder owned by Fincantieri, signed a €700-million (~$815-million) contract with Inkfish, the marine-research organisation founded by Valve's Gabe Newell. The order: RV11000, a 162-metre × 28-metre deep-sea research vessel, with delivery in Q1 2030. It is the largest single-vessel order in Vard's history, and the largest order ever placed at any Norwegian shipyard.
The contract surfaced quietly. Vard announced it via press release; Newell himself did not comment. The first public confirmation came from the trade press the following day.
What RV11000 is
The vessel is purpose-built for blue-water science. On-board hangars will house two manned submersibles plus a complement of ROVs; together with the 15,000-metre fibre-rope winch, that equipment is rated to operate at depths of up to 11,000 metres — covering every point on the world's seafloor, including the Mariana Trench (~10,935 m). RV11000 will also carry the largest battery installation ever fitted to a ship, enough for roughly twelve hours of fully silent operation. Useful when you do not want a diesel rumble interfering with hydrophone work.
The ship will accommodate 130, split between crew and embarked scientists. The hull will be built at Vard Tulcea in Romania; final outfitting will move to one of Vard's Norwegian yards. Vard Design Ålesund leads the naval architecture, with YTMC as technical partner.
The official renders also show a green-rimmed helideck on the foredeck, with a helicopter on the pad. None of the early trade-press summaries mention it; every image Vard released does.
Other specs — interior designer, deck-by-deck layout, range, speed, total lab area — have not been disclosed.
Two records, one client
Both records — the biggest order in Vard's history, the biggest in Norwegian shipyard history — exist because of the same client.
That same client placed Vard's previous "biggest order": the €200-million RV6000, a 121-metre research vessel ordered roughly twelve months ago. RV11000 multiplies that contract by 3.5×. Vard's order book has effectively reset around a single buyer.
The pattern behind the order
Gabe Newell co-founded Valve, the company behind Steam and Half-Life. He has been steadily moving that capital into ocean infrastructure for several years now. The Vard contract is the most visible piece of that move yet.
In April 2025, Newell acquired Oceanco, the Dutch superyacht builder behind several of the world's most architecturally ambitious yachts. In November 2025, he took delivery of Leviathan, his own 111-metre Oceanco. Inkfish, his marine-research organisation, operates a growing fleet of expedition and research vessels and is now Vard's largest customer. YTMC, the technical partner on both RV6000 and RV11000, sits adjacent to this same constellation.
From the outside, this is starting to look like an integrated ocean-science operation: Newell builds the hulls (Oceanco), commissions the science platforms (Vard/Fincantieri), operates the missions (Inkfish), and now owns much of the technical depth that makes those missions possible. €700 million is a number large enough that even quiet billionaires cannot place it without leaving a trail.
What happens next
Steel-cutting on RV11000 has not been publicly announced. Vard's typical cycle for a vessel of this complexity runs roughly four years, which matches the stated Q1 2030 delivery. Sea trials would follow in late 2030, and the vessel could realistically enter service for Inkfish in early 2031.
In the meantime, RV6000 — the previous flagship of this same buyer-builder pairing — is still in build and is expected to deliver first. By the time RV11000 launches, Newell's research fleet will already be on the water. The question for Vard by then is what he commissions next.
Renders: © Vard / Vard Design Ålesund (press kit).
