place in the car industry. The classic Volvo P-1800, driven by Roger Moore in the TV series The Saint, is a Petterson design. He also designed and built countless machine parts, and developed an intimate under- standing of cost and labour-reducing pro- duction techniques. That was a totally new take on the subject, especially within boat- building where wooden boatbuilders were used to building one boat at a time, in very small numbers. That was definitely not the way to mass-produce glassfibre boats. The new miracle material GRP would demand Petterson’s exact way of thinking to realise its full potential in boat production.
No more smell of polyester When we sit down on the quay, just across from the large Hallberg Rassy buildings, I realise that on this island we are sur- rounded by boatyards – almost every boat built in Sweden today comes from Orust. But nowadays most of the hull building and a lot of the general production take place in Poland, or in neighbouring Baltic countries. Swedish boatyards no longer smell of polyester. Things have changed. It’s been 40-50 years, and here I am, with the man who started it all.
To afford racing boats
I ask Pelle if my perception is correct – is it true, that he was the first man to bring industrial design thinking into leisure boat- building?
‘Well, yes…’ Petterson nods, and takes his time, chewing on the question. ‘I guess there’s a lot of truth in that. I was raised in the car industry, in the product business. But my interest in sailing led me to draw boats in my spare time. At one point I was hired by a company working with metal and plastic, so early on I learned a lot about those materials. In the beginning I made small motorcycles and also outboard engines. But then they wanted small plastic boats, and that’s where polyester and glassfibre came in. This was the early 1960s. The crucial thing for me was that I spent more and more of my own time racing. But racing boats were expensive. So I thought I’d better invent a product that could generate some money… so I could afford this sport of mine!’ Petterson thinks back and smiles, a bit elusive when it comes to his own signifi- cance. I say: ‘So this was the starting point? To make some money for your own racing?’ He nods. ‘Yes, really, it was. I had a bit of discipline when it came to produc- ing things in the right way. Things needed to be production friendly, they needed the right shape, the right composition, and they needed to be fit for serial production. I guess I had that ability from the start. That helped me to produce the boats in the right way, and to the right price: low price, but still a very good profit.’
Good investment for customers ‘Maxi’ was the name of the new company. And the timing couldn’t have been better –
42 SEAHORSE
the sales almost exploded. Through most of the 1970s Maxi was the world’s biggest producer of sailing boats. ‘They were simple, functional products,’ he says. ‘My biggest success was probably when we made the Maxi 77. Quite simple to pro- duce, at a low cost. It was a spacious boat, it sailed OK, and had a price that made it possible for a lot of people to buy it. ‘A great advantage at the time was the price development, and even more so the terms for financing boats. A boat was quite a good investment back then. If a customer was in doubt we could say: take a boat now and pay for it. If you’re not satisfied, come back in the fall – and we’ll take the boat back and give you 500 kronors for the trouble. That’s how prices were moving. But nobody came back. The prices just kept rising. Then families got bigger, and so we built bigger boats, like the Maxi 95. They felt safe, our customers. Back then it was a good place to put your money.’
‘Back then it was possible to buy a new Maxi 77 for something like half a year’s normal salary’
Volkswagen to Volvo
Almost 4,000 Maxi 77s were built – a number that is hard to imagine in the boat industry today. But as time went by the Maxi 77 acquired a less glamorous status. Petterson explains: ‘It was fantastic, how things worked out. But after some years development meant that ordinary people could afford more. Maxi was sort of a Volkswagen at the time – and now people wanted a Volvo. So we had to improve the looks, the quality, everything, to compete in the business. At the same time a lot of newer players came in. The original “utili- tarian” concept of Maxi more or less died, the boats became more exclusive… and more expensive.’
Increased competition
In the end things went wrong. Maxi had to close, although ironically the brand has now been brought back to life as a sort of appendix to a larger Polish yard – one of the east European boatyards that can still produce yachts at a competitive price. But why did Maxi get into trouble? Was it simply increased competition? Petterson thinks about it, takes his time before answering. ‘Yes… it was mainly the com- petition from continental Europe, mostly France and Germany. Much cheaper boats, and still good products. A lot has happened over the years, we had ups and downs… we have had successes as well as failures. Now we have seen a pretty big general
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