Superyachts
ABOVE: it all started here in 1973. This first shed has served the yardwell for 50 years
RIGHT: three of Baltic Yachts’ five founding fathers inside that shed in 1974: (L-R) Tor Hinders, PGJohansson andNils Luoma
F
ifty years ago in Finland five young men shared a controversial idea and an ambitious plan. They quit their jobs at Nautor and set out to
create a new style of offshore cruiser- racer – lighter, stiffer and faster than almost anything else on themarket. ‘We just got together one day and the
idea came up,’ says Per-Göran “PG” Johansson, one of the five founding fathers of Baltic Yachts back then and still one of its directors today. ‘We were not alone thinking “light is better” but most boatyards and naval architects favoured heavier designs. Some of our competitors published studies for marketing purposes arguing that heavy was better. One of their claims was “heavy does not stop in waves due to the inertia of themass”. Another was “the client getsmore kilos for hismoney”.We remained convinced and carried on with our lightweight, hi-tech way.’
The Baltic 38DP, built 1982-1989, was among the first sailing yachts designedwith a computer and one of the firstwith a double berth under an aft cockpit
History soon proved Johansson and
his colleagues to be absolutely correct and the company they founded became a world leader in the production of large, high-performance sailing yachts. Before any of it could happen, first they had to clear a patch of pine forest at Bosund near Jakobstad and build a shed in which to do it. Still in use as a joinery
alongside its ongoing small-series, semi- customproduction. However, fromthe first Baltic 46 Diva (now Queen Anne) all the way to its current projects via some of themost advanced sailing yachts in each of the last three decades, the core DNA is arguably unchanged. ‘Baltic Yachts is still
workshop, that first shed is finally about to be decommissioned along with the whole facility that grew up around it. This year, Baltic Yachts is moving all operations to Jakobstad where a new state-of-the-art building will more than double the size of its existing waterfront location. There’s a world of difference between
the series-produced Baltics of the 1970s and the full-customsuperyachts that have become the yard’s primary focus
”Fifty years ago five youngmen shared a controversial idea and an ambitious plan”
verymuch true to its original values,’ Johansson says. ‘We started as a series production yard but with
more flexibility built in thanmost competitors, using hi-techmethods to achieve better sailing performance and handling characteristics.With time we moved overmore andmore to full customprojects, which required changes in our approach. ‘The projects becamemore individual
in concept, in styling and inmaterials andmethods used. In that process you lose some of the things that originally earned your company its reputation. However, even our cruising projects have been very hi-tech and in that sense they’ve followed our original philosophy, “lighter is faster and better”. Some of the high-performance projects challenged us to take technologymuch further, increasing our know-how and potential.’ Eagerness to embrace technology
prompted the founding of Baltic Yachts in the first place. Johansson was project manager of the Swan 65 when he tried and failed to convince hismanagers that it could be built lighter, stiffer and better using sandwich construction with unidirectional fibres instead of a single laminate with woven rovings. The five who left Nautor – boatbuilders Jan-Erik Nyfelt and Nils Luoma, purchasing
78 SEAHORSE
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