About Nautor Swan shipyard
Nautor AB shipyard was created in 1966 in a small town of Pietarsaari in the north of Finland, in the region of Ostrobothnia with long-standing boatbuilding traditions. Having studied in the USA, its founder, Pekka Koskenkylä, decided to start producing sailing yachts of fiberglass and attracted the luminaries of American sailing sport, Sparkman & Stephens company. He started with a 36 ft (11 m) boat, which demonstrated the seaworthiness as good as traditional wooden boats, but weighed less and provided more comfort on board, and later moved on to larger and more sophisticated models. In 1969 his Swan 43 won the Admiral’s Cup, and in 1974 Swan 65 Sayula II won the Whitbread Round the World Race (the former name of a well-known round the world Volvo Ocean Race). Thus, Swan yachts gained the reputation of the best of the best, and the world’s most renowned designers, Ron Holland and German Frers, joined the team, while the rich and famous became their customers. For example, Leonardo Ferragamo, one of the owners of the fashion empire of Ferragamo. It was him who helped to keep the shipyard afloat, when despite the legendary status Nautor Swan’s financial affairs got worse and worse. In the end, he just bought the shipyard and despite the conservative team’s resistance introduced some new management methods. The boats didn’t get any worse because of this, and the shipyard experienced its second birth. Having made a fair judgement that people buy boats to compete, Leonardo Ferragamo started organizing regattas for Swan owners, as what can show your skillfulness better than a race with similar boats from the same shipyard? With time to make the regattas even more interesting Nautor Swan started manufacturing monotypes, although they still produce semicustom and custom yachts, too.
Highlights
Today Nautor Swan manufactures a few model ranges. Swan range is performance cruisers that represent the classical heritage of the shipyard. Diverse Club Swan models are high-performance monotypes, and Swan Maxi are large yachts over 88 ft (26.8 m). All of them are meant for such regattas as Rolex Swan Cup, Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup and other competitions of the highest level. Besides, at the request of Swan sailing yachts, the shipyard started manufacturing Swan Shadow motor yachts, which can be used as dayboats, escort boats and tenders for superyachts.
Achievements
Nautor Swan is the most famous brand in the sailing world, it is a synonym of performance, quality and reliability. All the yachts built by the shipyard are still afloat.
