Märke

Nord West

Nord West Yachts AB was a Swedish builder of motorboats, most of them flybridge cruisers, on the island of Orust on the Swedish west coast. Benny Martinsson, a fisherman's son who had worked for ten years as an employed boatbuilder, started the business in 1985 with little more than a toolbox, and in the first years mostly did work for other boatbuilders on the island. In 1989 he bought the Nord West name from Norway together with two models, the Nord West 900 and Nord West 1100. He reworked them and gradually added the Nord West 1000 and the Nord West 380 Trawler. Martinsson stayed sole owner and did the design and construction himself. The yard's own history put its 2002 turnover at SEK 154 million, with 70 employees. In 1996 a fire destroyed the yard, which was then near Slussen on Orust. Martinsson took over the old Vindö yard on Vindön and restarted production there in January 1997. Every model was revised and renamed: the 900 became the Nord West 330, the 1000 the 355 and the 1100 the 410, and the trawler was dropped. The Nord West 390 of 2000 introduced a new design and was named Motorboat of the Show at the Stockholm boat show that year. The yard reported 100 built within about two and a half years. It was followed by the 56ft Nord West 560 Flybridge, shown at the Gothenburg boat show in 2003, and the 420 Flybridge, which premiered at the Stockholm boat show in November 2005 and won Motor Boat of the Year in its class in 2007 and again in 2008. Next came the 370 Flybridge and Coupé in 2008 and the 370 Sport and SportsTop in 2009, which won a Scandinavian Boat Innovation Award in Stockholm. The larger 430 Sport and SportsTop followed at Gothenburg in 2011, and the last new model, the 430 Flybridge, at Gothenburg in February 2013. The yard's boats were known for their mahogany interiors. In October 2011 Nord West, which then had about 130 employees and annual sales of around SEK 360 million, took over the bankrupt sailboat builder Najad in Henån, and the company became Nord West & Najad AB. It went into administration on 26 February 2013. Motor Boat & Yachting blamed a lack of liquidity after the Najad purchase and the strong krona, and Båtliv reported debts of more than SEK 185 million. In summer 2013 the bankruptcy estate was sold to Gold Cup 8881 AB, owned by Runo Gillholm of Gillholms Marina and property investor Thomas Olausson; Martinsson had also bid and lost. In January 2014 the Nord West brand and Lyse Plast, the Lysekil moulding shop that made the boats' GRP parts, were sold to Roger von Haugwitz, owner of Storebro Boats. He planned to keep building the 370 and 430 at Storebro's factory in Småland, with Gillholms Marina handling sales. The Vindön yard was not part of that deal. Martinsson had kept the rights to his designs. His company Benny & Jessica AB sued Gillholms Marina, and in November 2016 the Patent and Market Court ruled that the Nord West 420 Flybridge was a copyright-protected work and that a Nord West 430 Flybridge built and sold by Gillholms Marina infringed it. The court banned further production, and the Patent and Market Court of Appeal upheld the ruling in January 2018. In 2017 Martinsson and a financier bought back the Vindön yard for service and refit work, not boat production. No new Nord West production after the Storebro deal was found as of September 2026. Benny & Jessica AB, run by Benny and Jessica Martinsson, brokers and services boats, supports Nord West owners with parts and service, and is the distributor for Princess Yachts in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The old nordwest.se address now redirects to its website.