- Founded
- 1950
- Headquarters
- Greifswald, Germany
- Shipyard location
- Same as headquarters
- Official website
- https://fjordboats.com/gb/
Brand Overview
Norwegian-founded builder of sporty motor yachts, established in the late 1950s and now part of Germany's HanseYachts AG since 2005.
Overview written fromfjordboats.com/gb/history/read 9/13/2026
YachtCodex Analysis
AI-generatedAn independent reading of this builder written by AI. Unlike the specifications and descriptions elsewhere on this page, it is interpretation rather than a sourced fact — treat it as a starting point, not a citation.
What this builder is
Fjord is a Norwegian-founded, now German-owned (HanseYachts AG) builder of sporty open and coupe motor yachts roughly in the 30-56 foot range, positioned as a design-led, performance-oriented brand distinct from volume flybridge motoryacht makers. It occupies a niche between classic Scandinavian boatbuilding heritage and modern puristic powerboat styling.
Who sails them
Typical owners are experienced powerboaters seeking a sporty, high-performance day or weekend cruiser, often used for coastal cruising in the Mediterranean or Northern Europe with a small crew of family or friends rather than large-scale chartering.
Signature models
Fjord Terne series (21-28 ft, the elegant late-1980s GRP series styled like classic wooden boats), Fjord 40 open (a long-running core open model), and the Fjord 53 XL (a recent flagship showcasing the brand's current engineering and customisation focus).
Strengths
Fjord is generally credited with distinctive, purist exterior styling, strong build quality inherited from its HanseYachts AG engineering resources, and repeated industry recognition such as European Powerboat of the Year awards.
Considerations
As a semi-production builder under a larger group, Fjord's range is relatively narrow (mostly open/coupe sport cruisers in a defined size band), and buyers pay a premium versus mass-market motor cruiser brands for its distinctive styling and German-associated build quality.
Analysis generated 9/13/2026
Part of
HanseYachts AG↗ · since 2005
Also in the catalogue
Where they build
The building sites this yard publishes, in its own order.
Greifswald
Greifswald, Germany
HanseYachts yard
Fleet at a Glance
Calculated from the models in the YachtCodex catalog, not from the builder's claims.
- Models in catalog
- 6
- Length range
- 11.95–16.7 m
- Hull forms
- Motor Monohull 6
- Cabins
- 1–3
Models by this brand
6 models
History
At the end of the 1950s the Norwegian factory owner Alf Richard Bjerke, captivated by British and Mediterranean boatbuilding at a German boat fair, envisioned boats with a Norwegian spirit -- robust, reliable, honest, seaworthy -- and named the idea Fjord. With the engineers Finn B. Roer and Jan Herrmann Linge he founded Fjord Plast, whose first boat, the Fjordling, caught the mood of its time. In the early 1970s Fjord outgrew its European competitors with open weekenders, cabin cruisers, the sporty Dolphin yachts and the Sedan flagships, also built as flybridges; at the end of the 1980s the Terne series broke the rules with GRP boats styled like classic elegant wooden craft, from 21 to 28 feet, and set a new standard in Scandinavian boatbuilding. With the new century Fjord reinvented itself as a purist power boat, working with Patrick Banfield and Jim Wilshire, and in 2005 the brand was acquired by HanseYachts AG; the 500th Fjord was sold in 2019, and the Fjord 53 XL is among the latest additions to the fleet.
History written fromfjordboats.com/gb/history/· The FJORD journeyread 9/22/2026