- Founded
- 1950
- Headquarters
- Gewerbegebiet Nord 13, 5222 Munderfing, Austria
- Shipyard location
- Munderfing (moved from Mattsee in 2026), Upper Austria
- Official website
- https://www.sunbeam-yachts.com/
Brand Overview
Austrian family yard building sailing yachts since 1950 — today the SUNBEAM 22.1, 28.1, 29.1, 29.1 GT and 32.1, from 6.85 to 9.98 metres — run by the third generation of the Schöchl family and moving in 2026 from Mattsee to a new shipyard at Munderfing.
Overview written fromsunbeam-yachts.comread 9/14/2026
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
Sunbeam Yachts grew out of the Schöchl family's carpentry business, founded at Mattsee near Salzburg in 1838; boatbuilding began in 1950, series production of keelboats in 1965, and Manfred and Gerhard Schöchl took the yard through its export years to Italy, the USA and Japan before Andreas Schöchl, the third generation, founded SUNBEAM Watersports GmbH in 2020 and launched the SUNBEAM 32.1, winner of a Red Dot Design Award in 2022. The yard has twice won European Yacht of the Year — the 34.1 in 2008 and the 46.1 in 2019 — with nominations for the 26, 53, 30, 42, 40, 22.1 and 32.1, and the 22.1 took HISWA Boat of the Year in 2017. The current range is small and modern: the 22.1 trailerable daysailer with swing keel, the 28.1, the 29.1 with a hydraulic swing keel and a standard 4 kW electric motor, the stripped-down 29.1 GT with a 1.6 kW Aquamot pod and the 32.1 family cruiser; each page prints length overall, hull and waterline length, beam, draft, displacement, ballast as a percentage, sail areas and, where fitted, the electric motor. In 2026 production moves from Mattsee to a new shipyard at Munderfing in Upper Austria.
Who sails them
Sunbeam owners are lake and coastal sailors — often in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy — who want a beautifully finished small yacht that trails or sails on shallow waters with a swing keel, sails without fuel on an electric drive, and carries the workmanship of a family yard: weekend cruising, club racing and daysailing with a modern, light interior.
Signature models
The SUNBEAM 32.1 is the current flagship and the boat of the new generation — nominated European Yacht of the Year and a Red Dot winner in 2022 — while the 22.1 (HISWA Boat of the Year 2017) and the electric-drive 29.1 show the yard's direction of small, clever, sustainable boats.
Strengths
Sunbeam is known for Austrian craftsmanship at a family yard with 75 years in boatbuilding, swing-keel hulls for shallow lakes and trailers, standard electric propulsion on the 29.1, cork instead of tropical teak decking, two European Yacht of the Year titles and a Red Dot design award.
Considerations
The range now stops at 32 feet (the 34.1 to 53 of earlier years are gone), displacement is quoted without a basis and ballast only as a percentage, the motor figures are electric kilowatts rather than horsepower, tank and berth figures are not on the pages, and the standard lists sit behind a download form.
Analysis generated 9/13/2026
Part of
Where they build
The building sites this yard publishes, in its own order.
Munderfing
Munderfing, Upper Austria
Fleet at a Glance
Calculated from the models in the YachtCodex catalog, not from the builder's claims.
- Models in catalog
- 5
- Length range
- 6.85–9.98 m
- Hull forms
- Sailing Monohull 5
Models by this brand
5 models
History
Sunbeam Yachts has been developing and building sailing yachts in Austria for more than seventy-five years, from its yard at Mattsee. It took the European Yacht of the Year award twice, in 2008 and in 2019. Part of what the yard aims at is reachability on land as well as water: the Sunbeam 22.1, 28.1, 29.1 and 29.1 GT are each under 2.5 metres in beam and under 3.5 tonnes, and so can be trailed behind a suitable vehicle without a special permit.
History written fromsunbeam-yachts.com/werft/· Die Werftread 9/25/2026