1 Nord West Yacht for Sale

Updated 7 October 2026 · By Hulls.io Editorial

About Nord West

Nord West is a Swedish motor-boat name with Norwegian roots. The brand began in Norway: Kjell Skarbø, who brought experience from Tresfjord and Saga, set up AS Nord West Båt on the island of Haramsøya, north of Ålesund, in 1976. He designed the Nord West 740 from scratch; it was launched in 1977 and stayed in production until about 1984, and around 300 boats were delivered from Haramsøya. When the banking crisis brought the market to a standstill in 1989, the company avoided bankruptcy but stopped production, and the moulds for its Nord West 900 and Nord West 1100 were sold to a boatbuilder in Sweden.

That boatbuilder was Benny Martinsson. He had spent ten years building boats at Hallberg-Rassy on the island of Orust before starting his own company there in 1985 — by his own account with little more than a toolbox — working as a contractor for other yards on the island. In 1989 he bought the Nord West name from Norway together with the 900 and 1100, refined both and gradually added new models, among them the Nord West 1000 and the Nord West 380 Trawler. The business began at Gäddebräcka and later moved to Vindön, on Orust, after a fire.

Other Nord West models offered in coupé and flybridge versions included the 330, 355, 370, 390 and 410, alongside the 420 Flybridge, the 430 in Flybridge, Sport and Sports Top forms, and the 560 Flybridge. By 2012 the line-up ran from 27 to 56 feet, mostly flybridge boats. In a 2022 interview Martinsson put the number of Nord West boats built on Orust at around 600.

In late 2011 Nord West, together with a consortium, acquired the brand of Najad, a sailing-yacht builder also based on Orust, after Najad's bankruptcy in August that year, and the combined business traded as Nord West & Najad AB. It did not last: the company was declared bankrupt in February 2013. In July 2013 the bankruptcy estate was bought by Runo Gillholm, who ran Gillholms Marina south of Kungälv, together with a partner. The design rights were disputed: both the company's former chairman and Gillholm said the Nord West designs belonged to Martinsson, and the new owners could not restart production until the rights question was settled. In January 2014 Storebro Boats, owned by Roger von Haugwitz, announced that it had acquired Nord West, along with the Lysekil plastics plant Lyse Plast. Production, idle since February 2013, was to move from Orust to Storebro's factory in Småland, continuing with the 370 and 430, and Gillholms Marina was to handle sales. The Vindön yard was not part of that deal.

Martinsson's own route took him into selling and servicing rather than building. He designed his last Nord West in 2013. In 2016 Princess Yachts West Sweden, a company he and his wife Jessica set up, became the sole distributor in western Sweden for the English builder Princess Yachts, and in 2017 he took on the Princess agency for Denmark and Norway as well. That year he also bought back the Vindön yard with an investor's backing, saying there were no plans for boat production there; the site was to be used for reconditioning and service. The design rights stayed on Martinsson's side. Båtliv reported that he held the rights to the Nord West 430 Flybridge design, so Storebro could not build more of them, and Bohusläningen reported in March 2017 that, after the Martinssons sued Storebro's Nord West Boats and Gillholms Marina for copyright infringement in 2014, the Patent and Market Court had recently barred Storebro and Gillholms Marina from building Nord West Flybridge boats. By 2022 the former Nord West yard on Vindön was the headquarters of Princess Yachts West Sweden. Martinsson's company Benny & Jessica AB offers technical support and parts to Nord West owners, who also have their own owners' association, the Nord West Yacht Club.