Jongert Power yachts, why only 2 builds?

Hi,

I do not know for sure but they were a well known and respected sailboat builder ad they built a couple of motor yachts.

I have been on two Jongerts as crew and found them to be good solid well made boats.

I was given a tour of one of the motor yachts in SD 15 yrs ago which impressed me. I thought it was the one the YF Member now owns as I didn't know they has built 2 of them.

They just launched an 18m Motor Yacht. Have a 32m Sailing Yacht in build. Jongert is not a high volume builder and as they build only to order it's really a matter of demand. They're known for Sailboats and so that is where the vast majority of the demand is.

This and it's probably also hard for a Sailboat manufacturer to properly estimate the build cost and build a powerboat as efficiently in regards to cost. Just look at the equipment needed to build a motoryacht compared to a sailing yacht.

I would say the other way around, it is very little in a motor yacht that you don't find in a Jongert sailer. I think it is more that Jongert were marketed by Herb Dahm as sailing boats or motor sailers and there were other Dutch builders, more oriented towards motor yachts. It has been the same situation with Royal Huisman.

Herbert Dahm and Jongert

Herbert Dahm and Jongert were the best symbiosis this company ever had. Herbert brought in the clients and developed the Jongert classic style. Many customers were repeat clients and the Jongert yachts got bigger and bigger with the growing wealth of those repeat clients. Jongert and their clients were a big family. Even after the first financial crisis of Jongert, those repeat clients backed up Jongert with personal loans and bonds.

But Jongert stopped listening to their loyal customers and had some delusions of grandeur, or lets call it, got overconfident (very common for Dutch companies ). After a short while, clients became a rare species. Power boats are just not Jongerts neck of the wood (as far as their clients believe).

Herbert Dahm has past his 80. birthday and is still going strong and the "grand seigneur" of European yacht brokerage. Herbert, I take my hat off to you !!!

I am wondering if anyone would recommend purchasing this yacht since it one of a kind.

I would say you should have no worries with this particular one of a kind, the machinery and outfit would have originally been much the same as what was in use on the sailboats of the day - one obvious deviation is the use of Caterpillar engines which are reliable and reasonably sensible when it comes to operating costs, I also think that this one has different models engines to the other one.

I have sailed on two Jongert sailboats, one built a couple of years before this motor yacht and one a few years after, both were well made and if anything the earlier one was more reliable owing to its simpler systems and arrangement.

I agree with K1w1 with no worries. Normally, I'd warn against one-off's but that's because most come from a builder who never was much and never will be. This is entirely different. Jongert is a recognized quality builder with just a dalliance into power boats. I hesitate even to say that as the reality is all their boats had power, these just had more power and no sails. In fact, I'd think this boat could have increased value at some time as one of only two from a very fine builder.

As to "seems they could have been viable in this business", there is far more required than just a quality boat. Often companies find it advisable to return to just their basis rather than efforts outside their mainstream. Not only could a run of two builds lose money on their own, they'd take time, effort, and resources away from what a company does best.

The main reason why they were not building any more motor yachts was that Mr Dahm was most of the time able to fill the capacity of the yard in their good days. If I am not mistaken, the owner who commisioned the motor yacht was also a sail yacht owner from Jongert, so that was an exception.

I am wondering if this, https://www.northropandjohnson.com/yachts-for-sale/halcyondays-85-jongert is the same yacht they are talking about in this thread. Has it been for sale all this time or is it being relisted?

So not only are sailors inferior mariners, but those that build sailboats are less capable business people unable to efficiently build a motor yacht which requires more complex equipment, whatever the heck that may mean. You're on a roll man.

At least his bias has been consistent over the years. I'm just curious about what the different equipment is: "Just look at the equipment needed to build a motoryacht compared to a sailing yacht." To my mind a lot more equipment is needed and calculations are more critical with a sailboat. So that would mean that a sailboat manufacturer would have to dumb down to build a motor yacht. I can make a square box move with motors. It wouldn't do so well under sail.

Yep. The forces of a large rig are huge. Massive compression at the foot of the mast, massive tension on head, back stay(s) and shrouds (plus any intermediates like running backs etc.) The moment the sails go up it all wants to turn the hull into a banana. Building it strong enough to stay in one piece but still light enough to perform is a serious design challenge. Of course the Jongerts have all the propulsion/generation/electrical/HVAC/water making etc. etc. of a luxury motor yacht. Unfamiliarity and ignorance are close cousins.

It's not their specialty, just as there would be a learning curve if Feadship were to build a whitbread sailyacht. Or if you had a general contractor that only builds residential homes, build a 20 story hotel. So of course they're not going to be as efficient building the first handful of them, or probably even profitable on the first few. It's to be expected. They're also not experienced at all of the idiocynchrocies of building a yacht and it's equipment versus building a sailing yacht that they've been doing for 100 years. There are many systems on a motor yacht that they've never worked with before. need to figure out how to install, etc. etc. Take stabilizers for example, in this era I highly doubt Jonquert was installing those on a sailboat. Bottom line, IF they were successful at building motor yachts, they would've built a whole lot more than 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Would you want to buy hull # 1-5 of a 60' Sailboat from Viking Yachts?

What I said is true, on the ICW when doing the North/South delivery, there are a very high percentage of inexperienced and unaware sail boaters.

All this from the very same person that's on another forum help spreading a rumor that the manufacturer of the very own yacht manufacturer of their own yacht, is going out of business and closing it's doors. One that has been in business for 70 years, has a plant full of ordered boats being built, and is doing fine and furthest thing from the truth.

"They're also not experienced at all of the idiocynchrocies of building a yacht and it's equipment versus building a sailing yacht that they've been doing for 100 years. There are many systems on a motor yacht that they've never worked with before. need to figure out how to install, etc. etc. Take stabilizers for example, in this era I highly doubt Jonquert was installing those on a sailboat." What are those idiosyncrasies and equipment that are used in building motor yachts and not on sailing yachts? As for stabilizers I think keels would qualify, but I think they could probably figure out where to place a gyro-stabilized or even standard type pretty easily compared to a motor yacht builder trying to figure out rigging and mast stress.

"What I said is true, on the ICW when doing the North/South delivery, there are a very high percentage of inexperienced and unaware sail boaters." You do understand that every time you hear a sailboat complaining about getting waked it means an inexperienced or unaware power boater came by right and that it's the obligation of the passing boat to figure out how to convey his intentions ?

A powerboater cannot convey his intentions, if the sail boater doesn't understand what intentions are. Such as whistle signals, having an operating VHF on either channel 16 or channel 9 or 13 (what the bridges are on in that state). But the BIGGEST issue I see, is even if you convey your intentions and the sailboat agrees to the slow pass. THE SAILBOAT NEVER SLOWS DOWN FROM 6-6.5 KNOTS SO THAT YOU CAN GIVE THEM A SLOW PASS WITHOUT WAKING THEM.

I looked at this boat 3 years ago. There was some rumors of tank issues. I saw it a few months ago and it seemed to have new paint. So someone is putting good money into it.

Yes the metal work and engineering is hard to beat. They had some early euro features that did not wear well in the US market. The last one to sell on the brokerage market (Grand Cru?) had been updated and modernized to classy cruising platform.
The Save the Sea Turtles had one in donation at Bradfords. May still be active.