The location seems perfectly chosen and adds a highly specialised nautical company to Sailing City Kiel. The new Pure Yachts shipyard is located in the maritime district of Friedrichsort, north of the locks of the Kiel Canal. The founding team led by Matthias Schernikau was able to secure the site of the former Lindenau shipyard, in line with the interests of the city of Kiel, which did not want to authorise any hotel, office or residential premises there, but wanted to see a specialist maritime company continue to operate there.
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The approximately 12,500 square metre site was built on with three large halls with a total area of 3,600 square metres and a 60-tonne crane that can lift the entire site. A small shipyard harbour for around 15 yachts is to be built on the waterfront.
Transparent factory with state-of-the-art machines
They have already built a modern hall with floor-to-ceiling windows. A glass factory with state-of-the-art machinery: There is a five-axis milling machine with a four by six metre milling table, a laser cutter for three by two metre panels, a metal folding bench for bending sheet metal, a 100 tonne veneer press, a nine by seven metre paint booth and the internal drying dock. Hulls of up to 50 feet in size are lowered to a comfortable working height in the dry dock, making the distances for the boat builders and their materials short and easy, and eliminating the need for racks and scaffolding. Screws, nuts and other small parts are supplied by an automatic dispenser after being entered on a touchscreen.
The investment is high, including in employees. Boss Schernikau, who built up a specialised mobile chair manufacturer and sold it well, relies on decent pay, good working conditions and a maximum of flexible working hours, using eight different models. "We have no problems finding good people," says the tall and mostly cheerful new shipyard owner. The management team includes Urs Kohler, who held a responsible position at Sirius in Plön for many years, and Latvian Ivars Linbergs, who has worked for years as a self-employed boat builder and composite specialist in various companies.
On the high-performance side of sport
After the first hall for the yachts was completed, they renovated another one and fitted it with a new floor including heating.
Pure currently obtains its hulls from the Dutch specialist company Folmer, which welds, bends and grinds everything from six-metre aluminium sloops and various yachts to motorboats and larger government vessels that need to be robust, light and durable. Folmer has already built various yachts according to plans by Martin Menzner/Berckemeyer Yacht Design. The designer from Stein on the Kiel Fjord is very versatile, but also stands for well-sailing aluminium yachts. Menzner designed the Pure 42, the shipyard's first production boat. Before that, the shipyard built a one-off Berckemeyer 50 for American account. The programme also includes the Pilothouse yacht Pure 49, which Schernikau built for himself from a hull from the Benjamins shipyard and later integrated into the shipyard portfolio.
Both boats are semi-one-offs with a lifting keel and backstayless carbon rig with fathead mainsail, and they operate on the high-performance side of the sport. The lightweight interior made of GRP sandwich and the GRP roof as well as the intelligent use of aluminium construction contribute to this. In future, the shipyard also intends to build the hulls and decks itself and is not averse to individual constructions.
Pure enriches the shipyard landscape
This adds a promising player to the aluminium shipyard scene. The market for large sailing yachts is dominated by Huisman, explorers come from K&M, long-distance yachts from Hutting, for example, both also from the Netherlands, and Garcia and Allures as well as Ovni and Boreal from France are also fishing in the market. Jachtbouw Folmer in Holland and Yachtwerft Benjamins in East Frisia specialise in hulls and one-offs.
With Pure Yachts, German boatbuilding has gained another ambitious shipyard that has sought and found its niche: comfortable and high-performance long-distance yachts made of aluminium with an all-weather deckhouse. Performance explorers are a rare breed.
