NorseBoat Sailing & Rowing Cruisers is recognized as a marine industry leader with an international reputation for quality.  We build innovative trailerable sailing and rowing boats with high performance and classic lines.  Our goal is to also build a community of like-minded small craft enthusiasts who are able to connect with each other around the world.   

    NorseBoat founder and president Kevin Jeffrey, a design engineer and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in the sailing industry, developed the concept for the NorseBoat in 2002.  His concept was simple: seaworthy, high-performance sailing and rowing boats with classic lines that could be sailed and rowed equally well, and be used as comfortable camp-cruisers or motorized picnic launches.   

    Form and function were both important, so early in 2003 Kevin collaborated with Mark Fitzgerald, then working with Chuck Paine & Associates in Camden, Maine and currently working as Fitzgerald Marine Architecture, to design the hull shape for the NorseBoat 17.5 Sailing & Rowing Cruiser.  The result of that collaboration is a boat with a true pedigree, one with stunningly beautiful lines and enough innovative details and features to earn the reputation of the “Swiss army knife of small sailboats.”

    The first NorseBoat 17.5 was on display at the 2004 Miami Boat Show.  Initial launching and sea trials were held in the Florida Keys in late February.  Her performance exceeded expectations on all points of sail as well as in the rowing mode.

    As if to illustrate her abilities and potential, in March 2004 NorseBoat 17.5 hull #1 came in “first in class” (sailboats) in the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge, a grueling 300-mile coastal expedition race from St. Petersburg, Florida to Key Largo.  In 2005 the NorseBoat team again won the Everglades Challenge, this time first overall and setting a new course record.   

   The NorseBoat reputation for adventure sailing & rowing has steadily grown.  In 2007 a retired couple from Idaho travelled over 1200 miles on their NorseBoat 17.5 down US river systems from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Mobile, Alabama.  And in the summer of 2009 a 2-man team of Royal Marines from the UK sailed, rowed and when necessary dragged their NorseBoat 17.5 1400 miles through the arctic’s legendary Northwest Passage.  The team is returning to the arctic for more NorseBoat adventure summer 2010.

   

NorseBoats have also received high praise from the boating industry.  In 2004 Sail Magazine chose the NorseBoat 17.5 for their prestigous Best Boats award. 

The following year Practical Sailor included the NorseBoat 17.5 in their “Gear of the Year – Top Products for 2005” issue.  In 2006 the NorseBoat 17.5 won Most Innovative Boat at the Mahone Bay Classic Boat Festival, and was featured in the Wooden Boat Magazine’s Small Boats Dec 2006 Issue. 

And in 2008 the newly released NorseBoat 12.5 Cruiser/Tender was chosen for Sail Magazine’s Best Boats award. 

    In May 2009 eight NorseBoats participated in La Semaine du Golfe du Morbihan in Brittany, France, a four day festival-style event with over 1000 small boats.  This event was organized by NorseBoat agent in France Nicolas Galais.  The number of NorseBoats attending and the comraderie of the owners and crew was evidence that a NorseBoat community was indeed forming.

    Kevin Jeffrey and his wife Liza Wendt live on Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Maritimes.  That is where NorseBoat business and all sales/marketing activities are based, and where NorseBoats were built and fitted out until the beginning of 2008.  In 2010 Kevin hopes to offer owner-builder workshops with B&B accommodations and a NorseBoat retail showroom at his facility on Prince Edward Island.

    In 2008 a new NorseBoat production facility and showroom was created near the waterfront in historic Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, one block from the berth of the Bluenose II schooner.  Lunenburg is a World Heritage Site and well worth a visit.  The new NorseBoat facility includes workshop space where apprentices can learn boatbuilding skills or customers can learn how to assemble their own NorseBoat.

    Our facility is becoming known as the Lunenburg Small Boat Centre, the place to come for high quality traditional small watercraft.  In addition to our NorseBoat production work we welcome custom and specialized small boat projects and small boat repair and maintenance work.  To illustrate our versatility, in July 2009 NorseBoat Limited received the contract to build six whale boats for the upcoming remake of the movie Moby Dick.  In two months the NorseBoat crew built and detailed five 23 ft. whale boats and one motorized 28 ft. whale boat. 

    In season the NorseBoat showroom has become a  focal point for tourists and local residents.  They appreciate stopping by to see the boats being built and the completed products on display. 

    Glen Cairns, owner of North Atlantic Yachts in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has recently joined the NorseBoat team as manager of the Lunenburg facility.  When he is in Lunenburg Glen is overseeing production, working on boats, and helping customers in the NorseBoat showroom. 

    Master Shipwright Scott Dagley, long-time supplier of wooden NorseBoats and components through his company Dagleys Boatworks, joined the Lunenburg team in 2008 as the company’s shop manager.  Scott is well known for quality boat building and restoration.  He has over 25 years of experience working with a wide range of materials and boat building techniques.   

    With the move to the Lunenburg waterfront the decision was made to subcontract the construction of our fibreglass hulls to Yachtsmiths International of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  Yachtsmiths has full-scale boat building capabilities in the construction of steel, aluminum and FRP yachts.

    Summer 2009 NorseBoat began offering standard NorseBoat Kits for owner construction.  These are partially completed standard NorseBoats ready for owner final assembly and finishing.  If desired, customers can complete their NorseBoat Kit in our Lunenburg shop.  In 2010 we will be offering LightCraft Kits and a series of Owner Builder Workshops for standard NorseBoat Kits and LightCraft Kits at their Lunenburg, Nova Scotia facility. 

    Other exciting new products include the NorseBoat 21.5 Cruiser and the sleek 17.5 Recreational Rower with dual sliding-seat rowing stations.  Our ambitious product development program ensures that NorseBoat Limited will continue to be a marine industry leader in the construction and marketing of innovative, traditional watercraft for years to come.