Austrian sailing yacht builder Sunbeam Yachts opened a new shipyard in Munderfing, Upper Austria, on 16 October. According to the company, the yard cost €4.5 million. It stands on a 14,000-square-metre plot, half of which is built on; the other half is held back for expansion. Around 300 guests came to the opening, including Upper Austria's governor, Thomas Stelzer. Sunbeam is also working through a repeat order from the German Navy for eight Sunbeam 36.2 yachts, with deliveries that began in April and run through 2027.
What does the new yard in Munderfing look like?
For more than 75 years Sunbeam built boats in Mattsee, in the neighbouring state of Salzburg, 10 to 15 minutes' drive away. Mattsee had no industrial plot of the size the company needed, and land in Salzburg is expensive. "Our wish would have been to stay in Mattsee, but that was not possible," managing director Andreas Schöchl told ORF in April (translated from German). Since this summer Munderfing has been Sunbeam's only production site.
Thirty people work at the yard, with offices and workshop in one complex for the first time. Fifteen to seventeen boats are in build at any time. A test pool is built into the production hall, visible from the offices through a panoramic window, so customers can watch their own boat being built. The yard is heated by an air-source heat pump, and a big solar array on the roof gives it about 75% energy self-sufficiency, by Schöchl's estimate. Sunbeam holds open days at the new yard on 27 and 28 November.
The Navy order runs through BAAINBw, the German armed forces' procurement agency. The eight boats go to the naval academy at Mürwik, in Flensburg, for basic sea training of officers and petty officers on the Baltic. Sunbeam won the tender at the end of 2025 and delivers until the end of 2027. The price has not been published; ORF reported that the contract is worth roughly a year of the company's revenue. In 2020 the Navy had already taken five Sunbeam 36.2 through the dealer Mittelmann's Werft. BAAINBw's press office told YACHT: "Standardised training requires the use of the same boat types with standardised equipment… Sunbeam Watersports is the only manufacturer of this type of boat and has therefore been commissioned." The site contracts were signed before that order came in. "I would have built the new yard even without the Navy order," Schöchl told float Magazin (translated from German).
Three generations of the Schöchl family
The family started as joiners, opening a workshop in Mattsee in 1838. The company dates its yacht era to 1950, and in 1965 it put up a new building and began making its first series-built keelboats. An Italian subsidiary followed in 1980, and exports later reached the US and Japan. Gerhard and Manfred Schöchl took over the yard in 1995.
Manfred's son Andreas took charge in 2020 and founded Sunbeam Watersports GmbH, which builds under the Sunbeam Yachts brand. He is 44, the only managing director and the sole owner, with no outside investors. He describes the family history as three yards: his grandfather built the first in Mattsee, his father the second, "and now I have built the third" (translated from German).
The Austrian Economic Chamber, WKO, puts Sunbeam's recent annual revenue at €7–9 million, with about 70% from exports. Germany and Switzerland are the main export markets, followed by France and Spain. Service and refit make up 15–20% of revenue, Schöchl told float. Order a new Sunbeam today and it could arrive in August or September 2027 at the earliest.
What sets Sunbeam apart in its class?
Sunbeam builds boats of 6.5 to 11 metres, every one assembled by hand. A Navy 36.2 takes about 1,000 hours of work, according to ORF. The company's slogan is "Value over Volume". Customers pick the wood, upholstery, electronics, electrical systems and sails, and choose between a deep, a short or a swing keel. Electric motors are standard; some models can have a diesel instead. "We operate in a niche and have a very specialised product," Schöchl told float (translated from German).
The current range has five boats, all in production:
| Model | Length | Draught | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunbeam 22.1 | 6.85 m | 0.60–1.40 m, swing centreboard | Daysailer, from about €50,000 | In production |
| Sunbeam 29.1 | 8.99 m | 0.85–1.85 m, hydraulic swing keel | Weekender, 4 kW electric motor | In production |
| Sunbeam 29.1 GT | 8.99 m | 1.75 m | Lighter version of the 29.1, longer bowsprit | In production |
| Sunbeam 32.1 | 9.98 m | 1.80 m | Weekender, from about €210,000 | In production |
| Sunbeam 36.2 | 11.02 m | 1.94 m | Cruiser, 20 kW motor | In production for the Navy order |
The 32.1, launched in 2020, was the first Sunbeam with an exterior by Kiska, the Austrian studio known for its work on KTM motorcycles and Frauscher motorboats. The hull lines are by J&J Design of Slovenia. The 32.1 won a Red Dot design award in 2022, and the 22.1 was HISWA Boat of the Year in 2017. Two older models, the Sunbeam 34.1 in 2008 and the Sunbeam 46.1 in 2019, won European Yacht of the Year. Neither appears among the models on the company's website as of 4 November.
The 29.1's hydraulic swing keel, which can optionally be raised from the cockpit at the press of a button, suits Lake Constance, one of Sunbeam's core markets. Low water was what owners talked about at the Interboot show in Friedrichshafen this September, and some new boats had to stay ashore. "People notice that their neighbour is still in the water in September or October and goes sailing, while their own boat sits on the cradle," Schöchl said (translated from German). The 22.1, 29.1 and 29.1 GT are under 2.5 metres wide and weigh 1.3 to 2.3 tonnes, so they can be trailered behind a car: Sunbeam says the 22.1 needs a vehicle rated to tow 1,800 kg and the 29.1 one rated for 2,700 kg. A new model is in the works. Kiska and J&J are designing it again, work on the moulds has started, prototype construction is due to begin in early 2027, and the boat should launch the same year.
How is the market for small sailing yachts doing?
Yachting Monthly picked light compact boats as one of the trends of 2026, among them the Saffier SE 28 Leopard at €114,500 before VAT, the J/Boats J7 at €60,000 including VAT, and the Woy 26. The magazine also reports that Saffier now builds more than 150 boats a year.
Overall, though, sail is the weak spot for the big series builders. Groupe Beneteau, which owns Beneteau and Jeanneau, had 2025 revenue of €848.6 million, 18% lower than a year before, and its sailing monohull sales dropped 35% in the second half. In September the group said demand for sailing boats was still weak, while sales of its dayboats, small motorboats such as the Beneteau Flyer 30, were accelerating. HanseYachts, which builds Hanse and Dehler boats, cut 200 of about 740 jobs in Greifswald in 2025.
"Sailing is still in trouble," said Petros Michelidakis, director of boot Düsseldorf.
In April Groupe Beneteau and Fountaine Pajot formed a joint venture, E-Lektra Marine, which aims to put electric drive into 10–15% of the global sailing-boat market by 2030.
Electric power and adjustable draught bear directly on the sailing boats Sunbeam builds. On Upper Austria's lakes, apart from the Attersee and the Traunsee, boats with combustion engines are banned all year by state law. On 7 October the Untersee, part of Lake Constance, dropped about 15 centimetres below its January 1949 low, the lowest level on record at the Berlingen gauge. Other yards have to improvise: the Ott yard in Meersburg now offers owners a lifting-keel retrofit for the Aphrodite 101s it has already built.
Photo: Sunbeam Yachts. Source: Sunbeam Yachts (20.10.2026), float Magazin, MeinBezirk, ORF Oberösterreich, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, YACHT, WKO, bundeswehr-journal, Mittelmann's Werft, Groupe Beneteau, Yachting Monthly, Marine Industry News.
