A classic wooden-Runabout – not only as a tender – made to fall in love

Everbody who is starting to search in the web for tender boats will not straight away find the right thing. The more luxurious and bigger the base ship is the more difficult it will be to find the right tender. The market for superyachts with a length more than 60 metres is one of the most discreet and exclusive ones of the world. It is not only because of the fact that the starting price for such pieces of jewellery is about the two digit million Euro sector (there is of course no limit in the height of the price). Even the new riches of the potential clients are considered to be publicity-shy.
Seems logical as a superyacht is for its owner most of all like a hide-away against parasitic papparazzi or twilight commisioned agents – only if the yacht is not laying on ancer for representative cases on the coast of barbados, Monaco or Key west.

These circumstances have to be regarded when Florian Graf junior head of the exclusive, swabian boat building manufacturer abruptly stops giving information about his principal. Even compared to this his intense study of the cleverly worked-out construction plans in the middle of his boatyard seem to be easy going for him. It is of great value for our clients to handle everything more than confidential Graf says nearly apologizing “it makes no difference there if the boat is used as a tender for a superyacht or as a sport boat on a inland territory” he is explaining. Anyway he is abandoning that he had until now always the pleasure to meet the owner face to face. These are often very sympatic and decent appearing peeople Graf is pointing out. I woul be extremely unlikely that they would arrive by a conventional Volkswagen Gulf Cabrio he is adding with a smile, and normally they do prefer to meet on the boat on the water instead of in the shipyard. Of course the sophisticated clients would like sit once behind the steering wheel (for a test drive) of the object of desire before they have to think about spending

the not irrelevant amount of at least 380.000 Euro for the basic version of the Ipanema.

His formula for success is Graf describing as a mixture of craftmanship without any compromise and being absolutely focussed on the customer. Experts only smiled at us when they heard about our project in building a perfect classic runabout made from solid wood. The latent arrogance in their smile is at the latest changing into approval when they see the Ipanema for the first time.
As well the craftmanship of boat building as the equipment and the surface finish of the draft done by Wilfried H. Wilke are simply breathtaking. Noblest materials, sophisticated detail solutions and an incredible perfect quality impression develop an aesthetic from which the observer cannot escape.

Success did not came immeditaley to the manufactury which is lead familiar and in 3rd generation. “In the beginning we had to bear a lot of barriers as well against colleagues of the branch as also on the market” so the statement of senior chief Günter Graf with lines of worry one his forehead. By immeditaley adding with a smile “thank god that our Ipanema is a enormous charming object of sympathy”. Nevertheless the Grafs do not want to build more than 3 pieces of the classic sport boats per year. This is to make sure that we can steadily guarantee the requirements in quality and flexibility to customize each desire of our clients. This flexibility is also the reason that arrouse the interest of the project managers who are responsible for the construction and the equipment of the superyachts.The Ipanema can be ordered with one or two motors, with diesel or otto engines, with z-type propeller or dual drive with rigid motor shaft and gear pair with center distance with soft or hard top and in various other versions. However the Grafs do not accept any compromise regarding quality of the craftmanship manufacturing and also regarding the elegance of the finished boat. “That is one of the characteristics for the swabians and what they consider as important” father and son are agreeing with a smile.