Art And J Craft

On a remote Swedish island where Norse shipyards once flourished, a boutique outfit builds 42ft dreamboats for the French Riviera and beyond.

- Julia Zaltzman

VIKING GRIT STILL runs strong throughout Gotland. From medieval sailors buried beneath the cobblestone streets in Visby to the ruins of Norse shipyards where longboats were built 1,000 years ago, ancient maritime lore suffuses the island. The old walled community once thrived on trading squirrel skins and beeswax, and to this day small fishing vessels make regular runs between the isle and the mainland, a distance of about 90km.

“The people of Gotland have always made their living by the sea,” says Johan Hallén, who grew up here, renovated his first boat at the age of 15, served in the Swedish navy as a mine diver, and later spent three years as a training officer specialising in battleship management. These days, Hallén is the chief technical officer—and the longest-serving employee—at J Craft, an unlikely boutique yard that sends the lion’s share of its meticulously crafted 42ft Torpedo models to the French Riviera.

Björn Jansson founded J Craft in 1999, intent on building a stunning yacht inspired by the gleaming Riva Aquaramas of the 1960s. His vision was to create boats with finely varnished mahogany topsides but far more seaworthy fibreglass hulls, making them capable of running the rough waters of the surrounding Baltic. In 2000, Jansson, Hallén and a handful of other local craftsmen and carpenters delivered the first J Craft, a 38ft Cabrio Cruiser named Polaris, to its inaugural customer: King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.