chris
Pelle Pettersson, the well known Maxi designer and medallist in the ’64 and ’72 Olympics, is joining Bernd Arvidsson (one of the founders of Najad yachts) and other world-class racing and yacht designer/architects on an Advisory Board to the restructured Najad-Maxi Group.
The Najad- Maxi group is to be managed by Chairman Hans Johansson and new CEO Mikael Gustavsson, both of whom have extensive experience of the Swedish boat industry and international racing and will be taking up their positions in the coming weeks. The previous Chairman, Stuart Lawson of Animatrix, and CEO Per Lindquist, will continue in non-executive roles having overseen over eight million euros of investment over the past year by Animatrix, the investment vehicle of Rupert Lywood, a London financier who is another keen Najad sailor.
The MaxiOwners Association believe this series of announcements represent a very credible and promising new start for the new Najad -Maxi brand owners. Your committee has been privileged with hearing the early intentions for the future and have full confidence that this management team is well positioned to carry Maxi and Najad forward into the future as performance and quality boats.
Our Best Wishes go to Pelle and Najad-Maxi Yachts.
Maxi Owners Association Rally – Chichester 2010
The weather forecast over the weekend of the 7th / 8th of August for the rally to Chichester was fair winds, sunshine and the odd shower, which proved to be right. Not to be put off by the showers we had 8 boats with 17 crew gather in Northney Marina
Access to the Marina is restricted around low water which was at 15.00 so the fleet was split. Some opting for an early start to arrive before LW and some having a more leisurely start arriving soon after LW, with one boat arriving a little too soon after, but with soft mud and a rising tide all was well (apart from being spotted by another maxi owner).
The customary “pontoon party” was a splendid affair arranged by David and Sandy Hodges who had also had the foresight to book the marquee at the marina for the event, a necessary luxury in light of the showers.
Gathering at 18.00, we were treated to a fine selection of wine and nibbles of gastronomic splendour.
The wine and conversation flowed throughout the evening, only interrupted during the short walk across the causeway in glorious sunshine to the Ship Inn where we were treated to good food and even more wine.
Sunday dawned with very light winds and sunshine. We all met up in the marina café for coffee before departing as tide and time allowed.
Boats Attending
Maxima
Asante
Blue Rider
Leda of Hamble
Sea Wolf
Omega
Blue Lightning
Haskins Marine
Maxi Owners Association Rally – Easter 2010
Mooring up at Howard Hayles
1) Maxi 1050 finishes 7th in 2009 ARC
A French owned Maxi 1050, “Minimaxi”, finished 7th overall in the Cruiser Section & 1st in her Class in the 2009 ARC.
Her blog can be viewed at http://blog.mailasail.com/minimaxi and can be read in English using Google’s Translate toolbar. Hearty congratulations to “Minimaxi” from the M-O-A!!
This is the second Maxi (that we know of!) that has participated successfully in the ARC. The other one was a Maxi 33 ‘Kjempekjekk’ back in 2003.
2) More on Maxi Yachts, AGM and Rallies, and web project!
The Maxi 1300 has been exhibited at both the recent Hamburg and Düsseldorf boat shows, with an order already placed for a French customer. We have just heard the new Maxi 1060 is already at the Gothenburg Boat Show which opens tomorrow until the 14th Feb. A string of new agents are being established across Europe, with Turkey, Slovenia and Croatia joining those already signed in Italy, France and Holland and starting their own marketing activities. We now look forward to seeing similar progress in the UK, historically one of the most important markets for Maxi Yachts.
M-O-A members will be pleased to see dates announced in the members area for this year’s AGM and our popular Solent Rallies. The AGM venue will be announced as soon as possible, together with further details on the Rally programme.
We have been quietly working on a new web project to replace our FrontPage-based web (which has become somewhat cumbersome) with a more interactive Web 2.0 CMS offering far better user functionality for both public and members-only. It is too early to make firm promises as the new project (which will be based on Joomla 1.5/1.6) depends solely on volunteer effort but we are learning fast! We are looking for a new webmaster from within the membership to administer and manage our new Joomla web. We hope their task will be less time consuming than our current FrontPage web because various committee and other members will contribute or update their own items directly from any web browser. So the inevitable plea of “help!” to our members – can you help us finalise our web project, or would you consider volunteering as our new web master?
Chris
New Maxi 1300 exhibited at the Boat Show, 23 -31 January 2010
We are very pleased that the new Najad/Maxi corporate structure is now beginning to take shape, with the latest Maxi 1300 taking pride of place on the Najad/Maxi stand in Dusseldorf. The German dealer for Maxi, who also represents Grand Soleil and Najad, describes the 1300 as having “great ambience with a Scandanavian touch”.
Late last year, details of the new investment and corporate structure concerning Maxi Yachts as part of the Najad group were revealed in a Press Release. The M-O-A Committee have already established contacts with the new majority investor in the Maxi Brand and look forward to an early meeting with the CEO of Animatrix Capital LLP.