The life of Jussi Mannerberg has always circled around boats. His family had boating as a hobby and the family house was located at sea in Helsinki with its own key. Parents and teachers were surprised when the young yachtdesigner was only drawing boats in his pads while other children were drawing the usual people, flowers and trees. Jussi’s first boats were built in the garage with the aid of his father.

Jussi’s racing career started at the age of 7 and developed rapidly in the late 70’s so fast that in the eastern side of Helsinki there was very few boats that could win the boats steered by him. First partly self-designed boat was built in school. Jussi and his friends built this little 6-meter boat by using plywood. The design work was done on keel, rudder, rig and deck. The hull was borrowed from old magazine and modified to suit young designers ambition. The ambition proved correct and the boat won all the races she took part in. At the same time the racing career was very active in several classes like H-boat, soling, and large offshore boats in the Baltic area.

First Finnish championships were won in the ¾ ton class in 1984. 1985 Jussi built a Flying Dutchman, an Olympic class boat. The goal was to sail in Barcelona Olympic games. Despite promising results the Olympics were too expensive to reach and the sight was put to England to study yachtdesign.

During the Southampton years 1986-89 Jussi graduated as Naval architect and yachtdesigner in the very talented and international atmosphere. During those years the waters of English channel and the active offshore racing there was the passion of the young designer and he made a very large international contacts network. This well known yachtdesign course has been the base education to most successful yachtdesigners in the world. During those years the use of computers in the design process was growing rapidly and the idea of using the datapower to create his boats was growing is his mind. Soon he became specialised in his studies in the use of computer modelling of shapes and performance prediction with computer programs. These now quite common tools were indeed new and his final year project on the subject was the first of its kind in the institution. While in England Jussi also became actively involved with the Offshore Racing Council (ORC), which is the organisation governing the rules and regulations of offshore racing. His final year project was even taken as part of the research of ITC to improve the Ims measurement system. Back home Jussi was pioneering the introduction of this system to local racing. In 1993 he became the member of the International Technical Committee (ITC) that is the technical organ for ORC. The voluntary research and rule development of this committee is still taking a lot of Jussi’s time. Members of the committee come from around the world from research institutions and yachtdesign offices.

Jussi founded the design office Mannerberg Yacht Design in 1989. The first task was to be part of design team for the Finnish challenge for the America’s Cup as a computer expert. The project was unfortunately stopped because of the rapid collapse of the Finnish economy and sailing sponsoring disappeared behind the unemployment and economic recession for many years. However at the same time Jussi had started a decade of co-operation with a well-known businessman Kari Österlund and his sailing team. Under the conduct of Jussi, the team sailed with good success in the European One tonner circuit.

MYD’s first notable project in home waters was to build the first IMS offshore racer for the team of Österlund. The boat then called Sipilintu was built on the base design of Bruce Farr and then extensively modified to suit the rule and crew requirements by Jussi. The first unbeatable Finnish IMS boat was born. The boat gained three consecutive Finnish championships in the big IMS class with Jussi as tactician and usually also helmsman. Later the name of the boat became "Hasse" and Finnair Leisure after to the sponsors.

In the early 90's the design office was involved also in several workboats for passanger and fire/rescue purposes. These metal boats have not given enough challenges to Jussi and therefore he is not so well known as a powerboat designer. However before coming to Finland after the studies he worked for a period in a company that designs and builds offshore racing powerboats in Italy. The first all computer modelled designs created during that time were one of the most successful aluminium offshore class 1 catamarans. Italy and powerboats were not tempting enough and sailboats were always on top of the mind.

First serieproduction boat was ARO a 14' skiff type dinghy produced in England. The time was too early for skiffs in the conservative environment of England and the skiff boom has only started properly many years later and most ideas seen on the boat then are on the present products.

In Finland one of the first completely designed one-off boats was a 41 feet so called ULDB (ultra light displacement boat) cruising boat that was built in 1992 for and old friend Illy Brummer. The boat was built in France and has in recent years been breaking line honours in local races in the Baltic. However the boat was never intended to be anything but a fast cruising family boat with no compromises because of racing rules.

In 1994 Ludde Ingvall walked to Jussi's stand in the Helsinki boatshow. The task was to find a suitable maxi yacht to race as an IMS racer. After several episodes a suitable candidate was found in Italy. An old Whitbread maxi originally designed by Dumas in France named as Charles Jourdan. The boat was sailed to Sweden, taken apart completed just leaving a section of the hull in the middle of the boat. Jussi designed a new bow, stern, keel, rudder and rig. The deck was cut to pieces and a new deck was built at the same time as the interior was also rebuilt and new equipment installed. The whole operation was done in less than five weeks and almost the whole city of Nynäshamn was involved in the operation helping the crew in their massive task. The first race was Round the Gotland race that was won with an overwhelming margin. The original design had never done well in races and this created a worldwide interest in the project. The legendary Fastnet race was won with record a margin of 24 hours before next boat. Nicorette is still sailing under Ludde's command around the world in major events and has recently won the Chicago Macignac race in the great lakes of the USA.

Nicorette project was the ideal platform to jump into the world elite of sailboat designers. New models have been created at a growing pace: some 20 new designs were created between 1994 and 1998. Most known serieproduced boat is the Rondo - a 10-meter cruising boat that has a very innovative styling and interior solution. This model has raised so much publicity in the media that it has made the Mannerberg brand well known to most demanding sailors. The other well-known design is the new Tempo designed in 1998 and first launch in 1999. Tempo is a completely new concept of a 27 feet spacious sportboat. Both of these Mannerberg designed smaller boats are now produced in the new facility owned by the production side of the business called Proyachts Oy.

The design of one-off boats has still been the most tempting and challenging area of design. Many raceboat and the most recent cruising boat projects have been an interesting field where new ideas have tested and produced. A 12 m one-off design Mannerberg 40 named UFO built at Scandi Yachts in Finland is probably one of the most known one-off cruisers from the design office. The boat has a very innovative deck design. She also has water ballast tanks, which gives the boat a new level of sailing by increasing upwind speed by almost a knot and reducing heel. A new design -Mannerberg 43 "Monica"- based on similar concept but with much more technology was built during 1998-1999. The boat has a computer assisted control system that monitor and drive various functions in the boat. The hull and rig are constructed with carbon fiber and epoxy with a post cure in high temperature oven.

In the cruising boats there is also a line of classic designs that has been created with wood composite construction method. Typical for these boats has been the lighter displacement enabled with a new construction method and therefore an easy handling and faster speed of the classic sailing boats. The largest boat under this concept has been "Jera", a Mannerberg 65 classic, which was launched in 1999 form the Ristikankare yard in Finland.

The real breakthrough to the superyacht design has been the 100 feet sailing yacht for a Norwegian client. The boat was launched in New Zealand in May 2000 and arrives to Europe in July. The boat has all possible technology and design innovation gathered during last years and has already raised a lot of attention in the International yachting community.

The builder is Yachting Developments NZ Ltd in Auckland.

Jussi Mannerberg / Mannerberg Yacht Design

Address: Kauppiaankatu 13, 00160 Helsinki, FINLAND

Tel: +358-0-22890444 Fax: +358-0-22890445 Mobile: +358-400-706535

email: jussi@mannerberg.com

www.mannerberg.com