Oy Marino Ab
Oy Marino Ab has produced boats for 65 years and is one of the oldest and most experienced boat manufacturers in Finland.
Marino is a pioneer in manufacturing glass fiber boats and has achieved the best possible reputation in the industry.
Marino boats are known for their uncompromising quality and they are already well known and recognized among the boat manufacturing industry. So it’s no wonder that Marino boats have received Boat of the Year awards through public voting for several years now.
Our story
Our goal has always been to deliver high-quality functional products on time. We have been a company for over 60 years and we are proud of our expertise.
A family owned boat manufacturing company
Marino was started in 1958 by Tor-Björn Fagerström in a Kulosaari basement. He was a chemical engineer working for Bensow when he became interested in a new material called fiberglass. He was a boating enthusiast and he wanted to use it for boat building. To bring his vision to life, he teamed up with a friend in Sweden and soon he begun building a yawl in his basement.
The meat and the fiberglass
In 1958, the first production facilities were located in Hanko, where Tor-Björn Fagerström rented extra space from the town market hall. Behind the wall of his workshop, the butchers were working with their meat as if nothing had changed – the ventilation system in the building wasn’t very good.
While starting Marino, Tor-Björn worked for Bensow and started the Bensow boat department. His superior Robert Jansson, who was actively interested in sailing, was not very enthusiastic about the idea of building boats with fiberglass, even though there would have been enough space in their Herttoniemi factory. So Tor-Björn started producing Marino fiberglass boats on his own with the blessing of his employer, and his boats were still sold at Bensow stores. This was the time when his eldest son Christer was seen handing out Marino leaflets at the boat show.
Tor-Björn Fagerström was a serious boating enthusiast. He was the ‘Father’ of A-class hydroplane in Finland and he travelled around Finland with his family participating in various competitions. Boats of all shapes and sizes were very close to his heart.
The Hanko factory produced fiberglass snipes as well as the popular Marino Family Sport model. By combining a fiberglass hull with wooden fixtures like the deck, the family sport model was very unique. “At that time, the common perception was that two such different materials, one dead and the other living, can not be used together in boat building,” Tor-Björn Fagerström recalls. But this approach does not cause any problems, as long as it is done properly.
In 1965, the Marino production line moved to Jokela, but the boats were still equipped and delivered to customers from the family yard in Kulosaari. “From the time in Jokela, I remember that after work we always left Helsinki with two cars and trailers to get Marino Sport boats from the factory to Kulosaari”, said Kitty Fagerström.
“We were back home at about 2:00 AM, so the working hours were quite long.”
By this time, Tor-Björn’s twin sons Jan and Ben became interested in the business. Jan eventually started working at Marino in 1972 and is still responsible for production today.
Moving to Sipoo
In 1967, the factory by the Sipoo river was completed. The boat production line moved there, but the office was still on Ritarikatu street. The location in Sipoo was ideal because the boats could be launched from the yard into the water for a test drive. It was also reasonably close to Tor-Björn Fagerström’s family home.
At this point, Marino still did not have an exhibition hall. A hall in Naurissaari was being rented from the paper manufacturer Dahlberg to show the boats, but there was no heating inside and the boats were only placed there for sales, testing and delivery. It was called Merikeskus and Marino planned to make improvements for year-round use, but Dahlberg did not agree, and instead of extending the lease, Marino suddenly received a rental agreement termination notice in November 1971.
But with hard work and effective planning, it only took two months to build a new hall in Sipoo. The boats were moved there at the end of December 1971 for the winter. Shortly after, company operations moved entirely to Sipoo. “After this, I decided to never rent again” Tor-Björn Fagerström said, “I will either own the place or I won’t be there!”
100 boats a year
By the 1970s, we were producing over one hundred Marino Sport boats per year. During this time, Marino Mustang and Marino Super also became popular boats, and during the period of the oil crisis, Åke Sandström designed the MS-66 motorsailer.
The new factory and company management
In 1983, Marino launched the 1000 series of larger boats. By that time, production area requirements increased and it was necessary to find new production facilities with guaranteed access to professional skilled labor. The new factory was built in 1988 in Bennäs, near Pietarsaari.
The factory is designed to be very effective and flexible, and was based on the Fagerström family’s ideas and decades of experience in boat building. According to Tor-Björn Fagerström, cooperation with the local community also brought positive results.
Succession
Marino’s operations shifted to the next generation in the beginning of 1985 when Ben Fagerström was appointed CEO. “We did not want to do this at the last moment when the older generation is no longer able to support the new leadership” stated Tor-Björn Fagerström.
Saftey and success
Safety on board the boats has always been the most important concern for Marino employees. For more than forty years now, all Marino boats have been type approved or Blue Shielded (issued by the Finnish Maritime Administration). Our boats have also been tested in competitions with a specific focus on developing the hull. Unlike other boats, Marino boats have been through several tough product development phases in various offshore categories. The popular Marino Mustang with V-bottom, went through a long product development process, including hard tests in international competitions.
“Over the years, many of our models have received awards based on public votes or from professional journals”, CEO Ben Fagerström points out. Specifically, Marino 9000, 8000, both Barracuda versions, Piraya and Rocca have all been selected as ‘Boat of the Year’. The Marino Shark won boat of the year in 2000 and Marino Cobra won the same award in 2005. In 2006, Marino Cobra was selected as ‘Motor boat of the show’. In 2007, Marino Swing restarted production as a retro innovation. And in 2009, the new generation Marino APB 27 won 7 designations (Boat of the Year) in Europe. In 2015, the Marino Mustang was reintroduced and quickly became Finland’s most popular day-cruiser after being away for 40 years. At the boat exhibition in 2015, the reintroduction of the classic Marino Mustang was liked by the visitors and sold many more units than was expected.
Marino has been building boats for more than sixty years. During that time, we’ve developed over sixty models and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished. We’re a family owned company dedicated to creating boats that help you get the most out of your boating experience.
Contact
If owning a high-quality boat that looks good is important to you, get yourself a Marino. Our head office and exhibition hall are located in Söderkulla, Sipoo, but we sell and deliver to the whole country, as well as to rest of the Europe and Russia.
Please contact our professionals and ask more!