The Story of Saxdor Yachts

While the Saxdor Yachts brand is relatively new, there’s a pretty long story behind it. Specifically, it evolved from many years of experience and the thorough practical knowledge of its founder – Sakari Mattila. This visionary boat designer from Finland has many success stories behind him. He has previously founded four internationally awarded boat brands: Axopar, XO-boats, Paragon and Aquador. Although he no longer has ties with these remarkable brands, Mattila has been the lead strategist and original designer for each of them. 

Today, Sakari Mattila fully focuses on building the Saxdor Yachts brand. He has gathered a team of professionals, with a goal to make the new era of affordable boating possible.

So before we fully immerse ourselves in what Saxdor Yachts are now, let us introduce you to everything that’s led to this.

Previous Brands

• Aquador Yachts
  • The first of Mattila’s brands, he designed in 1994
• Paragon Yachts
  • Years later, in 2003, Mattila started his second brand (interestingly enough Nava is also a dealer for this brand, as well. These boats are part of the Nimbus group now. Feel free to check out the Paragon range).
• XO boats
  • In 2008, this time Mattila joined forces with Erkki Talvela, and started the new brand
• Axopar
  • In 2012, in cooperation with Josef Wizsniewski, the owner and founder of the Slepsk shipyard, Mattila starts the Axopar project
  • The name is a merge of the three previous brands: A = Aquador, XO = XO boats, PAR = PARagon
  • Mattila innovates the new concept and design of Axopar by the end of 2012
  • The first Axopar 28 was launched at the Helsinki International Boat Show in February 2014
  • Mattila was the sole founder of Axopar, he founded and registered Axopar Holdings Oy (Ltd) and its subsidiary Axopar Boats Oy (Ltd) in March 2014
  • Mattila’s company owned 100% of Axopar’s shares at the time of registration
  • The other three current shareholders bought their own shares from Mattila’s company in January and February 2015, three years after the start of the Axopar project 
  • As an indication of Mattila’s new concept and design, in 2015 Axopar won several awards around the world and became the fastest-growing boat brand in Europe.

Beginning of a new era

In 2019, Mattila came up with the concept and design of what we now know as the new Saxdor model range. It all started with the 20 feet personal watercraft – Saxdor 200.

Similar to previous practices, the name of Saxdor Yachts comes from the first name of the founder and the other boat brands this visionary has founded: 

• S = Sakari
• AX = AXopar
• DOR = AquaDOR

In October 2019, Saxdor Yachts Oy (Ltd) was established. In the following year, a group of private investors and key persons of the Saxdor management team became significant minority shareholders. United Bankers Plc acts as an advisor to Saxdor Yachts.

The subsidiary shipyard of Saxdor Yachts began the production of Saxdor 200 in Elk, Poland. 

The brand currently includes:

• 200
• 205
• 270 GTO
• 270 GT
• 320 GTO
• 320 GTC
• 320 GT

With the Saxdor Yachts’ plans of expansion, 2 new models are about to join the range soon:

• 400 GTO
• 400 GTC

While the future is often unforeseeable, for this innovative brand it looks pretty bright. Stay tuned to see what comes next in the story of Saxdor Yachts, because we’re witnessing history.