Viking Yachts Turns 50

PMY:

How is Viking celebrating 50 years of building boats? FREDERIKSEN: We wanted to move beyond just having a cake ceremony, so we planned a whole series of events for the year. Back in April we headed to Florida and hosted the Viking Yachts Key West Challenge, which was a fishing tournament that we invited all of the Viking owners to attend. We’d never put a tournament on together, so we were like, “Well, I hope we’ve got this figured out.” It turned out we had 41 boats come and almost 400 people. The tournament was such a success that even before Viking Executive Vice-President Patrick Healey began the awards banquet on Saturday night he announced the dates of next year’s tournament.

PMY:

What else do you have planned? FREDERIKSEN: The next thing that we have coming up is our dealer meeting in September and that’s in Atlantic City and to make that We caught up with Pete Frederiksen, director of communications for Viking Yachts, to talk about the company’s 50th anniversary and what celebrations the Jersey boys have in store. one kind of special we’re also introducing three new models—the 92 Enclosed Bridge Convertible (shown), the 75 Motoryacht, and a 52 Open/Sport Tower type boat.

PMY:

What’s next for Viking? FREDERIKSEN: We’re going to take advantage of new engines and new materials. I think we have the design down pat, but we’re always looking at different materials to make things better. That’s why it’s never boring around here—everyone is trying to do the next thing. When we did this tournament in Key West we weren’t sure if people were going to show up, but these boats filled up five marinas. And I don’t think Key West was ready for that ... the enthusiastic Viking owner.

PMY:

Duval Street must have been hopping. FREDERIKSEN: It was crazy. But those are the Viking customers. And that’s why we’re excited. It’s shaping up to be a good year.