Slicing Through the Water in a Smooth, Stylish J Craft Boat

The Swedish brand’s hand-built 42-foot Torpedo day cruiser pairs glamorous design with a pleasurable driving experience

For individuals with a taste for impeccable design and a touch of flair, Swedish luxury boat maker J Craft pairs an inherently vintage Mediterranean design with Scandinavian quality and German practicality to forge their eye-catching aquatic vessels. Only 21 J Craft boats exist worldwide—with the 22nd being built by hand in the town of Visby, Sweden (a Unesco World Heritage Site) right now. Of those sleek, stylish and impeccably smooth ships, the first seven are J Craft’s debut model, the 38-foot Cabrio Cruiser (the first of which went to the King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, in 2000). The more recent releases are bespoke versions of the 42-foot Torpedo model, one of which (named Natalia) we had the great pleasure of circumnavigating Shelter Island in, alongside J Craft’s gregarious owner, Radenko Milakovic.

“We build them from the keel up in one location,” Milakovic, a German entrepreneur (who also owns the Bosnian beer brewery Banjalučka Pivara), tells us from the cabin. “We are not an assembly outfit. We build most of the things you see on the boat. The things of importance that are not made by us: the marine leather; the steering wheel, which is Italian, from Nardi, the maker of the original Ferrari steering wheel in the ’60s; and the propulsion system, though that’s also Swedish. It’s the Volvo Penta IPS system. It’s built on the west coast of Sweden, we are on the east.” J Craft provides four different Volvo IPS engine options (400, 500, 600 or 650) and they’re hoping for a diesel-electric hybrid down the line (when the engine manufacturer gives the red light). The Torpedo’s dual-engine system can reach up to an impressive 47 knots. The vessels’ range stretches 280 nautical miles.

J Craft produces their own steel, as well as each boat’s fiberglass hull. Then they envelop it with a luxuriant cultivated mahogany veneer. To swim around the exterior of the vessel, as we did, is to puzzle over its exquisitely uncommon form. “There is not one straight line on this boat,” Milakovic says. “Everything ends in a curve. This does not lend itself to automation. On our boat making team, we have ten men and one woman, Elizabeth. On average, it takes us a year to produce one. Not one of these 22 is the same—from the engine to the spec sheet to the patterns of the wood.” Customization options are plentiful and over-growing. For instance, there are 400 marine-proof colors for the hull and interiors, though clients sometimes request their own. While Natalia has a sink, ice maker, fridge and induction oven, a client in Sweden requested a teppanyaki grill.

Natalia represents the potential for the J Craft Torpedo. “She was in her 13th year when we stepped aboard,” Milakovic says. “Before this tour, she was the shadow boat to a super-yacht which traversed both northern and southern hemispheres, following the summer sun.” Thus, Natalia is on her 23rd summer. In addition to the retro aesthetic, the boat features a cabin with banquets and a large table (that can transform into a bed), as well as a cosy lower cabin with a bed, and a head with a crown-like toilet and stand-up shower. It’s more spacious inside than one expects—and dressed in leather, mahogany and polished steel. The Torpedo can also be modified so that space beneath the deck, currently housing electrical components, can become an additional bedroom. Upstairs, the cockpit can also close up entirely thanks to a Bimini top and zippers.

Milakovic cannot emphasize enough the importance of the Torpedo’s state-of-the-art equipment—and how it enables even beginners to control the boat with ease. “The guy who does all the naval radar systems for the Swedish navy is the person working on our radar system,” he says. “We have access to all the latest technologies, but you don’t see them because of the way we value aesthetics. They’re hidden.” Among those cutting-edge additions is a Seakeeper, a gyroscopic stabilization unit that creates inertia to prevent the Torpedo from wobbling side to side.

J Craft was founded by Swedish entrepreneur Björn Jansson. Every single boat has been worked on by Gotland boat builder Johan Hallén. Milakovic’s acquisition of the brand came by chance. “I lived in Monaco and I was looking down from my balcony on the 13th floor,” he says. “It was 2007, in the summer. I saw this beautiful boat, which later I found out was a Cabrio Cruiser. It came into Port Hercules, in Monaco harbor. I looked at the boat cruising around and I came down and went to the “T” jetty and started jumping up and down to get the driver’s attention.” To Milakovic’s surprise, it wasn’t an Italian boat. He felt compelled to learn more.

“We ended up renting this boat. I knew nothing about boats. I hired a Corsican captain named Fabrice to teach me how to use it. It was supposed to be for a few weeks. It ended up being months,” he says. Ultimately, Milakovic bought one. “I asked them to change certain things. I wanted something idiot proof. She had a very small rudder. She had straight-shot propulsion. If you had a bit of wind, it was stressful. I said I wanted IPS propulsion. They said it would be difficult—that they’d have to change the underwater design and the hull. I thought he was just trying to be difficult so I decided to do it myself.” While Milakovic was buying hulls and experimenting with Volvo engines, Jansson grew ill.

“Over the course of a four month period, I decided to buy the business,” Milakovic says. “I told Jansson, ‘I am going to keep everybody employed. I will keep the spirit. I will keep the name. I will maintain the heritage. And we’re going to make a boat very similar in looks but super-modern technologically.’ I bought it in 2008, and by late summer of the next year we presented the Torpedo.”

“I want to bring this company to an annual run rate of three boats, maybe four,” Milakovic says of his hopes for the future. “That’s the maximum we can do with ten or 11 people. It’s a question of capacity. I don’t want to scale. We are produced on a small island with limited resources. Every single one of our boatbuilders has been building boats their entire life, and two of them are technically retired. They work because they enjoy it.” Each boat takes more than 9,000 hours of manual labor to produce.

The Torpedo is a living concept that continues to improve based on Milakovic’s experience touring Natalia around the world, as well as feedback from their roster of clients. Milakovic is cautiously optimistic about the future, and thoughtfully ambitious regarding what J Craft can become, including its own small furniture line. “I’m not a fisherman and I’m not in the navy,” he says. “I don’t need a boat; I wan’t a boat because it makes me feel good and helps me to enjoy my life.” With that understanding, Milakovic is steering his brand into the future.

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