Dehler

Willi Dehler started building small GRP boats in Westphalia in 1963, and by the 1980s Dehler was what a German performance yacht meant: the Optima and dB series racked up championship titles, the yard pioneered production techniques the big builders copied later, and “Dehler quality” became a phrase owners used without irony. Then came the fall — insolvency in the 2000s, and in 2009 the marque was bought by HanseYachts and moved to the Hanse production line in Greifswald.

The 2013 Dehler 38 was the first boat fully developed and built under the new roof, and the community’s scepticism — “this will be a Hanse in a Dehler suit” — met a European Yacht of the Year title and some 350 hulls sold. Karl Dehler, the founder’s son, still fronts the marque inside the group. Today the range runs from the Dehler 30 one design, the dominant boat of Baltic short-handed racing, to 46-footers; the used market’s perennial question — whether Greifswald Dehlers match the Westphalian legend — is the central debate of our dossier below.