Dolvik 32 – The Norwegian Runabout Goes Electric

The Dolvik 32 is the Nordic exception in a world of Italian runabouts. It was born at Royal Craft, in Norway, from a conviction the yard has always claimed as its own: to create something new, you first have to know the old. The result is 9.60 metres of cold-moulded mahogany on a hull designed for the open water of the fjords, not merely for sheltered lakes. Where the Mediterranean day-boat pursues the line, the Dolvik also pursues the use: six to eight seats in the cockpit, a U-shaped settee that converts into a sun pad, refrigerator and sink, and below deck a genuine cabin with V-berth, marine head and shower. The bearing of tradition, the programme of a cruiser.

Original architecture. Cold-moulded timber hull, 9.60 m overall for a 2.48 m beam and 0.80 m draught. Twin 220-horsepower Mercruisers on Z-drives, a top speed in the region of 40 knots, and a 500-litre tank that says everything about the cost of a day afloat. The sterndrive transmission that makes the boat so manageable in harbour is also what makes its conversion so legible.

The Lanéva conversion. The Dolvik 32 belongs squarely to the family of boats our retrofit kit addresses: fine timber, twin-engine architecture, drives retained. The principle is the one proven on our reference hulls – remove the combustion machinery and its services, install two electric motors on the existing shafts, and house the battery pack beneath the sole while respecting the original weight and trim. Automotive-grade industrial components, certified throughout, shielded cabling, Garmin supervision at the helm. No change to the silhouette, no reworking of the controls, no intervention in the joinery: the conversion becomes visible only when you lift the engine hatch.

On board, you will experience… a Dolvik finally in tune with what it promises. The wood, the North Sea in its lines, and full torque from idle – without the V8 drowning everything else. Harbour manoeuvres happen at walking pace, with no exhaust drifting along the topsides; at anchor the silence is real; and the regulatory pressure now bearing down on ageing combustion engines simply stops being a subject. A 1994 boat that starts sailing like a new one again.