LR9 Safari passenger boat running a wooded river with a full load of passengers seated on the open forward deck and the skipper at the helm behind them

Safari boats · Tour boats · Water taxis · Small ferries

Boats for tour operators
and passenger routes

Your passengers sit forward of the helm, open to the water and the wind, with nothing between them and the country you are taking them through. The skipper steers from behind with the whole deck in view, so every one of them stays in sight.

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Founded: 2018
Designed and built in: Estonia

Choose the right boat
for your conditions

Hull material

A river and lake boat

LR9 Safari

Available in Aluminium or HDPE

From €82,000From €62,000

A 9-metre safari boat for rivers, lakes and sheltered water. It is fast and stable, so the same boat gives you a lively ride or a steady platform depending on the route you pick. Its low draft takes you into shallow water bigger boats have to go around, and it leaves a small wake, so you are welcome on the water and you do not disturb anyone else on it.

Passengers: 12 or 20
Length: 9 m29.5 ft8.97 m29.4 ft
Beam: 2.8 m9.2 ft2.81 m9.2 ft
Top speed: 40 kn

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AI concept render of the AO12 Safari passenger boat in its open-deck configuration on a city waterfront, passengers seated in the open forward of the helm console under its T-top

AI concept renderDesign render

A sea and coastal boatFirst hull in build

AO12 Safari

Available in Aluminium or HDPE

From €145,000Price on application

A 12-metre boat aimed at open sea and coastal work. The deck can be left open to the sky, or covered by a full hardtop, which is the version fitted out for diving. The first hull is in build now, and like the LR9 it is documented for either twelve or twenty passengers.

Passengers: 12 or 20
Length: 11.99 m39.3 ft11.99 m39.3 ft
Beam: 3.19 m10.5 ft3.19 m10.5 ft
Top speed: 40 kn40 kn

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Ensuring your boating
business is profitable

Great looking boat to attract your customers

The better the boat looks, the more people walk up and ask what time it goes. Lined up in a marina alongside everyone else, yours is the one that gets noticed and photographed.

Shallow draft, low wash

A shallow-draft hull gets you into water bigger passenger boats have to go around. The same hull leaves a small wake, so you do not rock the boats you pass or wash the bank behind you. That is what keeps you welcome on water everyone shares.

Economical ride

Fuel is the bill that comes back on every trip. Our hulls are built to plane easily, so they do the same work on less fuel than a deep-V of the same size.

See it on
the water

An LR9 Safari in operation, filmed in 2021.

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Built by operators,
for operators

Before WaterMate Boats there were thirty years of running our own trips. Nature tours, off-road safaris, river canoes, river houses and river boats. The boats came out of that work, specified to do a job we were already doing ourselves.

We then ran one of these ourselves for two seasons on the Danube in Bratislava. A real route, and a boat to fill every day.

The LR9 Safari is the river and lake boat, and it has proved itself. Customers then asked us for one that could do the same job at sea, and that is the AO12 Safari. The first hull is being built now. It is designed to carry over the shallow draft and the economy, with passengers forward as usual, or aft where the route suits it better.

Aerial view of an LR9 Safari passenger boat running a narrow, winding river between wooded banks, passengers in lifejackets on the forward benches and a long clean wake curving behind

Aluminium, or HDPE

All our boats are offered in aluminium or HDPE. Aluminium is the material a working boat is normally built from, and nobody has to be talked into it. HDPE is the more affordable alternative, and it brings a longer list of benefits of its own. Both are built with experienced partners in Estonian shipbuilding, an industry with a long history here.

Aluminium

Built to the CE standard and assessed by IMCI, an independent notified body.
Durable.
Minimal maintenance. Anodes in salt water, and the usual engine service.
Traditional workboat material with known qualities.

See the LR9 Safari in Aluminium →

HDPE

Naturally buoyant, which counts when you are carrying passengers.
Does not corrode. No anodes, no cathodic protection, no antifouling in fresh water.
No paint to keep up, because the colour is the material itself, UV stable right through.
Flexes on impact and returns to shape, dock after dock.
Quiet, as it damps vibration.
Craftsmanship makes an HDPE boat look unexpectedly good.
Recyclable at the end of its life, so the hull goes back into use instead of into waste.

See the LR9 Safari in HDPE →

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