Kim Vibe-Petersen has a head for business and a heart for sailing. The CEO of coffee firm Scanomat has carved out an unusual yachting dream that sees work and play rolled into one. With a sundowner in hand relaxing on the aft deck of one of his two performance sailing yachts, he never has innovation far from his thoughts.

“I’ve always loved inventing and still do,” he says. “I’m only 73, so I have a lot of years left to make things, though as coffee is the world’s second-biggest commodity, I focus my efforts there.”

The party-loving family man divides his time among Denmark, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He cruises Turkey, Greece and his favorite island of St. Barts aboard his two passions: the 177-foot (54-meter) Perini Navi Parsifal III and the 170-foot (52-meter) Alloy Q. Both yachts are regulars on the regatta circuit—he never misses a season—but his appetite for sailing and creating is matched by a robust commercial hunger.

When we meet, he’s working on ideas that include
flavor-infused whipped coffee with microfoam milk, cold brews and a healthy chocolate for non-coffee drinkers. There’s also a vitamin-enriched water in the offing because “water is bigger business than Coca-Cola these days.”

Dressed head to toe in white linen and sporting a pair of blinged-up Beatles sunglasses, Vibe-Petersen cuts a distinctive figure in any port. His first taste of success came in the 1970s, when he invented a machine that produced good coffee fast—exactly 12 cups in 12 seconds. He refers to it as a “game changer” for the hotel industry, yet it also transformed his parents’ vending machine company, accounting for 95 percent of the business within two years.

Next came the world’s first fully automatic cappuccino machine, delivering coffee at the press of a button. It made his fortune, selling more than 250,000 units with exports to dozens of countries, though the early prototype was far from perfect.

“We gave the first machine to a Scandinavian hotel to use, but it didn’t work very well,” he says with a smile. “I had a guy at the hotel who, every time something went wrong, took it to his room to repair. We learned a lot in a short space of time, and the hotel manager, who was none the wiser, told everyone how reliable the machine was.”

In 2012, Vibe-Petersen produced the TopBrewer, an elegant, Nordic-style countertop tap that delivers barista-quality coffee via a smartphone app. “Everyone said it wasn’t possible, but I’m not afraid of making mistakes,” he says. “I made a lot of them in the early days, but I did more good things than bad, and that’s the line between success and failure.”

Vibe-Petersen’s “mistakes” have earned him an estimated net worth of around $200 million. Scanomat supplies TopBrewers to major tech conglomerates around the world, including Apple, Lego and Bloomberg. Lady Gaga, Steven Spielberg and Madonna are reportedly all fans.

For all his love of invention, the Danish entrepreneur also appreciates assets with heritage. At age 25, he bought his prized Riva Ariston, which he keeps in front of his 350-year-old house on Denmark’s coast in Vedbæk, between Copenhagen and Helsingør. “I was told at the time that it was first owned by Peter Sellers, and it still looks like new,” he says.

Four years ago, he bought an 80,700-square-foot palace in Copenhagen. It’s next to the royal Amalienborg Palace in the heart of the city. The palace was built for a wealthy architect in the 1750s before being turned into a hospital. Vibe-Petersen has spent the past four years renovating and converting it into 40 flats.

The coastal city of Copenhagen is where he grew up, sailing Optimists and Lasers at age 7 before moving on to a Pirate, a type of German sailing dinghy. At 16, he had his first wooden Nordic Folkboat, which he built out of larch on oak with the help of real boatbuilders.

“It was quite a big boat that slept four people, which was a lot of fun with my friends,” he says, adding that in one race, he ran it aground. “But we still came in second place, and that gave me a taste for racing.”

As soon as the money started to roll in, he fulfilled a lifelong dream and bought a 112-foot (34-meter) secondhand sailing yacht that he refitted and named Parsifal (after Richard Wagner’s opera). “I bought it off a German guy who had just crossed the Atlantic with his much younger wife,” he says. “When they arrived in Fort Lauderdale, she declared she would never step foot on the boat again, which was my good fortune, as I got it at a good price.”

Three years later, he bought a second yacht, Parsifal II, which he also refitted, but it wasn’t long before he set his sights on an altogether bigger prize: to build a fully custom Perini Navi with a top speed of 18 knots. Delivered in 2005, Parsifal III has two high-tech carbon masts, automated in-boom furling and a wing keel. Out of the 16 St. Barths Buckets in which Vibe-
Petersen has competed, he’s won five with Parsifal III.

The performance sailer was the first boat Vibe-Petersen had a true hand in designing. She was also one of the first yacht interiors penned by Rémi Tessier. The pair met at a party in Paris. Tessier, a trained cabinetmaker, had a design shop in Lyon, France, where he sold furniture. Enamored by the Danish simplicity of Tessier’s work, Vibe-Petersen engaged him on the project.

“He was young at the time, and I always said to him, ‘This boat will make your name,’” he says. “He never believed me, and now he’s one of the most popular designers out there.”

Parsifal III’s curved, open-plan layout makes it ideal for charter, now boosted by a starring role on the reality show Below Deck Sailing Yacht. From 2006 to 2009, the yacht was chartered for 25 weeks a year (one client booked 17 weeks straight), which meant Vibe-Petersen didn’t use it. Not one to turn down business, he acquired Q “by accident” as a second family yacht: “I made the owner a passing offer, which he unexpectedly accepted.”

A lasting memory is when the family sailed Q through the Suez Canal. For Vibe-Petersen, nothing beats racing the Dubois-designed Alloy in the St. Barths Bucket with world champion sailor Kenny Read as captain. Despite broken sheets and a few technical problems, Q came in first in the Corinthian Spirit class.

“We didn’t win overall, which is something I always put down to the handicap being wrong,” he says with a grin. “But winning our class remains a top moment for me.”

The family’s plans to sail through the Panama Canal and continue down to the Galapagos Islands were foiled this past summer. Instead, they based in the Grenadines, taking in Canouan, the Tobago Cays and Mustique, where they dived, swam and fished. In St. Barts, they encountered humpback whales and hunkered down at their favorite waterside bar at Eden Rock. It’s a far cry from the extravagant yacht parties that Vibe-Petersen used to throw aboard Q with Jim “Jimmy Sax” Rolland providing music and hundreds of people dancing on deck “to the point where the boat was nearly sinking,” he says. But he’s still living the yachting dream.

“It’s fantastic to be out on the ocean traveling the world with family and friends. They can’t run away from you on a boat,” he teases. “For me, enjoying what you see is a large part of sailing, and I like resting in the moment. It’s only then, when I’m bored, that I create.” 

This article was originally published in the Fall 2023 issue.