BENETEAU

LA SAGA BENETEAU

Our history has been explained millions of times in the course of these last fifty years, but to understand it, to capture the values of the company, we must go back to its origins. Since everything is continuity and evolution.

1884, BENJAMIN BÉNÉTEAU

Benjamin, my grandfather, will have an unusual destiny. Born in St-Gilles into a large and ill-off family, he was adopted at the age of 6 by one of his uncles, François Houyère. Navegante of height, his stories of the sea made to dream to Benjamín. Scratch at 12 years aboard the chalupa Elisa, Benjamin dreams of building in the shipyard of the father of his best friend. At the end of 1879, he performed his military service in Rochefort where
will realize his dream of being a naval architect.

It is in Croix-de-Vie, near the bridge, on the Quai des Greniers, that our grandfather created his shipyard in 1884, which will obviously bear his surname: BÉNÉTEAU. At that time, the boats were called chalupas, dundees, gazelles, all obviously sailing, but for these fishing boats, the performance was to arrive first at the port, since the first one who arrived sold their fish at the best price.

This pursuit of performance will always remain at the center of the concerns of architects and builders, will drive them to excel, never satisfied, and to innovate permanently.

In 1909, the engine time has sounded and whatever the cost and consequences, Benjamin will create the first motor fishing boat in the region.

1928, OUR PARENTS

After the Great War, the shipyard will be reactivated and in 1928, an orphan of mother and father, André Bénéteau, Benjamín’s only son takes over.

Benjamin’s departure is lived by the inhabitants of St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie as the end of the Shipyard. Indeed, our father probably did not have his strong personality, he was rather “taciturn” as has been said of one of our greatest navigators, but Dad had the gift of design.

A fisherman trusted him and sheltered the hangar, will design and build his first boat. This testimony, I personally collected from elderly people when I was very young. They explained to me that the day of the launching, the population piled up as usual to participate in the event, was stunned by the elegance of this boat. The BENETEAU Shipyard had been reactivated!

The Second World War will come, the departure of some workers. Dad will marry our mother Georgina, our brother André will be born in 1934 after, at the end of the war, with the return of several of the old workers, the Shipyard started again an exceptional period that will last until the 60s.

1962-1964, YEARS OF TRANSITION

Of these years, they are impressions that come back to me. All the noises are blurred: our workers whistle more rarely, our parents are silent, customers are scarce, visits by the banker are more frequent. With the decline of fishing, we live the beginning of the end of this beautiful trade of builder.

André – our older brother – has a passion: design. But here is nothing to design. Our parents still have three children to educate, and we have seventeen shipbuilders: how to relocate shipwrights?

1964, FIRST OF THE RECREATION NAVIGATION

Many have said good luck. I see rather the mark of destiny. It is finding that my husband will be aware of what is not going well, that I understand the seriousness of the situation. I am not yet 22 years old, I am a woman and in the 60’s, the ‘business women’ are scarce, not very recognized, even in the artisan areas, where the employer is often the wife.

This opportunity, we also owe it to our father, who without thinking of “recreational sailing”, was aware of a new material: polyester. The idea of our father was to make his boats attached to polyester sardines, which with my brother André had done since 1963.

It was thus, going to visit the maritime cooperatives to sell our boats to the fishermen, exposing them at the Biennale de Lorient, which we were observed by future concessionaires who advised us. The 3.60m sardine boat will be the Guppy, the 4.30m, Flétan. And the small tulip boat of 5.80 m – last boat designed by our father – will be the Ombrine.

In fact, we had just given way to a new market segment that will be called pesca-paseo, but we still did not know it.

1965- 1972, FIRST RANGE

January 1965: our first boat show in Paris. Stress is at its peak. No other ship resembles ours and, not being accustomed to the capital, we had the feeling of being out of place. However, only a few hours after the opening, three businessmen show up, stating that our boats are what their customers are looking for and that no builder wants to make them. One asks us Morbihan, the other Finistère, the third the Côtes du Nord. Your global order represents several months of work for our teams. After two minutes of sharing about the distribution with my husband, the choice is made: we will distribute by network what – apart from Jeanneau – was not yet practiced.

During these seven years, we will restore the balance of our accounts, subsidize the end of fishing, relocate our shipwrights one by one, listen to our customers and invest in new products to follow their desire to acquire a little more boat big. This is how the Flétan, the Capelan, the Capechard, the Galion, the Forban, the Kerlouan, the Baroudeur and the Ombrine will be born: a complete range, from 3.60 m to 5.80 m, in a segment typically hexagonal.

My brother André is at his design table, our father watches, in particular the prototypes, young people grow up, the family is happy again!

1972, FIRST INVESTMENTS

1972 will be a great year! With the financial balance restored, we will invest. First of all in people, but also in our first production tool, modest but really designed for a semi-industrial production.

We seek to evolve our fishing-ride: customers have learned to sail, want larger boats, comfort on board and see the sea from the lounge. There is nothing more difficult than conceiving a new range. My brother André listens to us and I see him, after months of reflection, when we visited a boat show in Germany, drawing on the paper tablecloth of the restaurant an innovative boat and saying “here you have it, your boat!”. This will be the Évasion 32, which will be expanded immediately with the Evasion 37, and then the Évasion 28.

We will then build a new tool in Commequiers, specially designed to manufacture what we thought at that time, which would be the largest sizes that the market for recreational navigation would ask for as a series.

In parallel, for motor boats, the Ombrine would give way to the Antarès range, always designed by André, whose great passion was fishing in the sea.

On a family level, this will also be the entrance of our young brother Yvon, who throughout his life will be passionate about production and will become one of our best specialists.

1976, DECISIVE YEAR

At this time, BENETEAU has a considerable market share in the fishing-tour segment, thousands of customers sail, but some leave us because they want to go faster. For his part, François, a great sailor, dreams of creating a boat with performance. André wants to design it, but we know that in this area there are architects who have another experience. How to understand that for the first time a BENETEAU boat may not be designed by an architect of the House? Luck smiles at us: they propose us the molds of the Impensable, a boat designed to win the Half Ton Cup and that has kept its promises.

With André Mauric, let’s redo the sail plan, the keel, the interior configuration, the shape of the cover. We’re going to call it First. Nobody waits for us there. We present the First at the Paris Boat Show and it is a revelation: it will become a mythical series. It is he who will open the doors of export.

1980, THE APOGEE

The ship’s motonautism team entrusts Christ Van Der Velden with the care of preparing a tasting with which he will earn the “6 hours of Paris” under the colors of BENETEAU. I remember the face of our colleagues and builders friends of the time. How could we win this regatta, we ‘inexperienced’ voileux in the engine?

That is why it is not left, immediately after the Flyer range was born and the first models made their appearance at the Paris Motor Show.

As for sailing, it is the great time of the Admiral’s Cup and, among others, with our wonderful collaborator Corum directed by Jean-René Banwart, we experience the new fairways, we locate the best architects in the world. There will be the First Evolution, the Lady B, the First Lady, so many prototypes that made us progress and allowed us to offer our customers the must of the series ships.

1981-1986, ABUNDANT YEARS

This decade will be decisive. Since the 70s, we have invested in exports to the best of our ability, thus implementing a network of dealers and importers, particularly in European countries. In the United States, we had decided in 1976 to open a subsidiary in Annapolis. This first step towards the implementation of our brand allowed us to better understand, with a presence on the ground, the tastes of the American consumer.

BIRTH OF THE OCEANIS

The basis of the Cruise reflection will be the Idylle, tuned with our friends from Moorings. François Chalain will choose Philippe Briand and, in a few months, they will conceive the Oceanis 350, then the 430. The big bet has triumphed, the success is immediate.

RENAISSANCE OF THE FIRST

How to make it reborn after the technical difficulties encountered the previous year? We needed help! We think of Starck, with whom I am in Paris. He does not hide us that the boat is not his specialty. We propose to put a 35 feet in your garden in Montfort-l’Amaury, saying that you agree to spend a few nights on board and that only after this experience you will be able to answer us … even though the demand is unusual, we make it available according to his wish, a First 35, the first boat conceived with two cabins aft, fruit of the collaboration between François Chalain and Jean Berret. And we hope … The least you can say is that your report is fantastic!

1989, YEAR FIGARO

Always in our concern to promote sailing, this will be the year of the first Figaro Class.

The Regatta of Figaro – formerly Course de l’Aurore – traditionally participated by prototypes, is going to pass to the monotype. Bénéteau can not be absent from this competition that we have been following since the First, a regatta that Michel Malinovsky has won since leaving the ship, thus giving him great notoriety.

It is the project presented by BENETEAU and Jean-Marie Finot that will win the contest. We will thus have the privilege of building these monotypes, but also of participating with the Figaro in the birth of a magnificent quarry of young sailors who will soon evolve towards the high-altitude regatta, ensuring the notoriety of the French sailors in the competition sail.

1990, CREATIVITY

When the first economic crisis of the recreational sailing sector is shaping up, we continue our creative investigations on the First. A meeting on the occasion of the Salon de Paris, with a faithful Italian client, will attract our attention. This client, great designer of Pininfarina, tells us to “stop dreaming” since all boats are similar. It tells us about ways that evolve, especially in the car, and finds our covers too angular.

I must say that the Pininfarina family has been wonderful: Sergio knows well that our media are not comparable with those of his customers in the automotive world, but he will put his services at our disposal and together, our teams will create soft covers. Once again I witnessed these almost religious moments where Mr. Ramacciotti’s red zeal transformed the matrix of the cover of the future First 45 with small touches.

1991-2001, STAY UNITED IN THE CRISIS, AGREE AND STRONGER

In 1991, in a context of general crisis, competitors from all over the world encounter equal weapons. How to manage the crisis when there is no reference? Some manage it mathematically but they will decapitate their company, others manage it more humanely, facing criticism and skepticism. Others will not survive …

We managed to trace this test, because we have remained united; We had the confidence of our staff and knowing their wisdom, we knew we could count on them. These stages, painful as they are, are those of postponements, of awareness, of reorganization.

In 1992, BENETEAU carried out the first external growth operation. The different laws of desfiscalización in the DOM-TOM allow an incontestable tourist relaunch for these territories and the creation of new small shipyards in metropolis. This is how CNB was created in Bordeaux.

In 1994, O’Hara constitutes the first diversification. This idea is not mine, it was visionary. With some of the faithful coming from the company, we are going to put it into practice: this will be O’Hara. Our motivation was to diversify so as to cushion socially the consecutive shocks to the decreases of the recreational sailing market. Inspired by the old American South, we are going to create a little house that will revolutionize the world of camping.

Later, our competitor IRM will join us and we will manufacture up to 14,000 houses per year.

In 1995, JEANNEAU is the second in external growth. The peace found with our great adversary of always, will be the strongest event of our history, probably also of the French recreational navigation.

These reunions were a great moment. They were those of two families vendeanas, of two companies confronted with the same problems and that immediately spoke the same language. Two teams that the day before still felt better the one than the other, they discovered that there was in each other’s house, some more and some less. We will therefore decide to take the most of each one and leave the least … Together, we will live the greater reactivation of the markets and together, enriched with the contribution of new and experienced people.

2003-2014, TRANSMIT AND THANK

It has been with the crisis that we have changed its dimension. Chantiers BENETEAU has become BENETEAU Group. The question of the location of the head office is then put. This will be in St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, in front of the entrance of the port, with the transfer of the restaurant Les Embruns.

There where so many businesses are treated and where in front of the pier, our father took us as children to attend the departure of his last ship.

2004. Everything is going well, our development is spectacular, we build new factories, we renew the existing tools with the Béri studio under the direction of Yvon Bénéteau. We gain market shares but we are no longer the small family business. For my part, they have been flying forty years, and my responsibility is to anticipate the future.

This leads me to start a stage, very important, but difficult: to set in motion a real government for the Group with the intention of ensuring its future future, beyond the destiny of the people. It is a duty with respect to our employees, our customers, our suppliers, but also our non-family shareholders who trust us.

From a government made up of a rather familiar Board of Directors and a President General Director from the family, and up to now, we will adopt a form of government made up of a Supervisory Board – enlarged with external personalities and experienced in the fields precise – accompanied by an operational directory.

In 2008, the BENETEAU Group formed the Italian Company Monte Carlo Yachts and appointed Carla Demaria as Chairman. Monte Carlo Yachts must totally regenerate the idea of luxury in yachting by recentering it in these foundations: timelessness, intrinsic quality, the value of difference. On July 23, 2010, 18 months after the official creation of this new Shipyard, the first MCY 76 is presented in scoop to the international press in Venice. The elegant 23 meter flybridge yacht is an authentic, innovative and noble boat. Rehabilitate solid values. Beyond the ship, it is a new prestigious brand of the BENETEAU Group that came out of the shadow this day.

In 2014, BENETEAU carried out a new external growth operation. Within the framework of the development strategy that the Group continues in the motor boat market in North America, BENETEAU acquires the Rec Boat Holding LLC, which has four prestigious brands: Four Winns, Glastron, Wellcraft and Scarab.

I would end by expressing my and my family’s recognition, all the executives that I have not been able to quote, our loyal and talented employees, our dealers around the world and their clients, they have all become friends, be they BENETEAU, JEANNEAU , PRESTIGE, CNB, LAGOON, O’HARA, IRM, BH and, currently, FOUR WINNS, GLASTRON, WELLCRAFT, SCARAB & MONTE CARLO YACHTS.

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