Taking the lead: best 30ft French yachts

Few would dispute that the French production yacht builders have left British builders floundering in their wake, writes Peter Poland

- Peter Poland

Sailors who look around 21st-century boat shows won't come across a single big volume British yacht builder. The occasional Oyster, Rustler, Swallow Baycruiser or Cornish Crabber is about all you will find.

And the cost of setting up a modern production unit is so high that I can't see any UK sailing boatbuilder now achieving the market dominance still enjoyed by British motor yacht builders such as Princess and Sunseeker.

But it was not always that way. As the GRP revolution accelerated into the 1970s and beyond, Britannia ruled the waves. Westerly, Thames Marine, Moody, Macwester, Nicholson, Rogers, Russell Marine, Parker, Hunter Boats, and many others dominated the aisles at British Boat Shows. The late lamented Earls Court boat show used to bulge at the seams.

Even before the massive new Hall 2 was tacked onto the back of the original building, 320,000 visitors flooded through the gates when the boat show moved from Olympia to Earls Court in 1960. And in those distant decades, Sundays were still days off!

Dufour Sylphe

One of the first French production boatbuilders to make its way into Earls Court was Dufour. I still remember coming across a pretty little yacht tucked away in a dark corner at the back of the Pembroke Hall and being captivated by its revolutionary lines and spacious interior. Designed in 1964, it was called a Sylphe and was Michel Dufour's first-ever production yacht.

Dufour's company started life under the name of Le Stratifié Industriel (industrial lamination). It was only later that he gave his own name to his company. Dufour was a skilled engineer and had been running the GRP section of a large company based near La Rochelle that made things for the railway industry.