About

History of Dufour Yachts

The Dufour Yachts shipyard was founded in 1964 based on strong faith in one’s ideas. Engineer Michel Dufour worked for a company that produced parts for locomotives in the French oceanside town of La Rochelle. In the late 50s, he discovered the miraculous properties of a newly introduced material in the locomotives – polyester. With it, Dufour built a compact boat and named it Sylphe.

Legend says that when Michel Dufour’s boss saw that he spent more time drawing yachts than doing his job, he told him: «Go and build a great yacht!» And so he did.
 

After selling the car and the boat and getting a loan, Dufour started building the yacht with his colleague Francis Descham. They had little experience with new material, and their working space was Dufour’s garage. Even so, in 1965 Michelle had already 20 orders for Sylphe. A year later, he reached the mark of 60 orders. To put it differently, the triumph was within his reach.
 

But his next creation, the boat L’Arpege, was the real breakthrough. Just in 10 years – from 1967 to 1977 – Dufour sold more than 1500 units. By the early 70’s Dufour became the leading French shipyard, with orders in 40 countries. In 1973, it got the prestigious French Export Prize.

The 80s started as a difficult period for the brand, but the partnership with clothing manufacturer Lacoste and designer Hermann Frers’ ideas revamped the production. The company began to conquer the elite segment of the market with the Dufour Lacoste 42 and continued with the Prestige line.

Current status

Keeping up with the times, at the beginning of the 90s, Dufour Yachts shook the market with boats fully ready for sailing. Graceful and highly comfortable yachts formed the new Dufour Classic range.

However, the racing aspect has always been crucial for Dufour. Following the trend towards market fragmentation, at the beginning of the 2000s, Dufour launched two ranges of yachts at once: Performance and Grand Large.

A bigger company, Fountaine Pajot, acquired the brand in 2018. Today, despite the all-encompassing globalisation, Dufour Yachts continues with the mindset of an independent manufacturer. Dufour might have the best quality among the «big five» European builders (Bavaria, Beneteau, Dufour, Hanse, Jeanneau). 

Production of Dufour Yachts

At present, Dufour Yachts produces about 400 units per year. The entire production cycle is at the shipyard in La Rochelle. The company claims to fully control the yacht process, from hull construction to equipment installation. Many of the processes at Dufour Yachts are still manual. 

Model range

Dufour models have won the «European Yacht of the Year» title almost every year for the last 10 years. Although the brand had different model ranges before, today yachts are in one model line. For those who love long-distance sailing in the open sea, there are cruising yachts with the Mediterranean cockpit, for the connoisseurs of faster passages exist sports cruise yachts. 

Features of Dufour Yachts

In addition to being one of the pioneers of fibreglass shipbuilding, Dufour Yachts was the first company to fully equip production boats. Now this sounds common, but in the 80s, it was a «ready to sail» revolution. Since its inception, speed has been the DNA of Dufour Yachts. While these might not be super fast yachts, the Dufour brand makes sure you don’t get bored at the helm.