There is no other shipyard in the sailing world where all employees and customers are so genuinely committed to the ideas of its creator. The life of Chantiers Amel is the embodiment of the dream and faith of Henri Amel himself, or Captain Amel, as he was majored in life.

History

Henri Amel was born in 1913. His love for boats manifested itself already at school age when he was watching sailboats in Bordeaux. Before the Second World War, Henri studied boat design and tried building wooden yachts himself. During the war he took part in the French resistance (the name Amel, Henri’s real name was Tonet, appeared there), was in captivity, almost completely lost his sight and suffered a serious injury to his leg. But adversity did not confuse the young dreamer. Noticing that the Allied forces used waterproof fabrics impregnated with polyester resins, Henri quickly realized that replacing the sack with fiberglass would give a strong material suitable for boat construction.

In 1958, Henri uses an abandoned shipyard in Marseille to build the first fiberglass Mistral 23. This and other projects were successful, but the business did not go well: the employees involved did not share Amel’s fanatical passion for quality; other attempts were made in Spain, and finally in La Rochelle, where another shipyard was building boats to Amel’s designs. But quality, again, did not satisfy the designer, and in 1963 he began building himself. His new company was completely burned down in 1967. At that time Amel took off moldings from his already built yachts and restarted the company in 1969.

The long-awaited success came in 1973. For his 60th birthday, Henri Kapitan threw a two-day party and promised that he would hand over the shares to the shipyard’s employees if they worked well. This legendary event took place in 1975 when Amel returned from a yacht distillation for a client across the Pacific. While on the road, he dictated by telephone to designer Jacques Carto details of the project for a new model that became the famous 48-foot Maram.

Obviously, the «captain»’s prefix to his name, Henri, received it deservedly. A passionate yachtsman, he was well aware of his clients’ needs at sea. That is why a distinctive feature of all future Amel yachts is the full set of boats before delivery. The client simply had to buy provisions, raise the sails (which he could do on his own – Henri built everything according to his own limited possibilities) and set sail.

Henri «Captain» Amel was gone in 2005, he left at 92 years of age. Back in the 1990s, he handed over the shipyard management to a personally selected management team of his colleagues. And these people tried not to change the way the Captain works. For example, Amel did not build more than 32 yachts per year; it was almost impossible to achieve changes in the configuration of the boat to your liking – the Captain knew better what yacht should be at sea; the number of employees never exceeded 130, and all were shareholders of the company.

Features

Henri Amel believed that a voyage on the oceans should be a pleasure. That is why his boats have always been exceptionally comfortable even to sail alone or as a couple. It was Amel yachts that were the first to receive the bow thruster, electric winches and other aids to make life at sea easier. Almost all Amel yachts were equipped with kech, a more practical option for ocean cruising. Another characteristic is the central location of the cockpit, even when arming the sloops, and the presence of cockpit protection with a rigid windscreen.

According to the owners, the entire finish of the Amel yacht was extremely pleasant to the touch, as the visually impaired Captain touched everything with his hands and demanded the highest standards of materials handling. In addition, all over the boat there were holders and handrails, so the captain himself was moving around the boat without being able to see what he was grabbing.

One more interesting fact. The Amel shipyard did not develop distribution. On the contrary, each yacht is delivered by the crew of the shipyard to any port at the customer’s request, or the customer himself can do it.

«We don’t need any extra hype,” said Michel Bonnetou, the shipyard’s replacement, “our clients are our advertising.

Model range

All models designed by Henri Amel have become legends in the world of ocean travel. For example, the 53-foot Super Maramu alone has built almost 500 hulls. Now Henri models are out of production, but the successors retain the characteristics of their predecessors.

There are only three models in the modern Chantiers Amel range. Traditionally, these are the Kecchi Amel 55 and Amel 64 and the first boat in 20 years, the Amel 50, which immediately won the title of Yacht of the Year in Europe in 2018.

Produced by .

Chantiers Amel is based in Perigny, near La Rochelle. The shipyard has offices in Hera and Martinique as well.