Olivier Kauffmann loves navigation, yachting, boats.
Dare we say that he is a helmsman?
His career leaves little doubt about it.
He held general management positions at Decathlon, until becoming its general manager and chairman of the board.
Before leaving to fly on his own and create two companies in the nautical world, a chain of stores specializing in nautical sports, then a website, Orange Marine, even more specialized in fittings.
And resell them.
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Building boats was therefore a logical, if not simple, continuation of this adventure.
“The idea was born in 2015 or 2016. I threw it out as a challenge to my children, telling myself that at worst, they would have got their hands on the process of creating a business.
We had listed about twenty points on which we did not want to compromise.
“Stumbling points cleared one after the other, almost to the great surprise of Olivier Kauffmann.
Olivier Kauffmann, with his son Gauthier, are surfing on the dynamism of the yachting market and the recent craze for the catamaran.
The company was finally born in 2019, settled in Canet-en-Roussillon and developed its first boat, a 50-foot catamaran that challenged the codes of the genre.
First of all, there is the desire to build an eco-friendly boat.
"We found a composite material that reduces the carbon footprint by 45%, explains Olivier Kauffmann, and decided to equip the boat with electric propulsion with batteries..."
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The technical challenge was not neutral.
"An engine consumes electricity, but on a boat, you have a host of equipment that also needs electricity, the autopilot, the GPS..." The batteries offer four hours of autonomy and are recharged by movement from the propeller when the boat is sailing, with solar panels, when the boat remains at anchor for several days, the architecture has been designed to offer as much surface as possible for the panels or even with a wind turbine.
"We have also added a generator in case, for example, the boat has to go up a river, which is impossible to do under sail..." Price of the dream, between 850,000 euros and more than 1.5 million euros, depending on the models and options.
