Successful refocusing on the owner-operated catamaran market
In difficulty in the spring of 2020, the shipyard Nautitech Catamarans had announced a change in its commercial strategy, accompanied by a plan to safeguard jobs, eliminating one of its two production lines. In December 2020, the multihull builder's order book is full until 2022, with an annual production of around 40 boats in the new industrial and social configuration compared to 70 at the yard's historical peak. According to its director, Gildas Le Masson, the dynamics of the first figures on the owners' market, up 10%, justifies these choices, despite their social cost. "At its peak, at the end of 2019, charter represented 50% of the boats delivered by Nautitech. But Nautitech's attractiveness on the charter market was mainly linked to the shortage of catamarans in production, a sort of windfall effect. When this declined, we were able to see in our discussions with the stakeholders that we were not the victim of a disenchantment, but our boats designed for owners did not have the same return on investment for charter companies as those of the big competitors. The Covid-19 accelerated this phenomenon. Faced with that, to stay in the charter business, there were 2 approaches: modify our products to reach the heart of the market or continue this sort of wide gap. We decided to refocus on what made Nautitech successful: the owners. The 10% growth in the owners market shows the quality of our roadmap. Working today on the 2022 order book is a positive message," he explains.
Boat production less impacted than expected
Like the entire yachting industry, Nautitech Catamarans was less affected by the economic crisis linked to the Covid-19 than expected. The consequences of the redundancy plan have been mitigated, while maintaining the industrial resizing. "By addressing more than 50% of the market (Editor's note; owners' share in multihulls), there is bound to be an evolution in the number of boats to be produced and therefore a reorganisation of the company. But with an industrial tool that can do much more, it makes us very agile in addressing requests. The long-term partial activity (editor's note: planned for 20 employees, the 26 others affected by the PSE being made redundant with external redeployment) has been used very little, which is very positive, as we were cautious about the effects of the Covid-19" concludes Gildas Le Masson
