A network of companies active in the maritime and yachting sectors
The Seco Marine brand was created in January 2020. While this is a recent creation, it is in fact a new name to group together the maritime-related activities of the Fetis network of companies, some of which already have a long history of expertise in the field. The brand is located in Nantes, Saint-Malo, La Rochelle and Mauritius. "We have been distributing marine-related products for a long time. On the one hand, we distribute combustion engines and generators with Lombardini Marine, Honda and Volvo Penta, and on the other hand, we distribute stabilization products with Seakeeper and Wesmar. Although we are primarily a distributor, we also have a design office and do some production of machined parts, which allows us to design global solutions," explains David Bartoletti, director of Seco Marine.
A first electric sailboat with Black Pepper Yachts
As part of its distribution activity, Seco Marine was already a supplier to the neighboring Nantes shipyard Black Pepper Yachts, through the company SRA. "We had already collaborated on a call for projects from Nantes Métropole, called Flow, on a hybrid cab boat. It went well and the shipyard contacted us when it wanted to launch an electric boat," explains the Seco Marine manager.
From this collaboration was born the first Code 0.1, an electric dayboat from the shipyard in Nantes. The 9.99 m sailboat has an electric motor mounted on a Volvo saildrive base and a single 10 kWh 48V battery pack. "Black Pepper builds luxury boats, not standard ones, and they wanted a product made for them. We imagined a simplified system with a single battery pack, which we can afford for a dayboat, at a weight identical to the thermal. We keep the cable controls. The exterior design is the same, as is the functionality. It's the system that sticks to the boat and not the boat to the system", summarizes David Bartoletti.
Positioning Seco Marine as a global electrical systems provider
With this first boat, Seco Marine begins the deployment of its growth strategy in the yachting industry. The company intends to offer more than equipment distribution, while remaining in its field of expertise. "This is a first step on which we will build with other yards. We are able to offer design, architecture and software thanks to our research department, as well as sourcing to be a real integrator. The solution we have developed can work on a base or on a shaft line. It can be used by other construction sites or quickly retrofitted to existing boats, with a design identical to the thermal one. In a second phase, we also want to develop on other types of electrical installations than propulsion, while remaining in our know-how around batteries and battery management in particular" concludes the director of Seco Marine.
