Builder Gunboat

History of the company

The founder of the American brand Gunboat Peter Johnstone belongs to a family known in the sailing world. His father Rodney Johnstone created the J/24 class in 1975, which is now one of the most popular in the world. Since childhood Peter Johnstone, who is familiar with the yachting industry, founded Gunboat in 2002, where he began building luxury catamarans in carbon. Over the years, the shipyard has given customers about 30 yachts ranging in length from 48 to 90 feet.

In 2014-15, the company suffered a number of setbacks. The shipyard's reputation was first hit by the Rainmaker (Hull #1 Gunboat 55), which lost its mast in a storm off the coast of North Carolina. Trouble continued with a catamaran capsule on the foyers of the Gunboat G4. Then, in 2015, Gunboat finally muffled a lawsuit against Chinese contractor Hudson Yacht and Marine Industries. The latter took over the production of the Gunboat 60 series, but failed to meet the quality standards, which caused Gunboat to receive complaints from customers and suffer losses.

At the same time, the history of the Rainmaker left in the sea has been continued with the hull of the catamaran discovered in one and a half years later intact and afloat. In a sense this rehabilitated Gunboat in the eyes of its customers, but it was too late and at the end of 2015 the company was in bankruptcy. In 2016 Gunboat was taken over by Grand Large Yachting, Peter Johnstone resigned as director of the company.

Production

The 3,600 m² shipyard's production facilities are located in the south of France in Paris.Le Grandmot. There is also an office in Newport.

Model range

Gunboat offers customers luxury cruise catamarans made of carbon composite materials. Working out of new models Gunboat is engaged VPLP design. The shipyard also offers building of custom projects which have the concept similar to Gunboat.

Features .

Gunboat is a sturdy and lightweight cruising multihulls with high-speed performance in top-class racing catamarans. According to the shipyard, the Gunboat can go up to 500 miles a day. There are two optimized ranging options available for customers - cruise with 25 m mast and regatta with 29 m mast. There are other options: long or short geek, fixed or swivel mast with thunder wing. The interior is built on a modular principle - it can be completely dismantled. The roof of the superstructure is equipped with solar panels.