Gunboat: Engineering Luxury Catamarans That Sail Faster Than the Wind

What if you could build a yacht that combined the speed and efficiency of a racing craft with the grandeur of a floating villa? That was the vision founder Peter Johnstone brought to life when he launched Gunboat in 2002, creating an entirely new category of high-performance cruising catamaran. 

Gunboat's twin-hull design provides remarkable stability compared to traditional monohulls, allowing the deck to stay flat and maintain pace even in challenging sea conditions. Carbon fiber is used to construct the catamarans for extreme lightness and exceptional durability that lasts forever. The lightweight design isn’t just about speed, but also sustainability. Lighter boats sail more and motor less. With solar integration, electric systems, and ongoing research into recycled composites and bio-resilient materials, these vessels represent responsible seamanship for the future. 

We traveled to Gunboat’s purpose-built shipyard in La Grande-Motte in southern France to meet Rodolphe Cadoret, Marketing Director at Gunboat. Rodolphe walks us through every stage of the building process, from the composite workshop through to assembly, carpentry, and the meticulous painting rooms where flawless metallic finishes emerge. He gives us a full picture of how, supported by PTC partner 4CAD, Gunboat uses digital precision to transform physical performance on the water. PTC's Brian Thompson then joins us to explain how Creo's model-based approach and integrated surfacing capabilities enable Gunboat to accelerate time to market dramatically. 

Find out more about Gunboat here.

Find out more about Creo here.

Your host is Paul Haimes from industrial software company PTC.

Episodes are released bi-weekly. Follow us on LinkedIn and X for updates.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive Producer is Jacqui Cook. Location recording by Mat Eric Hart. Sound design and editing by Louise Morris. Music by Rowan Bishop.

Transcript

Welcome to Third Angle, where we are sailing towards the future of maritime design.

I'm your host, Paul Haimes from Industrial Software Company PTC. In this podcast, we share the moments where digital transforms physical and meet the brilliant minds behind some of the most innovative products around the world. Each powered by PTC Technology.

In this episode, we're heading to the sunlit shores of La Grande-Motte in southern France. It's a place with an unusual story, a seaside resort imagined in the 1960s by architect Jean Balladur as a vision of the future. Today, its striking pyramid shaped buildings rise above palms and wide sandy beaches in an inspiring backdrop for the next generation of design on the water.

Welcome, here you are in our shipyard here in La Grande-Motte, the Mediterranean coast of France where performance and elegance take shape in carbon and craftsmanship, and we built luxury, fast sailing catamarans here in France. 

Supported by PTC partner 4CAD, Gunboat brings you the ultimate experience. Picture yourself at the helm of a Gunboat catamaran, twin hulls slicing through the glimmering waters of the Mediterranean. You glide into your evening mooring. Step onto the deck for dinner under the stars, then settle into cozy, quiet cabins below. It's a rare blend of high performance and refined living. It sounds idyllic, but how does a yacht like this actually come to life? To find out, we spoke with the people behind the brand. 

Hello, I'm Rodolphe. I'm the Marketing Director for Gunboat. I joined the brand two years ago. I was already a consultant in marketing strategy and innovation in the sports industry and in the sailing area. What attracted me to join Gunboat was the challenge to combine race-level technology with craftsmanship and to build yachts that are not only thrilling to sail, but are also beautiful to live aboard. This is what makes the Gunboat brand unique. Gunboat was founded in 2002 in the US by a sailor named Peter Johnstone. He has a clear vision. He wanted to combine the speed of racing with the comfort of cruising to create an entirely new category, the high-performance cruising catamaran. And ever since Gunboat has led that evolution until now.

The Gunboat 62 actually was the first Gunboat that Peter Johnstone, when he launched the company. It was probably the best compromise on the market between the real performing catamaran with very good livability and experience on board. 

The Gunboat 62 embodied that vision from the start. Its long, low silhouette cutting across open water. The twin hulls skimming in near parallel as the deck seems to float above the sea. It's the core appeal of a catamaran, the ability to blend pace with poise. With a typical monohull, you are more at the mercy of the sea swells. A catamaran can stay flatter and carry its pace. But how did Peter conceptualise this elegant and radical design? 

And this was the dream of Peter to go fast with maximum stability. The first choice, I will build a catamaran. With a catamaran you have a very good stability on the sea. Then fast was the second challenge. He said, I have to build it with technologies that are making the boat light on the water, sailing fast. With carbon, the carbon construction has two main advantages. The first one, it's a lightweight material, and the second one is that it's a very resistant material that is lasting forever. So using carbon we make light and durable boats. The lightness has a direct impact on the performance because the lighter you are in terms of boats, the more speed you can reach. A little bit like in the car industry when they want really light cars to have cars that are performing better than the heavy cars. 

And then for the enjoyable, livable side of the experience, he had to organise the interior of the boat as a real lifestyle place where you can sail close to your family and have an open kitchen on the saloon, and you can have very private and comfortable cabins. And then you could find the best of both worlds, much more enjoyable for the entire family with this first Gunboat 62, which was a real revolution in the sailing area. 

These boats are not just visually stunning with sleek, glossy hulls and semi-custom interiors. They also balance relaxation with performance in a way few yachts can. But beyond the decor and family friendly design, the technical side is what truly sets Gunboat apart in the world of luxury sailing. 

For us, the technological side is very important. Every Gunboat is a carbon composite masterpiece. We use aerospace materials and precision engineering to achieve both strength and lightness, that’s what allows our yachts to sail efficiently. Even in a very low wind condition, like above six knots of wind, our Gunboat catamaran start to sail when most of the other boats, they are just motoring because they cannot use the wind strength to sail. So in that respect, we are very different. Since day one what we say is that the brand Gunboat does not compromise. We fuse racing DNA with liveable luxury. We are not building floating villas, but we're building sailing machines that redefine what a cruising catamaran can be. 

In La Grande-Motte, Gunboat operates from a purpose-built 36,000 square meter shipyard, a bit larger than four soccer pitches. Here, every stage of the boat building process happens side by side, from design and engineering to final assembly, all just a stones throw from the sea.

To truly appreciate the level of detail, experimentation and craftsmanship that goes into every Gunboat. Rodolphe walks us through the process step by step.

So now you are here in the heart of the Gunboat shipyard. It covers 3,600 square meters, purpose built for high precision composite work. For us, it's a modern innovation hub. Here you'll find our teams of engineers, naval architects, artisans work side by side to build the yachts that are faster than the wind. And you will find also all the quality, all the industrial team that are building our yacht from A to Z before they are going on the water on the other side of the streets. We are on the seaside. 

Our main job is the composite work. Every bulkhead and structure is meticulously weighted and measured to the gram. There are more than 1000 control points per build, which means we are very precise. We don't choose between comfort and performance. We design for both. So it's a permanent challenge. 

Many of the engineers that are working on our yachts here, they have been through a very high level of naval architecture studies and now they are all passionate about sailing. So what they do, they bring also their emotion to the future project they build, and we ask them to build emotion with precision. So they have to calculate every single detail to make sure that the yacht that we will build at the end are perfectly answering the needs of our performance objectives and the customer requirements.

These vessels are designed in collaboration with world renowned naval architects, VPLP, and the interior craftsmen behind Falcon Jet, a high caliber partnership. In the engineering offices there's a quiet intensity as calculations are carefully checked. Outside the shipyard's main workshop hums with activity, machinery, and the constant rhythm of building. It's here in the composite workshop that a Gunboat’s voyage truly begins. 

Welcome to the composite workshop of the Gunboat ship here. Here we are at the genesis of what a Gunboat is. Before a Gunboat glides across the water it is born from a composite atelier. Where carbon fiber literally is shaped into a high-performance structure. You can see here on the workshop that we are using advanced techniques like vacuum infusion. It looks like a hospital, but it's actually a shipyard. This infusion is our process to build the architectural bone of the boat. Every component at this stage is crafted with absolute precision because the structure will make it very fast and at the end, at the good level of quality.

In the assembly workshop of Gunboat, it's when a Gunboat comes to life as the hull, deck and bulkheads are assembled with millimeter precision. This is a crucial stage that ensures a seamless, strong and lightweight structure ready for the next step. We have to be, as you can see here behind you, very meticulous with our French savoir-faire in this Gunboat workshop.

After launch, each Gunboat undergoes two months of real world testing before delivery. In the carpentry workshop we receive all the furniture for the boat from manufacturers that are building very light furniture. Here, what we do is that we adjust and we fine tune all the furniture so that they are perfectly fitting into our semi-custom yachts.

So when we are really at the final stage of the production you have to make sure that the boat is fully well structured in terms of electrical network and also water, of course, as you can imagine, like in a house. We do all this job here before we install the furniture. Of course, the real final stage is the painting of rooms where we are doing a very professional and advanced process. When you look at the paint job, the color and the reflection, the metallic effect you have on the boat, it's perfect. You have no defects. 

As Rodolphe guides us through each stage of building a Gunboat, it's clear how hands-on this process remains. Modern technical skills sit alongside heritage craftsmanship, creating a striking balance. It makes you wonder how this blend will evolve, especially as AI or IA, as they say in France, becomes increasingly part of the design and manufacturing process. 

The main challenge as we have to stay ahead, we must remain bold, integrating simulation IA and advanced digital twins into design without losing the human touch. So the future of the job is clearly to integrate the technology, but to remain also in this luxury segment with some human touch. So in the next years, it's gonna be combining this technology with the human factor. 

Given how central the human touch remains to Gunboat’s boutique designs, it raises a final question: what guidance would Rodolphe offer to young engineers hoping to break into the luxury yacht world?

To work in a performance yacht design my advice to young engineers would be, you have to be curious. You have to push boundaries. Don't be afraid to blend art and science. We are in a world which is also evolving towards something more comfortable, but we have also to deliver the right level of performance, and yet, design is both.

But what are the owners stepping aboard these boats setting out to do? Race across open water? Roam between distant anchorages? Or cruise at speed in complete ease?

Our owners globally, they race in Palma. They race in St Tropez, but also they cruise all over the world in many oceans. The catamarans we build at Gunboat are one of the fastest catamarans that you can find on the cruising performance market. They can go until 30 knots, which is a very high speed on the water. But most of the time our clients do not care really about the maximum speed. What they want to do is to go at a reasonable good speed all the time, even in low wind conditions. So some want to race and do some regattas, but some want also to just to take the advantage to be able to sail fast from point A to point B, and to have an enjoyable journey on the water.

The beauty of Gunboat is that we have boats for every kind of sailors. If you want to have the fastest boats on the water, you will buy the Gunboat 80 series. And if you want to have the best compromise between speed and experience at sea with the luxury side, you will buy the Fusion 80 for example. 

The Gunboat 80 can sail faster than the wind, at just six knots. That's true. That's the essence of efficient design. What we did on this boat is using every ounce of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic optimization to create motion with minimal force.

Today in the range we have from 68 to 80 feet, so we have basically three original series. We have the 68 series, we have the 72 series and the 80 series, and then we have the Gran Turismo segment with the Fusion 80, which is basically the SUV of the Gunboat series that we developed in the range last year. For us, each boat has its own specificity and the innovation we brought, we're mainly into system control and safety onboard. Fusion is the latest statement of the brand. It's what we call the Gran Turismo catamaran, with an incredible level of space inside the boat. It's gonna be 30 to 40% faster than what you can find on the market at this level. We want more volume, more design, more emotion, but still the pure Gunboat feel. 

But Gunboat's commitment to speed isn't only about delivering the exhilaration of darting across the oceans. Building light, fast yachts also serves a deeper purpose, one rooted in efficiency and responsible seamanship. 

For us, efficiency is our sustainability. The lighter the yachts, the more you sail, the less you motor. This is basic, but very true as well. Our hulls are optimized to move with minimal energy. And with solar integration, for example, an electric system, we are constantly pushing for cleaner autonomy. We are working on recycled composites, bio-resilience and alternative professional systems. With always one goal to sail more and to motor less.

The Gunboat range already feels like a glimpse of the future, but the real horizon lies beyond. The next wave of innovation will focus on making these yachts even more intuitive. Systems that lighten the load on the sailor, so the experience becomes smoother, smarter, and even more accessible.

In the future, the main challenges will come from two ways. The first one is our ability to make sailing even easier in terms of systems and technologies. So in that respect, we will have to help our clients, our owners, to sail with an easier system and to make this experience even more enjoyable. And we will have also to deal with intelligent energy systems and dynamic structures that adapt to the scene in real time. For example, this is gonna be something that we will work on in the near future.

Our thanks go to Rodolphe Cadoret, Marketing Director of Gunboat. Now it's time to get our expert’s take. Welcome Brian Thompson from PTC. 

Brian, the Gunboat story is a fantastic example of how Creo helps customers accelerate time to market. It also highlights the power of Creo's model-based approach. Could you share whether aspects of Gunboat’s experience with Creo and Windchill, such as surfacing, composites and assembly management are applicable to manufacturers in other industries?

Yeah, sure. I love to talk about this. In fact, connecting model-based approaches to time to market is often a core part of the message when I'm talking to customers about some of the challenges that they're having. You know, being model based is about how you work just as much as it is about eliminating those 2D drawings.

And that's where this conversation about the way Gunboat uses integrated surfacing capabilities in Creo, that's where that comes to play. If you build all of the native geometry for your design right there inside Creo, like the complex surfaces to make sure that hull cuts through the water exactly the way you want or the underlying composite structures of the hull so that you get the rigidity that you want across the entire catamaran. If you do that, all integrated into Creo, then the entire team together can evolve the design in a completely synchronized way. So everyone is seeing the impact of all of those changes automatically. We have a lot of customers that might do their surfacing in an external tool. It's almost a universal truth that when they do that, they actually end up extending the design process. And in fact, we've seen a far worse consequence of doing composite work outside of Creo. We've seen customers might take a full day to do a single design iteration, when in fact, in Creo you could do half a dozen or maybe a dozen design iterations.

And this is the universal truth, regardless of whether you're designing the hull of a catamaran or you're designing an aircraft engine or anything in between, that strategy is a universal strategy that'll significantly drive time to market. Certainly super valuable and by far the best way to do it. So we're really excited about Gunboat, using Creo to its greatest extent, and we know that for many of you that are listening in other industries, you can get a lot of the same benefits.

Thanks to Brian and Rodolphe and our producer Mat, for taking us behind the scenes of Gunboat. Please rate, review and subscribe to our biweekly Third Angle episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow PTC on LinkedIn and X for future episodes. Companies that make products the world relies on rely on PTC.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive Producer is Jacqui Cook. Location recording by Mat Eric Hart, sound design and editing by Louise Morris and music by Rowan Bishop.