Beautiful racing boats
Marc Van Peteghem heads the naval architecture firm VPLP, which he co-founded with Vincent Lauriot-Prévost.
"I started sailing when I was nine years old and I immediately wanted to do this job. It was a kind of revelation, starts Marc.
He followed scientific studies while continuing to draw and then landed in Southampton, England, where he met Vincent Lauriot-Prévost. After 3 years spent learning the basics of the profession of naval architect, the two men developed a strong friendship. Three more years of work followed, notably with the architect Gilles Vaton for Marc.
"We founded VPLP by designing a first boat, Gérard Lambert, a 50-foot foiler for Vincent Levy. He was our first customer. He trusted us. The boat was built by Jean-François de Premorel (Editor's note: Former CEO of Jeanneau).
For 37 years, we have been designing beautiful racing boats for very great sailors. Some of them were very close. Florence Arthaud was a teenage friend, for example."
The first cruising multihulls
The firm does not only design racing boats, as they are also at the initiative of the Lagoon, Excess and Outremer ranges.
"In the years 86/87, the first Lagoon catamaran was designed with specifications drawn up by a family of owners. We then proposed the construction of these boats to Jeanneau Technologies Avancées (Editor's note: Jeanneau's "competition" department), directed precisely by Jean-François de Premorel. He was enthusiastic. We started with two boats with moulds that were not designed for mass production, then two more boats and so on.
The specifications were stability and habitability. We were asked to make it look like a monohull from the side. At the beginning, everyone looked at these boats and thought that they were not boats. It took a long time to get started. Monohulls are quite interesting, but they correspond to a programme and habits. The catamaran makes people who are not used to monohulls sail. Today, in the multihull family, the range is wide, from very comfortable to very fast.
We've been through all these evolutions-là?! No one believed it. When we designed the Lagoons with vertical portholes, everyone thought we were crazy. That was about 20 years ago.
We've always been a little ahead of the curve, with all the pros and cons."
The world of racing and cruising
At the beginning of VPLP - the agency was born in Marseille - there is no separate activity between racing and yachting. Certainly, Marc has many friends in the racing world who trust him to design their boats: Florence Arthaud, Alain Gautier, Olivier de Kersauson, Laurent Bourgnon.
Finally, the agency moves to Paris and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost settles in Brittany. It was therefore more logical for him to take charge of the ocean racing sector, being in contact with the sailors.
Marc then developed the cruising sector - production boats and large yachts - and the sustainable development sector.
