Technologies Employed
French Yachts is a pure composite boat builder. While many boat builders dabble in composite materials, French Yachts is deeply skilled in the trade. Steve French and team have a collective of over 100 years of hands on experience in application, inventing, and field testing in every composite technology employed today.
No other American sport-fishing boat builder houses the same passion for technological purity. Our methods include resin infusion, wet bagging, dry bagging and high quality hand layups that are applied in the appropriate area to maximize durability, and minimize weight and maintenance. Our composite textiles are custom created by our partners at Flotex using unique combinations of glass, carbon and Innegra. We are constantly testing the latest in resin systems for maximum impact resistance and longevity in the world’s harshest environment. Bottom line… we live and breathe this stuff.
Lifetime Technologies
The term “Lifetime” refers to our idea of how long a boat should last without maintenance to the structure. Our entire R&D is focused on panel stiffness, joints, and skin durability that will last at the very least for your entire lifetime.
Composites vs. Wood
Wood smells wonderful and is nice to work with, but at the end of the day it rots. One crack in a glass job around your rudder port and the entire wood transom is filled with saltwater. One screw weeping water into your hullside and rot is growing like a cancer that doesn’t show until it’s catastrophic. With Lifetime Technology construction, you can drill holes through the outer skin of the hull and have no concern for water affecting the materials that your boat is built from.
Infusion-Bagging & Prepregs
Infusion = the process of applying the materials for a structure on a mold in their dry state. Materials are then put under vacuum and the resin is then sucked into the fibers and joints until every void is filled and the resin is cured. Infusion is excellent for foam cores and complex parts with multiple densities and details.
Wet Bagging = the textiles are applied pre-wetted with resin onto a core or form and then vacuum is applied to compress the stack. Wet Bagging is great for use with Honeycomb or panel construction.
Prepregging = is the application of textiles (most commonly carbon) already impregnated with an ideal amount of resin and refrigerated until the part has been formed and it enters the oven and “the part is cooked”. This is fantastic for lightweight structures providing clean edges and very accurate textile alignment.
Post-curing = French Yachts “cooks” or postcures its hulls and decks and many small parts accordingly to the resin manufacturer’s specifications to reach peak physical properties and minimize print through. Without postcuring parts they are never at there ideal stiffness resulting in print-through and weaker parts.