Catana

Catana builds performance cruising catamarans at Canet-en-Roussillon, on France's Mediterranean coast — daggerboard boats in an industry that mostly gave up on daggerboards, aimed at owners who cross oceans rather than charter guests who circle islands. The yard's history is cut in half by a receivership: in January 2003 Catana entered court administration, and that July it was bought by Olivier Poncin, formerly of Dufour Yachts, who rebuilt it into today's Catana Group and later created the Bali charter brand that funds it. Poncin died in 2023; his son Aurélien succeeded him.

The boat that made the yard's name is the 471 — the Barreau-designed 47-footer that carried families and one seventy-year-old Italian around the world, twice in his case, via the southern oceans. Roughly ninety hulls of that platform exist under four names, and the used market prizes every one of them.