Garcia

Garcia has built aluminum boats in Normandy since 1974 — some 300 custom hulls under the founding brothers Jean-Louis and Jean-Pierre Garcia, boats that still cruise from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The brothers left in 2006; in 2010 the yard joined the Grand Large Yachting group alongside Allures and Outremer and was relaunched in Cherbourg, where Garcia and Allures share a finishing hall.

The relaunch found its flagship in 2014, when Jimmy Cornell — 200,000 miles, three circumnavigations, the author of World Cruising Routes — dictated the specification of his fourth Aventura and Garcia built it. The Exploration 45 became the yard’s first series model and its statement of intent: an all-aluminum deck-saloon centreboarder for the whole planet. In 2024, three owner-crewed Exploration 45s transited the Northwest Passage in company. Nearly sixty have been built.