Fountaine-Pajot

Fountaine-Pajot is a major French maritime construction company specialising in catamarans both for private leisure, cruising and offshore chartering. The company was founded in 1976 by Jean François Fountaine and Yves Pajot, in the town of Aigrefeuille-d'Aunis, in Charente-Maritime. It also now has a factory at La Rochelle.
The Fontaine-Pajot business.
Fontaine-Pajot has become a world renowned cruising catamaran manufacturer. The company started on an industrial estate in Aigrefeuille d'Aunis, and today is the town's largest employer, with some 250 employees; the group as a whole having about 430.
The company started to make public transport catamarans in 1983. Since then, the company has built 21 models and delivered 1,668 catamarans.
Nowadays the company makes between 150 and 180 catamarans a year, both sail and power craft.
In 2018, the company bought Dufour Yachts, a manufacture of monohull sailing vessels.
Innovation.
Seeking to keep abreast of the competition, the company has a research and development department which aims to develop new processes and designs. Fountaine-Pajot developed a new process of making boat hulls by injection moulding.
Fontaine-Pajot made the catamarans for the experimental water taxi service along the River Seine, the Voguéo.