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La Ciotat-Shipyards-taking off again!
Twenty years after the shipyards closed, La Ciotat is embarking on a new venture. "Long-distance cruising", which the market is continually expanding, has allowed the industrial site to avoid conversion into a marina.
Beautiful and sad at the same time: taking the channel between the Bec de l'Aigle and Île Verte, you would have thought you were approaching an elephant graveyard. The large white skeletons—cranes and gantries—all looked like dead animals set upright. People wondered when all of it would be taken apart, removed, scrapped, and when buildings, a hotel and a marina would replace them.
Of course, there were a few old yachts being restored in the dock, sometimes a multihull racing boat moored under the cranes, but people wondered if this was just a way of squatting, something for the short term. But what?
In 2007, everything changed. First H2X Yachts & Ships was created, a merger between a shipbuilding business well known in Marseilles for a decade as H2O, and IXYard, a technical service specialist for working boats. Investing 1.5 million euros to expand a shop to 10,000 m2, which allowed the production of very large ships (up to 160 feet), the company became the largest employer in La Ciotat.
And then, last summer, a new shed was seen on a renovated platform at the port’s entrance and, around it, large vessels, some of them in white wrappings. A repair and restoration yard (or a refit yard to be trendy) was just created and has already sought to compete with Barcelona and Viareggio in an effort well under way. Local authorities and Monaco Marine (with six shipyards on the French Riviera) have invested 43 million euros (on approximately a 50/50 basis) to create "the world's largest and most modern platform", as Michel Ducros, the President of Monaco Marine, announced.
With a lift capable of hoisting vessels 2,000 tonnes in less than five hours, a 250 tonne crane, a paint shop 90 m long and 32 m tall, a great many subcontractors onsite, and 35,000 m2 to accommodate approximately 15 boats 40-80 m in length, the platform is a beautiful tool.
So La Ciotat is again taking off. Twenty years later, the thirty-four hectares of Normed have been converted. The workers of the former shipyards that occupied the site so it wouldn't be surrendered to seaside real estate don't regret their persistence. Of course, the new ships don't extend beyond 80 m; we’re a long ways from the 357 m-long supertankers launched in 1970! That golden age has passed—but not the silver age. The "long-distance cruising" market is booming: in 2003, 520 yachts over 80 feet long (25 m) were under construction or had been ordered; there were 800 in 2007. Six thousand yachts sail across all the world's seas, half in the Mediterranean on the French Riviera. There should be 8,000 in 2015.
By the end of 2007, 500 jobs had been created. One thousand are anticipated by 2012. By this date, the shipyard should handle 250-300 boats yearly, for a turnover of 100 million euros. One last figure: the maintenance for yachts like those costs 10% of its purchase price each year. All of that falls back to La Ciotat.
And, while these heavy ships are immobilised in La Ciotat, the result will be that many fewer on the sea, passing us within a hair’s breadth at crazy speeds just to see if our little cockleshells are really seaworthy...
- Christophe Naigeon
