A EUR 6m Catamaran Sends Black Pepper Yachts Into Receivership

Why did a growing shipyard end up in court-supervised receivership?

Black Pepper's turnover nearly doubled to EUR 9.97 million in the year to 31 August 2025, but the two-hull Code C.69 catamaran program cost more to build than the estimates drawn up in 2024 allowed for, and the Nantes commercial court opened redressement judiciaire proceedings against the company on 2 September 2026.

Black Pepper builds semi-custom carbon sailing yachts and offshore raceboats out of a single yard in Nantes, with 15 employees on the payroll. Its official French company filings, held by the Nantes registry and aggregated by the corporate database Pappers from BODACC and INSEE records, show revenue climbing from EUR 4.32 million in the 2022 financial year to EUR 9.97 million in the year to 31 August 2025, with EBITDA of EUR 1.44 million and a net profit of EUR 281,000. That is not the balance sheet of a company in obvious trouble.

Boat Industry, the French trade title that first reported the filing, quotes company president Thomas Brette, who took over the business in 2025, saying the production of two large catamarans cost more than anticipated when the estimates were drawn up in 2024. The Nantes commercial court responded on 2 September 2026 by placing Black Pepper into redressement judiciaire, a formal court-supervised recovery process, rather than allowing an informal restructuring or moving straight to liquidation.

What happens to a boatyard in French redressement judiciaire, and what if nobody bids by today?

Redressement judiciaire keeps Black Pepper trading and building under court supervision while a formal search for a buyer or investor runs, and that search closes today, 14 September 2026, with no outcome yet announced.

The French procedure is a middle path between an informal workout and outright liquidation. It suspends the company's existing debts, keeps current contracts and employment running, and puts an administrator alongside management to run a structured search for a reprise, a takeover by a new owner or investor, or a plan to keep trading under the existing structure. It is the same route used across the French boatbuilding sector when a yard's order book still has value but its balance sheet has run out of room to absorb a shock.

For Black Pepper the search opened on the day of the court's ruling and closes today. Neither the company, the court nor Boat Industry has named a bidder as this article was written, and the outcome is binary: a buyer or investor keeps the yard building against its existing order book and warranty obligations, while no bid at all moves the case toward liquidation, at which point unfinished hulls and outstanding deposits become claims in an insolvency rather than boats on a build schedule.

What is the Code C.69 catamaran, and why did it cost more than planned

The Code C.69 is a 21-metre, all-carbon semi-custom performance cruising catamaran styled by Yacht Design Collective's Francois Perus and Romain Scolari, priced from EUR 6 million ex-tax, and the two hulls built to date have each carried a materially different specification, which is exactly the flexibility that appears to have driven the cost overrun.

At 21 metres long with a 9.6-metre beam and a light displacement of 17.5 tonnes, the C.69 is built to sail fast while still cruising as a couple's or family boat, with 220 square metres of upwind sail area and payload capacity of 4.5 tonnes, a quarter of its own light weight. Yachting World's Toby Hodges, testing an early hull, wrote that the design combines acceleration and the potential for very high average speeds with genuine cruising comfort, and that it is set up to be sailed short-handed rather than needing a full crew. Multihulls World reports that Black Pepper has already moved to a hybrid-drivetrain version for the second hull, alongside a taller coachroof, relocated helm stations and a reworked interior.

Semi-custom construction is the C.69's selling point and, on this evidence, also its financial exposure: with every hull built to carbon-fibre one-off tolerances and each owner specifying a materially different boat, from helm position to propulsion, a shipyard has far less scope to average its costs across a production run than a builder turning out identical hulls from one mould. Black Pepper has not published what the overrun on the two C.69 hulls actually came to, and neither the court filing nor Boat Industry's report gives a figure.

What else does Black Pepper build, and what else is riding on this

Beyond the C.69, Black Pepper's order book and reputation rest on three IMOCA 60 offshore raceboats it has built since 2020 and a Sam Manuard-designed Code series of carbon monohulls and day boats from roughly 8 to 25 metres, all of which depend on the same 15-person Nantes yard staying open.

The yard built the IMOCA 60s L'Occitane en Provence in 2020, Initiatives-Coeur in 2022 and OceansLab Innovations more recently, putting Black Pepper's carbon composite work in the same offshore-racing class that competes in the Vendee Globe. Its cruising range, the Code series designed by Sam Manuard, covers fast carbon monohulls and smaller day boats and tenders sold to private owners through brokers including Bluewater Yacht Sales and listed on YachtWorld, distinct from the larger, semi-custom C.69 catamaran line that triggered the filing.

None of that fleet is itself in financial difficulty, but all of it depends on the same 15-person Nantes operation that is now under court supervision. A racing syndicate mid-campaign, a Code series owner needing a warranty claim, or a buyer considering a used Black Pepper boat on the brokerage market are all, as of today, waiting on the same buyer search as the two unfinished C.69 hulls.

What should an existing owner or deposit holder do while the buyer search plays out

Anyone with a deposit on an in-build Black Pepper hull, a completed boat still under warranty, or a used Black Pepper listing on the market gains nothing by waiting quietly for news, because a court-supervised process runs on filed claims and a buyer's decision, not on individual follow-up calls.

Under French insolvency procedure, a buyer's deposit on an unfinished hull becomes a claim against the estate rather than a right to the specific boat, unless a purchase agreement's terms and any deposit-protection arrangement say otherwise, which is why maritime lawyers advise anyone with money down on a custom build to have their contract reviewed the moment a yard enters court protection, not after a liquidation is confirmed. A completed boat's warranty is generally a claim on the company, not a guarantee that survives regardless of who owns it afterward, so its value depends heavily on whether today's search produces a buyer who keeps the Black Pepper name and its obligations, or one who does not.

For a buyer eyeing a used Black Pepper boat on the brokerage market, the practical question is service and parts continuity rather than the hull itself: carbon-fibre custom construction is not defined by manufacturer support in the way a production hull is, but a warranty claim, a rig replacement or a bespoke fitting is far simpler with the original builder still trading. Nothing here should be read as advice on any specific contract or claim; anyone with money in this yard should have their own paperwork reviewed against whatever result today's deadline produces.