Franck Darnet Design

A furniture student who learned boats at Finot

Darnet comes from a family of furniture designers in Paris and began sailing at five in an Optimist, before racing a 470. He told Figaro Nautisme in May 2025 that the push towards boats came at 16, when he saw the interior Philippe Starck had drawn for the Beneteau First 35 S5, and that he then went to the Ecole Boulle. Groupe Finot hired him in 1990 to draw the interior of Capo di Fora, a 20 metre sailing yacht built at Leguen Hemidy in Normandy and based on Generali Concorde, the Finot boat from the first Vendee Globe.

He stayed about six years with Jean-Marie Finot and Pascal Conq, which is where he learned naval architecture, and then spent two years in the Paris river trade designing bateaux-mouches and the Batobus. Both details come from his interview with Boat Industry in January 2023. That combination matters to an owner: a designer who has worked inside a naval architecture office understands why a bulkhead cannot move, and one who has drawn passenger river boats understands circulation and durability.

From one 24 metre refit to around a hundred projects

By the studio's own account the first job was for a former Finot client, the redesign of the interior of Levana, a 24 metre yacht. Darnet told Boat Industry the agency was officially created at the end of 1998; Figaro Nautisme's May 2025 interview has him saying 1999, so the honest reading is that he went freelance in late 1998 and the agency followed. It moved to Nantes in 2000 and has stayed there, on the quai de Versailles by the river Erdre.

The size has barely moved in a decade, which is a choice rather than a failure. Boat Industry put the team at six to seven people in 2023. Figaro Nautisme put it at eight designers in 2025, on revenue of a little under EUR 1 million and four to five new projects a year. Darnet also told Figaro Nautisme that more than 3,000 boats built to his studio's designs are now sailing, a number that reflects production catamaran runs rather than 3,000 separate commissions.

A Nantes studio of eight that draws everything 20 centimetres above the waterline, and weighs every drawer before it draws it.

What the studio draws, and what it leaves to others

In the Figaro Nautisme interview Darnet described the division plainly: the designer conceives everything roughly 20 centimetres above the waterline, and the hull structure belongs to the naval architect. The partner list proves the point. Atomic at 64 metres paired Darnet's interior with an Espen Oeino exterior and Laurent Giles naval architecture. The Outremer catamarans are VPLP hulls, the Privilege Signature 650 is a Marc Lombard hull and the Lynx support vessels were engineered by Diana Yacht Design.

The studio has taken on more exterior work since about 2014, according to its Outremer project manager Vincent Haegel, and on the Privilege 650 and the Darnet 38 metre explorer project it drew the exterior styling as well as the interior. Boat Industry recorded the mix in 2023 as 60 per cent production boats, 30 per cent yachts and 10 per cent unusual subjects, including AirYacht, a 52 metre yacht hung beneath a 200 metre airship that has not been built. An owner is therefore hiring an interior and styling house, not a full design and engineering office.

How a project runs: the design loop

Vincent Haegel, who has managed the Outremer projects at the studio for ten years, described the method in an interview the studio published in March 2024. Darnet and the project manager meet the client together, the layout is first drawn in 2D and discussed with the naval architect, and the team then works in 3D in Rhinoceros from the architect's hull and deck. Presentations are built in InDesign because, in his words, the studio wants clients to feel confident and involved at every stage.

The second habit is what Haegel calls design to weight. Every drawer and every panel is questioned for what it adds to displacement, and on the Outremer boats the team works deep into veneers, joinery and foam sandwich furniture to keep weight out. On a superyacht the loop is longer and physical: Haegel said the 64 metre Atomic took three years, with repeated trips to the Viareggio yard and every space drawn in three dimensions to the millimetre. Darnet told Figaro Nautisme the studio stays connected to the architects, the yard and its design office throughout conception.

Atomic: a 64 metre dive yacht and a difficult build

The owner had already worked with Darnet on his previous yacht, also called Atomic, and Boat International's Cecile Gauert reported in March 2022 that Darnet's commitment to join the team again was part of why he green-lit the bigger boat. The hull had been built on speculation by VSY, and broker Jean-Claude Carme sold it in October 2016 with a two-year build plan. Darnet's summary of the brief was that the family wanted warm, cosy and easy-going, nothing showy. The answer was walnut veneer, soft leather, nickel trim, rugs hand-knotted in Nepal and art glass by Ateliers Bernard Pictet.

The build did not go to plan. VSY ran into financial difficulty, the boat launched in June 2019 and a separate team led by Lorenzo Cerulli finished her through Covid. Captain Victor Elzerman reported 330 litres an hour with engines and generators at 12 knots on her crossing, for about 5,300 nautical miles. She carries a dive centre, dynamic positioning and 1,101 GT. Atomic was listed at USD 49.9 million in March 2025 after USD 18.1 million of reductions, according to Boat International.

The Sunrise 45 metre pair

Both are full-displacement steel and aluminium boats of 499 GT from the Turkish yard, with Paolo Scanu exteriors, MTU power and a range of around 5,000 nautical miles. Boat International's delivery report of October 2014 said hull two, ordered by an American owner in July 2013 as Project Sunset, was fitted out with light veneers and bright colours in deliberate contrast to the dark tropical woods of hull one. Darnet raised the headroom above the norm and added mother-of-pearl insets for an owner who dives.

The feature every reviewer remembers is the sand-ripple wall that curls down the staircase to the guest cabins, made with a Turkish sculptor to evoke a dive. Darnet told Boat International's Stewart Campbell in February 2015 that the aim was the balance between space and materials, for a warm and comfortable feeling on board. Maximilian MMIV now charters from around EUR 210,000 a week according to Yacht Harbour, and both boats remain in service under their later names, which is the most honest test of an interior.

Catamarans that win European Yacht of the Year

The Outremer relationship runs for more than twenty years with the Grand Large Yachting group, by the studio's account, and covers the 49, 5X, 4X, 55 and 52, with the 57 and 64 unveiled in December 2025. The 52 is a VPLP hull with exterior styling input from Patrick Le Quement, formerly of Renault, and a Darnet interior that uses lightweight composite furniture. YACHT magazine's Michael Good, testing it in January 2024 at a base price of EUR 1,642,200, called the craftsmanship impeccable down to the smallest detail.

For Privilege Marine the studio drew both interior and exterior styling of the Signature 650, a 21.25 metre catamaran on a Marc Lombard hull; the hull Anahata was launched in January 2026. Other production partners include Garcia on the Explocat 52, Allures, Nautitech and JFA. Lynx Yachts used Darnet interiors on the YXT 24 Evolution support vessels, including Roe Shadow, 27.3 metres, delivered in July 2020 with a Bernd Weel exterior.

What it costs, and where the studio stops

For a custom yacht the useful benchmark is the market: the SuperYachtReview 2026 price guide, updated March 2026, puts a superyacht designer at 1 to 5 per cent of build cost, with project management a separate 2 to 4 per cent, both outside the yard price. Darnet gave Figaro Nautisme a different number that is worth knowing: a boat's interior represents between 16 and 19 per cent of its price. That is the fit-out budget the studio's drawings commit, not its fee, and it is why the choice of interior designer matters more to a build budget than the fee line suggests.

What the fee does not buy is equally clear. The studio does not do naval architecture, so a separate architect is always on the contract. It does not build, does not supervise construction on the owner's behalf and does not run classification, which belongs to the yard and the society. Atomic shows why that matters: when VSY struggled, it was the owner's own project team under Lorenzo Cerulli that finished the boat. Darnet also told Figaro Nautisme that a designer has to know the yard and its market position to understand what materials and finishes the budget allows.

Strengths: light, calm interiors and weight discipline

The studio calls its approach the art of space: bright interiors that stretch the sightlines and make a volume feel larger. Haegel described the house style as functional and timeless, and said the team tries not to separate interior from exterior. Boat International wrote in 2021, quoted by the studio, that Darnet knows how to produce refined and elegant work without going over the top, which matches the brief he was given on Atomic almost word for word.

The more unusual strength is weight. A performance catamaran is a boat on which every kilogram of joinery costs speed, and a studio that can make a 52 foot cruiser feel finished while staying light is solving a harder problem than most superyacht interior houses face. The repeat business is the evidence: two decades with Outremer, successive Privilege flagships and a superyacht owner who followed the studio from a 45 metre boat to a 64 metre one.

Trade-offs: a small studio, few big yachts and a light finish

With eight designers and four to five new projects a year, capacity is real: an owner commissioning a large custom yacht is competing for the same people who are drawing next year's catamarans. The superyacht record is thin. Beyond Atomic, the two Sunrise 45s and the Lynx support vessels, the larger work on the studio site, such as the 86 and 106 metre Starlight projects, is concept. The Darnet 38 metre explorer, offered since 2017 and listed by Ocean Independence as a new build with Ocea, has not been delivered.

The weight discipline has a cost that testers have named. Toby Hodges of Yachting World, sailing the Outremer 52 in June 2023, wrote that its Alpi beige veneer gives a wipe-clean look that says more volume production than seven figure pricing, and reported a water pump that sounded like a chainsaw behind the aft berth. That trade-off was the builder's brief as much as the designer's, but an owner expecting superyacht joinery at catamaran weight should read it first.

Who it is for: Owners and builders who want a bright, calm and weight-conscious interior on a performance catamaran or a custom motor yacht up to about 65 metres, and who will appoint the naval architect and build supervisor separately.