Black Pepper Yachts for Sale

Michel Douville du Franssu founded Black Pepper at Nantes in 2007 and the first boat, the 10 meter Code 0, appeared around 2012: a carbon daysailer with long overhangs and neo classical lines, drawn by Romaric Neyhousser. Marc Lombard redrew it as the Code 0.1, wider and fuller forward, and the Code range now runs to the Code 1 at 13.6 meters, the Code 2 at 19.7 meters and the Code 3 at 25.1 meters, with the C.69 and C.100 catamarans and a pair of carbon tenders alongside. Everything is carbon sandwich with epoxy and a foam core, vacuum infused, with hulls and decks built by Pauger Composites in Hungary and fitted out at Nantes. Interiors on the larger boats are done with Franck Darnet Design. A Code 0.1 starts around €321,300 and comes to roughly €379,010 ready to sail.

This is a very small fleet, a few dozen boats in total, so the used market is thin and irregular: you buy the boat that comes up rather than the specification you wanted, and the yard itself runs a brokerage, charter and management arm, which is often the shortest route to finding one. What you get is specific and worth being honest about. A Code 0.1 weighs 2,400 kilos and carries 59 square meters upwind, so it sails like a racing boat and has a cabin for a weekend, not for a season. It suits an owner who keeps the boat on a mooring somewhere pretty, sails it hard for a day and does not need cabins, showers or systems. Two cautions on any used carbon boat: have a composites specialist look at the laminate and at any previous repair, and accept that the list of yards that can properly work on carbon is short and their rates are not the local glass shop's.