Birth of bateaux magazine
A leading magazine
The tone is set from the very first issue, in June 1958: in an article entitled “Is the Vaurien a luxury item?”, the Bateaux editorial team lambast the tax authorities, which intend to force buyers of small sailing boats to pay VAT at the higher rate of 33%. The French government withdrew this proposal a few months later, before relaunching it again in 1968. With an introduction like this, the new magazine is radically different from the very conservative style of the weekly Le Yacht – leading source of information for yachting enthusiasts since 1878 – and will not take long to completely eclipse its venerable rival.
The driving force behind Bateaux is Pierre Lavat, a 38 year old Parisian who has many different strings to his bow: after graduating from the Naval Academy, he attended HEC and then worked for a publisher and a major industrial group. A keen sailing enthusiast, he takes every opportunity to spend time on the water on board his Flying-Dutchman in Granville, where his family are regular visitors (the local SNSM lifeguard boat is named after his father, Dr Lavat). With his friend Jacques Derkenne, a fellow Naval Academy student – and already very involved in the boat sector – he feels that the traditional world of yachting is being left behind by the shift in how boats are used and that this new clientele needed support. The cover of the first issue of Bateaux – a photo of a Cotre des Glénans – symbolizes the start of a new era on its own, highlighting Pierre Lavat’s close links with the founder of the Centre Nautique des Glénans, Philippe Viannay, who will go on to write several articles.
The form of the new magazine is inspired by a publication created in 1951 in Paimboeuf by Alain Coyaud, Les Cahiers du Yachting, whose audience is limited mainly to France’s west region (not to be confused with the large-format version launched in 1963 by the Hersant group). But the tone is very different: focused on defending recreational boat users with its virulent approach, Bateaux is also more specific and technical than its predecessors, illustrated by the “At the helm” section, which, from the outset, offers an in-depth review of a sailing model, with detailed plans thanks to the meticulous work of Pierre Gutelle, a qualified industrial designer, self-taught naval architect and one of the first employees. Tests are carried out by Jacques Monsault, a pseudonym chosen by the first person to hold this role – André Costa, a journalist from L’Auto Journal and regular user of Monceau Metro station in Paris… – and which will remain in place for three decades, taken on by a dozen different testers, including the sailor Alain Gliksman. Other renowned writers will further strengthen the team over the years, including Bernard Moitessier, with readers enjoying his regular “Watery wanderings” section from 1961.
Figures that its successors could only dream of
Initially, Pierre Lavat does most of the work, from the page layout to accounting and photos, before being joined by Joëlle Merle, who will head up the advertising department, with impressive results. Over the following decades, we will regularly see Bateaux issues with 80 pages of advertising and around 30 pages of classified ads for just 70 pages of editorial content! All with a circulation that sometimes reaches over 100,000 copies sold at newsstands, in addition to tens of thousands of loyal subscribers…
After quickly becoming the “boater’s bible”, Bateaux also stands out as an effective driving force to help develop recreational boating. With his friends Paul Jacob and Emmanuel Pouvreau – also from Granville, CNIT president – Pierre Lavat will play a decisive role in the first recreational boat show held in La Défense, in January 1962. Its influence goes even further, with the magazine grouping together various activities in different fields that would no doubt be hard to accept today. 71 rue Fondary, in Paris’ 15th arrondissement, the headquarters from April 1960 of Bateaux and Éditions du Compas (publishers of the Les Glénans sailing course), is also home to CIDEVYV (Compagnie Industrielle de Développement du Yachting à Voile, which sells the Herbulot plans), Sibma Navale (kit sales for amateur builders), Naviking (distribution network) and Marco Polo (electronics and rigging supplier), just some of the structures managed by Jacques Derkenne, Pierre Lavat’s partner, which handle around one third of the market for new sailing yachts in France in the 1960s…
