The 23ft Golif was built from 1962 by the Jouët works at Sartrouville. Jouët claim she was the first production small offshore cruiser to be entirely built in GRP, and she caused a stir on her introduction at the first Paris Boatshow in January 1962.
The unusual name comes from a famously ruthless, daring, and reportedly amorous 17th century French pirate, Louis Adhémar Timothée Le Golif, also known as “Borgnefesse”. Since his nickname means something like "one-eyed-arse", you would probably have been wise to address him, at least until you got to know him well, as Captain Golif.
Golif was designed by Jouet with one eye on the American market, where the management believed they could sell a lot of boats. They had probably been helped considerably in their objective by the earlier successful transatlantic voyages of Jean Lacombe, in a plywood Jouet Cap-Horn. Apparently the companys market research suggested that the Americans favoured rather more interior comfort than the European market was used to, and that stiffness under sail and transportability by road would be important qualities for US buyers. Some of the Golifs characteristic features, such as its panoramic cabin window, shoal draft, relatively light displacement and high ballast ratio, stem directly from these market-related requirements.
Even today, Golifs looks seem rather quirky, though the underwater hull shape and the rig appear conventional. At the time, however, Golifs rig was considered rather tall and narrow, and the aluminium mast was in those days quite an innovation on a small cruising yacht. The odd pinched shape of the coach roof seems to have been intended to maximise the width of the side decks, but without sacrificing headroom in the places below where you might want to stand. Thus, with perfect French logic, there is low headroom over bunks and seats, where you sit or lie down, but there is plenty of headroom over the central passage and galley area, where you stand or walk. As the Jouët company said, this deck was designed from the inside!Unusually for such a small boat, Golif had a decent chart table at which you could comfortably sit and work while facing the direction of travel, as you might in a much larger yacht. This was achieved by making the chart table swing down from the cabin deckhead right in the centre of the boat. Another innovation was a hinged and sliding hatch (visible in the colour photo of a Golif recently for sale in France)
Some versions of the Golif were delivered with an optional deeper keel for racing performance. These boats were excellent performers in offshore races and won many prizes, but it was a perfectly standard Golif that achieved the greatest fame for the class. In 1964, Jean Lacombe who had been Frances sole entrant in the 1960 Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race (OSTAR), returned to repeat the feat in a Golif, once again the smallest boat in the competition. This was the year of Eric Tabarlys first triumph, so Lacombes achievement was rather overshadowed by the acclaim and fanfares garnered by the winner. Nevertheless, Lacombes Golif took joint pride of place, alongside Tabarlys Pen Duick II at the centre of the 1965 Paris Boat show. (see photo)
There are varying estimates of the total number of Golifs built by Jouet and also by the Dubigeon yard in Normandy. The total number certainly comes to over 1000.
Jouët Golif
LOA: 6.50m
LWL: 5.92m
Beam: 2.22m
Draft: 0.96m
Displacement: 1200Kg
Ballast: 480Kg (cast iron)
Sail area: 23.2sqm
Many thanks to the French Golif owners website for all the b&w images and much of the information used in preparing this post. Colour photo of a Golif recently for sale in France from an advertisement on www.leboncoin.fr
A scanned copy of the original 1963 Jouet Golif sales brochure is available in .pdf format from Yacht Brochures.co.uk
The French designer, Philippe Starck is best known for his furniture and kitchen gadget designs, including his iconic lemon juicer. He is not, as far as I know, a naval architect, yet the most exciting and, to my mind, most beautiful of the worlds billionaire mega-yachts has its origin on Starcks drawing board. 
Apart from sheer stylish looks, the clean lines of the exterior answer another function – that of security. The lack of any external features such as rails, handholds, or openings makes it very difficult for pirates or other undesired visitors to board the ship. For the same reason, the helicopter pad on the bow is easily rendered unusable by extending a telescopic mast through the deck. Clamshell doors hide all the access points, including the garage for the 2 launches, extending harbour gangways and even the anchor cable fairleads. 
The yacht is variously said to have cost $200 to $300 million. Crew salaries, maintenance and running costs are unlikely to be less than another 5 to 10 million a year. So, its not enough to be very rich indeed - Wayne Rooney rich, for instance - to own this yacht. You need to be able to spend twice Waynes annual salary, every year, just to run it. Fortunately for Mr. Melnichenko, whose wealth is conservatively estimated at $2-3 billion, he can. 
Obviously the interior décor is super palatial. I wont even try to describe it. You can find more details in the Wall Street Journal video and on the sites to which I have linked below. But the accessory I really like, and which makes me warm greatly to the scarily rich Mr. Melnichenko, is the uncompromising design of the yachts twin 30 ft. motor-launch tenders. He could easily have bought a couple of off-the-shelf plastic speedboats, and in spite of the fact that each one of these beauties probably cost as much as a very nice house in Torremolinos, he clearly would have nothing that was not rare and spectacular for his yacht. This, for Mr Melnichenko was probably no more of an extravagance than my purchase of a pair of shiny bronze rowlocks, instead of perfectly serviceable plain galvanised, for my 10 ft rowing dinghy. 
I usually contribute posts about French boats to this blog, but when I heard last week that Sparkman and Stephens, the most illustrious yacht design firm of the 20th century, had moved, after more than 80 years on Madison Avenue, NY, to new premises on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound, I thought I would feature an S&S design in this post to mark the historic occasion. Cunningly, though, I managed to find an interesting S&S boat with a very French story.
Sparkman and Stephens designed at least two boats for Lacoste. One, a motor yacht, never went into production. Another, the Lacoste 42, a fast cruiser/racer, was built and marketed for Lacoste by the Dufour yard at La Rochelle. Though a very handsome, stylish and capable vessel it was not a great success in sales terms - only 12 were ever built
Lacoste/Dufour 42
The happy band of sailing men seen in the picture here are volunteers from the "Cale 2 lIle" association based in the French port of Nantes. The association aims to save some of Frances nautical heritage by restoring and maintaining old boats.
The boat theyre sitting on is one they all helped build - the St Michel II - a replica of Jules Vernes second yacht in which he enjoyed escaping from land to cruise and write his novels in peace. (The reason theyre all sitting on the rail, by the way, is that theyre helping the boats designer, Francois Vivier, to measure the boats stability.) 
The 6 year project to build St Michel II was completed earlier this year and she was launched at Nantes where Jules Verne was born in 1828. 
In 1875 after having been elected to membership of Frances premier yacht club, Verne ordered a larger 13m yacht from the Cherbourg yard of Abel Lemarchand. Although he took pleasure in working with the builder on the yachts plans, she retained the lines and character of a traditional northern French pilot vessel. The new boat was named St Michel II and launched in 1876. Once again Verne undertook a full programme of extended cruising, along the coasts of northern france, the south of England, Brittany, and even across the Bay of Biscay to Bordeaux and back. He loved the peace and solitude he found on board his boats, and was able to write very productively while at sea, unburdened by everyday social and family matters.
After only a couple of seasons, however, the St Michel II was replaced by a magnificent steam motor-sailer of 31 metres length, the St Michel III, a vessel befitting the worlds most famous author of tales of travel and adventure. This new boat required a crew of 10 men, and Vernes cruises became even longer and more extended, reaching as far as the Baltic, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Malta and Italy.
St Michel II
