RM yachts

D

DownWest

Well-Known Member
Joined
25 Dec 2007
Messages
14,646
Location
S.W. France
Visit site
Looks like they are on the skids. In the hands of the court. There was a buyer, but he backed out after looking at the size of the financial hole and the banks have run out of patience. At the Paris Salon, the 11.81 was voted boat of the year... Pity, as they were very interesting boats. My local GP bought a 12m to retire on with his receptionist;) but he did have a lot of correctional work done and delivery was delayed.
DW
 
Building yachts must be one of the least successful enterprises going. Doesn't seem to matter how good the vessels - at some point the builder will go pop, or be assimilated by another builder who goes pop at a later date.
 
My boat is epoxy, a 90's one-off. When I bought it the previous owner remarked, "they don't make them like this anymore - it's too labour intensive."
At the time, earlier this year, RM were an exception to that statement.
 
Last edited:
I love RMs. Fora Marine (the makers) offer a boat that is completely different to anything else on the market. This is really sad news, but I hope it proves to be a blip.

Reading in the French press, it seems that the company was put into controlled administration due to a cash flow problem which arose because they were forced to bring in-house the production of some components which had previously been manufactured for them by Ofcet (the deck moldings maybe ? ). When Ofcet went bust, they failed to find an alternative subcontractor so were obliged to get on with it themselves. This proved more difficult, and took longer than anticipated, which led to a suspension of production for one month. The company didn't have the reserves necessary to see them through this interruption of cashflow; the situation was then compounded as suppliers and customers started to become jittery.

The company has a full order book, and a fantastic range of boats. The boss, Olivier Gainon is optimistic that a solution will be found for production to continue and for the workforce to keep their jobs. Let's hope that this is so.
 
I never really understood their offering. All the comfort of a Pogo with the performance of a sporty Jen/Ben /Bav without the £ advantage.
 
Like Frogmog, I love the RM's as well - a brilliant to have twin keels with a boat that is (relatively) high performance (ok, a bit slower than the modern Mini Transat 6.5m class) and with nice accommodation to boot.
It is a bit ironic that this post is currently next to one by rwoofer lamenting the demise in family sailing - he used to have an RM yacht, but I think that she had to go when a set of triplets arrived on the scene.
 
Bajansailor said:
Like Frogmog, I love the RM's as well - a brilliant to have twin keels with a boat that is (relatively) high performance (ok, a bit slower than the modern Mini Transat 6.5m class) and with nice accommodation to boot.
It is a bit ironic that this post is currently next to one by rwoofer lamenting the demise in family sailing - he used to have an RM yacht, but I think that she had to go when a set of triplets arrived on the scene.
Click to expand...
Hi Martin. How are you doing ?
 
I'm doin' fine thanks, potterin' along here in Barbados - at the risk of winding up all the forumites in high latitudes, the tradewinds have finally kicked in and are blowing pretty steadily from the E - NE at about 17 - 22 knots, and the temps are pleasantly cool as a result, around 28C, and a bit cooler at night.

There were about 25 visiting yachts anchored in Carlisle Bay yesterday when I was down that way, and a fair proportion of them are showing up with AIS on Marinetraffic.
All still a far cry from the 200 odd that might have been here if the ARC still came here (it came here for the first few years, and then World Cruising transferred the finish to St Lucia).
 
Bajansailor said:
I'm doin' fine thanks, potterin' along here in Barbados - at the risk of winding up all the forumites in high latitudes, the tradewinds have finally kicked in and are blowing pretty steadily from the E - NE at about 17 - 22 knots, and the temps are pleasantly cool as a result, around 28C, and a bit cooler at night.

There were about 25 visiting yachts anchored in Carlisle Bay yesterday when I was down that way, and a fair proportion of them are showing up with AIS on Marinetraffic.
All still a far cry from the 200 odd that might have been here if the ARC still came here (it came here for the first few years, and then World Cruising transferred the finish to St Lucia).
Click to expand...

Nice.

I don't know about the other forumites, but it's making me a tad envious. Cold, grey and strike-ridden here in Paris.

I'm long overdue a Caribbean trip. :cool:
 
I have found a bit more detail about the financial background.

The company has been placed under observation by the administrator until 18th June, during which time offers for the business may be made. A first assessment of the situation will be made on 22nd Jan.

It turns out, Martin Lepoutre and the other shareholders, who had rescued Fora Marine (manufacturers of RM yachts) from receivership in 2002 and transformed it over 15 years into the exciting company it became, sold-out to a holding company called Aime Mer in 2017. It sounds suspiciously like this new company didn't have deep enough pockets for the intensive development which has been made in new models, and itself sought protection from it's creditors in September of this year, Fora Marine having lost €1,4 million in 2017 against a turnover of €8 million. By 31st Dec 2018 losses had mounted to €2,6 million. The production issues this year were therefore clearly the straw that broke the camel's back. In the absence of a quick solution to the problems after Aime Mer went into administration, the parent company put Fora Marine itself into receivership this month.

I don't know how heavily leveraged Aime Mer's purchase of Fora Marine was, but how depressingly often one sees what was a healthy a company fail after being taken over and then laden down with debt.

RM have a terrific model line up, a great labour force and a full order book. What is needed is a buyer with deep enough pockets, and an ability to improve production efficiency. I really hope one turns up.
 
Their cash flow is not their only problem. Two RMs with lifting keels have sunk recently (one RM1080 in Martinique, the other a 1270 south of Menorca). In both cases the bolts holding the hydraulic ram failed while the keel was in the up position, allowing it to drop brutally and with such force that the hull breached.
 
Ric said:
Their cash flow is not their only problem. Two RMs with lifting keels have sunk recently (one RM1080 in Martinique, the other a 1270 south of Menorca). In both cases the bolts holding the hydraulic ram failed while the keel was in the up position, allowing it to drop brutally and with such force that the hull breached.
Click to expand...
Crikey. I hadn't heard about that. That's quite alarming.

Sounds like the twin keels or the fin keel might be a better option then.....
 
Frogmogman said:
Crikey. I hadn't heard about that. That's quite alarming.

Sounds like the twin keels or the fin keel might be a better option then.....
Click to expand...

Reading around this story on French forums, I've not found any definite conclusions as to the cause of these failures; it seems certain that the bolts used to fix the hydraulic ram were inadequate. The original bolts were 8mm; since the second RM sank, all of the existing boats have had these replaced with 10mm bolts.

What does seem badly wrong to me, is that one should assume that a failure in the ram or it's connection is a reasonable possibility, so the design should have included an adequate shock absorbing system so that the keel crashing down doesn't destroy the front of the keel box.

Also, whilst one might assume that the lifting keel is the same as that used on Pogos (also a Marc Lombard design), in fact the Pogo keels are composite with lead ballast, the RMs are cast iron, and also the point at which the ram connects to the keel is quite different. I'll try and post a couple of photos later.
What I've read online suggests that Structures have always used more substantial bolts on the Pogos. AFAIK, the Pogos (which have been offered with the lift keel since 2008) have not suffered from a similar issue.

Here are some photos of the raising of Redemption, the one which sank in Martinique.

Rédemption !!! et les Pat Pat Razzzi........

A rather complacent post by Fora Marine on Hisse et Oh in April 2018, saying that they were working on finding out what had happened and had warned all other owners of a potential problem was met with a furious response by the owner of Redemption, who said that the bolts which had failed were still in the hands of his surveyor 2 months after Fora Marine had posted the message. Further, they hadn't informed other owners, but had merely contacted them to ask them to visually check the bolts. The owner of the second boat to sink after suffering the same problem then confirmed that had most definitely not been warned that there was a problem. To put it into perspective, at the time of the second sinking there were 7 RMs equipped with the lifting keel. Hardly a massive ask to have quickly arranged for the bolts to be replaced with more substantial ones.....so for a ha'penny's worth of tar the ship was lost.

The complacency displayed by the company does seem to have been rather reminiscent of the dealings of Oyster with the owner of Polina Star.

I still like the RM range, but would maybe avoid the lifting keel model.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top