SIRENE

Daysailers SIRENE

The boatbuilding scene in La Rochelle, France, was significantly transformed in 2018 when the town’s largest catamaran builder, Fountaine Pajot, acquired the town’s largest monohull builder, Dufour Yachts. Soon afterward a revised design brief for Dufour’s popular Grand Large line of cruisers was introduced, the vanguard of which was the new Dufour 390. The redesign by Umberto Felci features a sexier cabin house, more beam aft, and pronounced hull chines running two-thirds the length of the boat. All of which makes the Grand Large concept even larger than before.

The 390’s wide cockpit easily encompasses twin helm stations (connected to a single spade rudder) and a large, fixed drop-leaf cockpit table with a good deal of storage space in its pedestal. An equally large fold-down transom provides unimpeded access to the water for both bathers and dinghy boarders.