Garcia Yachts, Normandy Aluminum Built for High Latitudes

From a steel workshop to the Exploration range

Garcia began in 1974, when brothers Jean-Pierre and Jean-Louis Garcia, both skilled metalworkers, opened a small workshop in Normandy and started building steel boats. Within a decade they had moved to aluminum, and in 1984 they built the 60-foot 36.15 MET for Jean-Luc Van den Heede, a boat that finished third in the first Vendee Globe. Through the 1990s and 2000s the yard earned a reputation for one-off aluminum yachts and fine joinery, and the company says more than four hundred bluewater boats have now left its sheds.

In 2010 Garcia joined the Grand Large Yachting group, which also owns Allures and the catamaran builder Outremer. That move turned a custom yard into a series builder. The Exploration concept that followed grew out of a request from Jimmy Cornell, founder of the ARC rally, who wanted an ideal bluewater boat that could also handle the Northwest Passage. Today the range runs from the Exploration 45 through the Exploration 52 and Exploration 60, plus the Explocat 52, the first aluminum exploration catamaran Garcia launched in 2020.

The Exploration 45 and the boat that set the template

The Garcia Exploration 45 is the only Garcia we cover, and it is the model that defined the modern company. Drawn by Berret-Racoupeau with Cornell's input and built since 2014, it has a 5 to 12 mm aluminum hull, an integral centerboard trunk, internal ballast and twin rudders that let the boat dry out. Current Garcia figures give 9 ft 6 in of draft with the board down and 3 ft 9 in with it up, which is why owners use it in Patagonia, Greenland and the Bahamas alike. Hull 1, Aventura IV, completed the Northwest Passage in 2015, and in 2026 Garcia reported two more of its boats finishing the passage from opposite directions.

For an American buyer the Exploration 45 has few direct rivals. A Kraken 50 or Amel 50 offers ocean capability in composite, but the Garcia is the one chosen by owners who expect to ground, dry out and keep going.

Buying, resale and support from the US side of the Atlantic

Garcias are rare in the US. Most new boats are commissioned in France and sailed across, and used boats often come to market in Europe, the Caribbean or the Pacific Northwest after a long voyage. Resale is strong because the supply is so small and the boats are purpose-built, but a well-traveled Garcia needs a surveyor who understands aluminum. Grand Large Services, the group's service arm, offers training, refit and resale support, though there is no factory service center in the US.

Things to check on a used Garcia:

• Galvanic and stray-current corrosion, especially around through-hulls, the stern and the keel trunk
• Paint and insulation condition inside the hull, where condensation can hide pitting
• Centerboard pivot, lifting system and the trunk for impact damage
• Rudder bearings and the sacrificial top sections after any grounding
• Electrical isolation, shore power configuration and 230 volt systems on European boats
• Records of high-latitude use, including haul-outs and repairs made abroad