- Founded
- 1973
- Headquarters
- Les Sables-d'Olonne, France
- Shipyard location
- Same as headquarters
- Official website
- https://www.alubat.com/
Brand Overview
French builder of all-aluminium lifting-keel blue-water yachts — the OVNI range (370, 430, 490, 650) and the CIGALE 15 QR — founded in 1973 at Les Sables-d'Olonne.
Overview written fromalubat.comread 9/13/2026
YachtCodex Analysis
AI-generatedAn independent reading of this builder written by AI. Unlike the specifications and descriptions elsewhere on this page, it is interpretation rather than a sourced fact — treat it as a starting point, not a citation.
What this builder is
Alubat was founded in 1973 at Les Sables-d'Olonne and has built more than 1,600 boats there, all of them aluminium in hull and deck; the 1978 OVNI 28 was its first hard-chine aluminium lifting-keel boat and set the pattern for 28 models over fifty years, drawn by Philippe Briand, Marc Lombard, Alain Mortain and Yiannis Mavrikios. The CIGALE ultra-light aluminium keelboats followed in 1994 on Finot and Lombard designs, and in 2014 fourteen Vendée manufacturers bought the yard. Today's range is the 'new generation' OVNI 370 (2021), OVNI 430 and OVNI 490 by Mortain & Mavrikios with the CBA design office, the OVNI 650 project, and the swing-keel CIGALE 15 QR by Finot-Conq; an OVNICAT 48 aluminium catamaran is under construction.
Who sails them
Alubat owners are long-distance cruisers — many of them circumnavigators — who want an aluminium centreboarder that dries out upright, takes the ground in shallow anchorages and high latitudes, and can be specified at length with the yard, whose 40-strong team builds every stage in-house at Les Sables-d'Olonne.
Signature models
The OVNI 430 (developed from the OVNI 400 and shown at the 2023 Grand Pavois) is the current heart of the range; the OVNI 370 opened the new generation in 2021, the OVNI 490 pilothouse completed it in 2025, and the CIGALE 15 QR carries the fast light-displacement CIGALE line.
Strengths
Alubat is known for fully aluminium construction with an integral lifting centreboard (draught under a metre with the board up), robust hard-chine hulls proven on every ocean, in-house metalwork, joinery and electrics, and strong resale of OVNI and CIGALE boats.
Considerations
Each model page publishes its figures with different labels and rigs (traditional versus square-top mainsail), displacement is the light figure, the OVNI 650 page carries only hull length and beam, and the boats are semi-custom, so quoted tank and sail figures vary with the specification.
Analysis generated 9/13/2026
Where they build
The building sites this yard publishes, in its own order.
Les Sables-d'Olonne
Les Sables-d'Olonne, France
Fleet at a Glance
Calculated from the models in the YachtCodex catalog, not from the builder's claims.
- Models in catalog
- 5
- Length range
- 11.95–21 m
- Hull forms
- Sailing Monohull 5
- Cabins
- 2–3
Models by this brand
5 models
History
The Alubat yard was founded in 1973 at Les Sables-d'Olonne in the Vendée. In 1978 it launched the OVNI range -- aluminium centreboarders with hard chines -- which laid down the concept that still defines the marque; from 25 to 58 feet, 28 models have been developed in more than fifty years with naval architects Philippe Briand, Marc Lombard, Alain Mortain, Yiannis Mavrikios and the CBA studio of Alain Bechetoille, Jean-Pierre Brouns and Nina Karlseder, and the first OVNI 28 reached Switzerland in 1980. A new page opened in 1994 with the Cigale range, drawn by Jean-Marie Finot and Pascal Conq and later Marc Lombard, aluminium keelboats of the ultra-light-displacement type built for lightness and performance. In 2023 Luc Jurien, at the head of the yard since 2021, took it over with his team; the OVNI 490 joined the new-generation OVNIs in 2025 with a wheelhouse that changes the way of sailing, and for 2027 the Cigale line is renewed with the Finot-Conq Cigale 15 QR with lifting keel.
History written fromalubat.com/histoire/· Histoireread 9/22/2026