Mortain & Mavrikios Yacht Desin : for racing, cruising, working, sail or motor Boats, mono or multihulls

About people, passion, creativity, wide competence and experience

Alain MORTAIN

has an art/designer's background with two years of "Beaux-Arts" and a university standard interior design degree. At the end of his studies, his passion for boats and the sea made him seek a job with one of the most well known French, naval architects of the moment. After several letters and phone calls, his determination paid off. He joined the Philippe Harlé Design Office (designer of the Muscadet, Armagnac, Romanee, Sangria, Fantasia, ..etc) in 1982. Two years later, he becomes an associate and the Harlé-Mortain signature was born.

Yiannis MAVRIKIOS

is a University of Michigan Naval Architecture graduate. He obtained a double M.Sc. in Naval Architecture and Ocean Systems Management from the Massachussets Institute of Technology. Before realizing his dream of yacht design he spent five years as an offshore structures engineer and two years as head of the Jeanneau yard's engineering design office and prototype team. In 1991, brief time before Philippe Harlé's early loss, he joined the Harlé-Mortain office as an associate

The Mortain & Mavrikios design office

is a natural evolution. Created in 1994, it has already numerous successful designs to its name (see the enclosed list). Alain and Yiannis have very complementary backgrounds. Still, they both have personnal experience and a feeling for each other's domain. The result is a wide range of capabilities and a creative "point-counterpoint" design process. They do combine the "can we improve things by doing otherwise" non-conformist and innovative approach (a French specialty), with the "new and different is not always better" pragmatic approach (...not a French specialty!). Designs, as varied as Globe/BOC 50/60 footers (36-15 Met, Helvim), sailing catamarans (Dufours), round the world aluminium cruising centerboarders (Passoas), passenger motor catamarans (Multicaps), service and fishing boats, etc ... are part of their production.
The variety and commercial success of all these models reflect Alain and Yiannis's versatility, will, and capability for creating the right boat to fit each programme and each client, be it a series production yard, a one-off owner, a single-handed skipper, or otherwise.

This philosophy and design approach is best described by Alain and Yiannis : 

"At the beginning of each design, our objective is not just to create another "look alike" Mortain & Mavrikios boat but to design a new "NiceClient" model incorporating fresh and innovative features and styling but still being identified as a "NiceClient" boat of today,... and tomorrow. In addition to our respect of each clients's personality and needs, we are widely recognised for particularly seaworthy designs with elegant, ergonomic decks and interiors, where space utilisation is especially well optimised.

Philippe Harlé's reputation was based on thousands of such ergonomic, seaworthy, and homogeneous boats. Although we are still in the hundreds..., we have been adding a more stylish and racy dimension to the above intrinsic qualities. The recent election of our Dufour 435 design as catamaran of the year in the U.S.A. is the latest confirmation."

© Mortain & Mavrikios 1999