Bambochip

Marcel and Bruno together purchased the Dufour shipyard and a constellation of sailing hardware manufacturers, driven by an ambition to produce every component of a French racing campaign on French soil. The Bich family name is inseparable from the history of French competitive sailing, and from a philosophy that treated yacht ownership not as consumption but as custodianship.

Bruno had already owned a Shipman 63, delivered in 2003, which he handed to his brother when the eighty-foot platform was delivered. He knew the builder, the naval architects, and the carbon laminate schedules intimately. When he committed to Hull number two, he did so with a negotiating precision worthy of his commercial reputation: 100% deposit placed with Slovenia's principal bank, a deal structured to lock in a fixed-price and terms which reflected his seriousness and his leverage.

But the deposit was only the beginning. Bruno chose Hull number two deliberately, not the first, but the second. His team would observe the construction of Hull number one in its entirety, inspect the finished product, identify every improvement, and incorporate them into their own vessel. He dispatched a naval architect and project manager to live in Slovenia for the duration of the build. Alongside them went a former Olympic sailor who would go on to serve as Bambochip's long-term captain.

The result was not merely a Shipman 80. It was a Shipman 80 as reimagined by a family that had spent a generation building and racing yachts at the highest level, supervised by professionals who understood that this vessel would be Bruno Bich's final yacht. It had to be a vessel which would not only put purpose-built racing boats to shame, it also had to serve as his floating pied-a-terre, a working office, and the unofficial embassy of the Bic Group.

This was not a casual aspiration. Carbon-fibre hulls, for all their structural and weight-saving virtues, are acoustically unforgiving. They are stiff, resonant, and transmit sound and vibration with a fidelity that fibreglass absorbs. Bruno had learned this firsthand aboard the Shipman 63, where the thin carbon shell amplified wave impact and mechanical noise in ways that compromised liveability on extended passages.

Seaway initially struggled to meet the target despite deploying audiophile-grade insulation throughout the hull and machinery spaces. The breakthrough came from the generator. A custom Northern Lights unit was specified and modified to operate at just 1,500 RPM, significantly below the standard operating speed. At this reduced speed, the generator produces power with markedly less vibration and acoustic output. As a secondary benefit, the lower RPM extends the mechanical life of the unit, which runs under less stress at every operating hour.

The entire hull interior was then lined with lightweight closed-cell foam, not merely in the engine compartment but throughout the vessel, to decouple the living spaces from the carbon structure. The effect is transformative. Wave impact, which on an uninsulated carbon hull can sound like a drum strike, is absorbed into silence.

The ventilation system was designed by Silver Pearl Ltd of Poland, specialists in composite ductwork for performance sailing yachts. The system uses custom composite ducting rather than the flexible aluminium typically found on production yachts, routed to deliver conditioned air to every cabin and living space without the turbulence noise that conventional ducting produces. Gianneschi blowers and precision pumps, Italian-made, superyacht-grade equipment, drive the system. Every component is mounted on isolation bushings. Other Shipman 80s carry standard marine-catalogue pumps. Bambochip does not.

These numbers are the product of the carbon hull, the lifting keel, the Hall Spars rig, and the obsessive weight management that extends from the excessive use of titanium to the foam-filled furniture and cabinetry. Bambochip sails in conditions that leave most sailboats motoring. Her crew have described the sensation as something approaching magic, nearly defying the laws of physics, as the hull accelerates in air that scarcely fills a flag.

In 2010, Bambochip entered and won the Transatlantic ARC Rally, competing against a fleet that included purpose-built racing yachts and significantly larger vessels. The victory was not marginal. Three hundred-nautical-mile days were the norm, not the exception. The Atlantic has since become a familiar passage: thirteen crossings to date, each one a sustained demonstration of what a lightweight, stiff-hulled, well-rigged yacht can achieve when the engineering is right.

Bambochip has been sailed by former America's Cup and Olympic-class professionals when pushed to her limits in heavy weather and competitive contexts. But the same yacht is docile enough to be handled by a fit and experienced couple in moderate conditions, a range of operability that is the direct result of a well planned deck layout and automation of sail handling through the use of an advanced Cariboni hydraulic system.

This duality, a yacht that can be raced by professionals and cruised by two, is the defining characteristic of the Shipman 80 platform. In Bambochip's case, the custom upgrades extend that range at both ends: faster under professional hands, more manageable under a small crew.