What it takes to build 100 Beneteau First 30 yachts in 500 days

Seascape shipyard – the team and First30 hull#100 © Beneteau

This week, First 30 #Hull100 will be delivered to an eager sailor on Lake Constance. One hundred boats delivered in just 500 days — the result of a journey that started at boot Düsseldorf in January 2025, when BENETEAU First launched the First 30.

We didn't just launch a new sailing boat. We established a new category — the planing cruiser — and made a promise to sailors: that the joy of planing is accessible to any sailors willing to step on board.

But what does it really takes to produce 100 planing cruisers with 150 people in 500 days?

In a nutshell, it takes a lot of trust, commitment and passion. She embodies the best of Seascape passion and high-tech and Beneteau's experience and organisation. A lot of learning, challenging beliefs and new adopted practices. This is how the team behind her success saw the journey:

Lidija Zaletel, Business Director, Seascape d.o.o.:

"We have gone through a period of profound change and transformation. What made it possible was the trust we built, the way we adapted, the discipline we brought into our work, and the resilience to keep building the boats and the team together day after day.

What stays with me most is a deep sense of gratitude for the chance to play a part in this journey, and for what we were able to create along the way — something none of us could ever have achieved alone."

Kristian Hajnšek, CTO, Seascape d.o.o.:

"Before we drew the first line, we knew First 30 was a tall order. It carries the reputation of a boat thousands of sailors trusted for years, so the bar was already set. Our job was to design a modern incarnation, genuinely fast, without losing that trust — and to do it at a price point of 100k€; that meant every gram of fibre and resin, part of equipment, every bolt, and every euro had to earn its place.

What made that possible was bringing naval architecture, structural engineering, technology and production thinking into the same room from day one, instead of handing the design down the line stage by stage. That's also why we could go from concept to test sailing in less than a single year. The result isn't a boat we simplified to hit a budget — it's one where every trade-off between speed, weight and cost was made deliberately, while keeping the promise of delivering a new and exciting boat to the market."

Sébastien Nolasco — Group Bénéteau Design Centre Director "The biggest progress with First 30 is not in the boat-building knowledge, because at Seascape it was already very good — but in terms of organisation. It's amazing, the progress we did together, and the capacity of the team to progress and to go forward on something not easy: to create very nice serial boats - of planing cruisers. I think the changes the team made in organisation are truly incredible."

Luka Zajc, —Head of Production, Seascape d.o.o.:

"The journey was far from easy. By the time we had built the first 100 First 30s, we had changed practically everything in production: completely reorganised the facilities and optimised the boat's flow through the entire production process, standardised work processes at each station, introduced two-shift work in lamination, and recruited and trained additional staff. At the same time, we established a more systematic and structured approach to training our teams. But the biggest challenge was changing our mindset — building trust in working together and in a shared process where individualism could no longer have a place. We are still looking for new ways to optimise our processes and make them even more robust and predictable. I am proud that during this journey we proved to ourselves that, together, we can achieve anything we set our minds to."

Next week, join us at the Cannes Yachting Festival — 8 to 13 September — where Beneteau First will be on the water with two boats that could not be more different: our ultimate racing machine First 36 SE and the largest First ever built, First 60... and a new story we are ready to tell that you do not want to miss.

See you in Cannes.

P.S. First 36 # 100 is coming out of the Seascape shipyard in 2 months!