Wauquiez, the French boatbuilding firm, has existed on the fringes of the American sailing community for two decades, but throughout the majority of that time the company hasn't enjoyed the benefit of top-drawer representation with a nationwide dealer network. As a consequence, many of the company's boats sailing in the U.S. were purchased on the used market from owners who bought them in Europe. That changed when Beneteau acquired the company in 1997.

The Wauquiez enterprise was founded in the 1960s when Henri Wauquiez decided to form a boatbuilding company that would produce copies of his own yacht, a Pye-designed Elizabethan 29. That decision put the company on the map in…