Centurion sailboats: Wauquiez's cruiser-racer line across three design generations
Centurion is not a shipyard. It is the cruiser-racer line of Chantiers Wauquiez, the French builder whose company history has its own page on this site - and by some accounts it is the line that made the yard's name. Voiles et Voiliers credits the Centurion as the origin of Wauquiez's renown, calling it the archetype of the cruiser-racer, and the line's story is best told through the three design offices that shaped it in turn: Holman & Pye at the founding, Ed Dubois through the longest and most prolific era, and Berret & Racoupeau on the final boats.
Origins and ownership
The line began with the Centurion 32, a 9.75-meter Holman & Pye design built by Henri Wauquiez in France. Wauquiez's own timeline and key-dates pages both put the boat's launch at 1968, while Yachting Monthly's review calls it an elegant Holman & Pye design from 1969. Whatever the exact vintage, the boat carried the young yard a long way: per Wauquiez's key-dates history, 380 Centurion 32s were built, and the model's sales success drove the company's international expansion around 1975.
Ownership changes at the yard bracket the line's later chapters. Practical Sailor recounts that Wauquiez brought in a financial partner, Olivier Prouvost, who eventually took over the firm and then sold it to Beneteau in 1997. Wauquiez Forever, the marque's history site, records that the Centurion 61S was the last boat Henri Wauquiez imagined before the sale of the shipyard in 1990, and that it was built under Prouvost's direction in only six units between 1991 and 1994, against nine for the Centurion 59 - a pair the same site headlines as the flagship of the yard. The deeper company story belongs on the Wauquiez page.
The designers
Ed Dubois defines the middle and largest span of the line. Wauquiez's timeline credits him with the Centurion 47 of 1984, then the 42, the 36, the 40, and - with Humphrey sharing the credit - the Centurion 38, followed by the 59, 45, and 49 in 1990, the 61S, and the S-suffix boats of the 1990s: the 41S, 37S, and 48S. Classic Boat's archive, reviewing the 48S, called Dubois by then the French shipyard's long-trusted designer. The Dubois era closes with the 45S and 40S, which Wauquiez's timeline dates to 2002.
The 40S is also where the accounts diverge. Wauquiez's own timeline credits Dubois with the 2002 Centurion 40S and reserves Berret & Racoupeau for a distinct 40S.2 in 2011 - yet both Practical Sailor and SAIL Magazine, the latter testing one of the first four boats off the production line, credit the 40S they reviewed to Jean Berret and Olivier Racoupeau Yacht Design, a firm Practical Sailor described as well known in Europe with established credentials. Either account may reflect the true sequence; buyers researching a specific 40S should check its papers rather than assume a designer.
What is not in dispute is that Berret & Racoupeau drew the line's final generation: the Centurion 40S.2 of 2011 and the Centurion 57 of 2014, which won European Yacht of the Year 2015. The firm's involvement ran beyond naval architecture - its interior-design team worked on the Centurions along with Wauquiez's Pilot Saloon models - and its own account describes the Centurions as a world benchmark among distinguished and powerful sailing boats, a judgment worth noting as the designer's own.
Construction through the eras
Yachting Monthly's verdict on the founding boat set a theme: the Centurion 32's heavy construction and excellent finish mean it has lasted well, riding on a lead fin keel. Lead ballast recurs across the Dubois-era fiberglass hulls - the 38, 42, and 49 all carry lead keels, and the 38 and 49 were offered with different keel alternatives. Good Old Boat's data page on the Centurion 36 places that model within Wauquiez's reputation for high-quality, overbuilt construction of the era.
The S-generation boats show the yard's methods in more detail. The Centurion 45S was built as a vacuum-bagged GRP and balsa sandwich with vinylester resin in the external layers, one-piece floors, stringers, and bulkheads all glassed to the hull, a composite deck bonded and fastened to the hull, and teak decks and toerails above. On the 40S, SAIL Magazine reported that Wauquiez used resin infusion to ensure even saturation of the cloth and the proper resin-to-glass ratio, building from its works at Neuville-en-Ferrain, France.
Lines and generations
The Centurion name marks a deliberate position within the Wauquiez range. Classic Boat's archive described a range split into two lines by purpose - cruising-racing under the Centurion name, pure cruising under the Wauquiez badge itself - and Practical Sailor likewise explained that Wauquiez designates product lines by intended use, with the Centurion combining performance and comfort in traditionally shaped sloops. Within the line itself, Classic Boat identified the S suffix with the sport series. Voiles et Voiliers adds that the Centurion's sporting formula outlived the line's own boats: after the Chance 37 and 32, the Gladiateur range extended the sporty streak the Centurion had begun. Racing results bear the pedigree out - Wauquiez Forever records Loic Peyron winning Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez aboard a Centurion 61S.
Who Centurion is for
A Centurion suits sailors drawn to the cruiser-racer middle ground: boats meant to be raced and cruised in equal measure, from a builder whose reputation - per Voiles et Voiliers - was made on exactly that formula. The span runs from a compact late-1960s classic through Dubois's fleet of 36-to-61-foot performance cruisers to Berret & Racoupeau's modern 57-footer, so the line rewards choosing by generation as much as by length.
