J Craft Owners’ Tales: Jacques Sicotte

‘A J Craft is really an art work. It’s like old cars that were made by hand, like in the ’50s and ’60s at Ferrari when Enzo was making 20 to 30 cars a year. J Craft is the same thing, today.’ So says Jacques Sicotte, one of the early adopters of J Craft, who bought his J Craft Torpedo model in 2010 after spotting one of the early models of the Swedish motor boats in Monaco, ferrying VIP guests around the harbour during the boat show.

Coming from this man, the analogy with motorcar coachbuilding is no flight of fancy. Sicotte, a nuclear engineer, has an extensive car collection that includes many vintage as well as modern Ferraris, with a number of unique contemporary racing models from the famous Italian firm that he competes in. He is also an official Ferrari Ambassador, having acquired this rare accolade from the folk in Maranello.

‘When I saw the boat, I asked myself, “What is it?” he explains of his first encounter with a J Craft. ‘What appealed was the beauty of the boat, the unique fluid lines. It makes such a statement. I’m a car collector, and certain designs never age. Our E-Type Jaguar coupé for example – those lines never get old. Our E-Type is a ’61 and people are still amazed by its looks. The Ferrari Dino is the same type of aesthetic, very curvy, and our J Craft Torpedo features the same family of unique design. For sure, this boat is massive when you look at it; it’s not like the much smaller Rivas of the ’60s. But the lines, no doubt, conjure up that dolce vita spirit.’

Sicotte was so enamoured of the vessel he saw in Monaco that he asked how to contact J Craft in Gotland. He had just one question. ‘I had never tried the boat; I asked, “How does it handle?”’ And when assured that it did indeed perform, even in heavy seas, he pledged to buy one. ‘I’d seen it running outside Monaco, doing these sweeping turns at high speed. I didn’t have the time to get on board one; I was still travelling a lot at that time; I’m always on an airplane. So I just got on another one with my wife and young son and went to visit the shipyard in Gotland, Sweden.’

The trip proved to be memorable for several reasons. It gave the Sicottes the opportunity to visit first-hand the J Craft Torpedo boat building works and to meet the very craftsmen who were to make their boat. ‘We spent three days in and out of the shipyard and met all the crew there. It was a real experience, as we got to participate in final configuration of our boat. We chose the colours of the trim and the woodwork. I chose rose polished steel for the dashboard, like you find in a Bugatti, and a steering wheel from Nardi, the people who created the steering wheel for Ferrari’s iconic 250 GTO’

The other thing that made the journey memorable was the fun his son had. ‘Sebastien was six and we told him we were going to the Viking country. While we were there, Johan [Johan Hallén, J Craft’s master builder] and his J Craft artisans made a Viking helmet for him, complete with horns. He still has it in his bedroom, though he’s a lot older now. It’s so beautifully made, with rivets, and padding inside. It’s seen some action on Halloween!’

Sicotte says that as with his cars, his love of J Craft is ‘driven by the same thing – a desire to perpetuate beautiful pieces of machinery.’ But though he is now thoroughly aware of the boat’s on-water proficiency, he confesses that it was the beauty, more than anything else, that first caught his eye. ‘I have to say that my attraction to the J Craft was not initially about performance, but about its appearance and beauty,’ he explains. ‘But you only have to look at the shape to know it’s going to behave well in choppy waters; it’s clearly got what it takes to cut through the waves.’

In Sicotte’s case, this appraisal comes from a trained eye. A mechanical engineer with a doctorate in nuclear physics, he says that once he’d got to the J Craft HQ in Sweden he became interested in what was ‘under the hood’. ‘My classic cars are the ones I love the most, because of their style, but I do know quite a lot about how things work. For example, for our boat I wanted to have the more flexible and powerful engines.’

It was his wife, Linda, who stepped in to ensure that Temptation, as the project was now named, would look the part. ‘My wife Linda is artistic... She chose the red and beige leather for the upholstery. She specced the interior to make it look very classic,’ explains Sicotte.

The couple liked the result so much that when they came to re-do the upholstery after 11 years they replaced it with the same pattern and colours. ‘But, you know, it didn’t desperately need it, it was still in good condition – no rips, and it had only faded a little.’

The technology, however, says Sicotte, is second to none. ‘We’re a family that’s into tech. Two of my daughters and my eldest son are engineers, and we talk tech – let’s face it, technology is what’s going to save the world!’ When it comes to Temptation, the tech makes it easy to sail, he says. ‘Because of the IPS drives I can dock it alone under any conditions, even in heavy winds – I don’t need anyone to help out. It has an amazing propulsion system that operates each propeller drive independently. You can have one pushing with the other one pulling at the same time. It backs up very well, for example, unlike a typical boat with a drive shaft, which puts no pressure on the rudder.’

It’s because of this ease of use that Temptation has become the Sicotte family runaround. ‘The J Craft is really a day boat,’ explains Sicotte. ‘You can sleep in it of course, and we have done so dozens of times, but it gets you from A to B in any sea conditions and it gets you there quick. From May to October we rarely use our car to go to Monaco or Saint-Tropez. We always use the boat to avoid the traffic. From home to Saint-Tropez is 50 minutes in Temptation. By car it’s two hours and 50 minutes in the summer, even in a Ferrari.’

And it has become something of a celebrity in the area. ‘We’ve had literally hundreds of guests on it,’ says Sicotte. ‘They call up and ask if they can come out for a spin. We take picnics with us and just go out to dive in, jump off and swim near the islands of Cannes. But it really is our daily driver during the six-month summer period. We’ll use it three to four times a week. Sometimes we take her out after dropping the kids at school. Or when we feel like it, I’ll just jump in and head off to have breakfast with Linda somewhere nearby. It’s so easy to drop anchor.’

As well as the pleasure he and his family derive from Temptation, Sicotte admits that he also enjoys the admiration she excites. ‘I confess, I just love it when I get into the port of Cannes and there are all these people on their 40-metre yachts and they have their phones out taking pictures of our J Craft. And if I pass close enough they all say the same thing: “What a beautiful boat.” It’s great – they’re standing on a $30m+ superyacht and they’re complimenting me on our Torpedo!’

Sicotte takes good care of Temptation, he says, washing her down and covering her after each use. Even so, one thing that is remarkable, he says, is that he has yet to have her re-varnished. ‘In 13 years I haven’t redone the varnishes. The original varnish has changed colour a bit – it’s not as dark as it once was – but that’s it. I’m planning to do it in a year or two, but the fact that it’s lasted so well is a testament to the workmanship of these guys in Gotland.’

He explains that for him the difference in owning a J Craft Torpedo is that he feels he is on board a vessel that has been made with passion, skill and care. ‘I was very impressed when I visited the shipyard. This is very much a boat made by artisans,’ he says. ‘They had 10 to 15 people working on different things, all made by hand. The hull is injection-moulded, of course, but then everything else is meticulously crafted in wood.’

And as an engineer, he couldn’t resist the challenge of working out the economics of the production. ‘I started to calculate the number of hours it would take to make. I can tell you, I was off by 40 to 50 per cent. This is a labour-intensive project. They take so much care. They don’t have anywhere near what you could call an assembly line.’

Another vessel Sicotte used to own was Emilia, a 1931 America’s Cup 12 Metre Class sailing sloop that was his for 12 years and was once in the possession of the Agnelli family. ‘It is a true classic and had competed for Italy in the America’s Cup challenge. After a two-year complete restoration I raced her in regattas all around the Med. She deserved it as Emilia is truly a piece of history,’ he says. He regards Temptation in the same way: ‘J Craft for me is a piece of history, even though it is a modern design and build. Because it evokes everything that the Riviera represented in the ’50s and ’60s, though five times bigger by volume than boats of that period – more spacious, more comfortable and with cutting-edge technology.’

He is clear that this is the only option for him. ‘I would never buy a normal, cheaper, composite boat,’ he says firmly. ‘It doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t bring you back to that era – to the romance of those years when Brigitte Bardot was in Saint-Tropez. And the great thing is that unlike a day boat of that time that you couldn’t take out if the sea got choppy, in a J Craft you can get on the water any time you feel like it.’

A Canadian, Sicotte now lives a few kilometres from Cannes and moors Temptation in a small port nearby. ‘They know the boat there and they love and take special care of her. There really is no prettier boat of that size in the world,’ he says.

The memorable looks, so distinct in a world of generic-looking white, plastic cruisers, bring more advantages than merely admiration, he explains. ‘Everywhere I go I don’t need to reserve a space. I call them and they always find a spot. They love to have her moored near the capitainerie [harbour master’s office]. We rarely need to book a place into marinas.’

It’s not that they necessarily know him, he explains, they know Temptation. ‘They put me right in front of the capitainerie.’ Once, he even got a surprise perk. ‘The Italians just love beauty. A few years ago we went to a hotel after mooring the boat in the small port of Allasio in Italy. The next day the boat had been washed for us. The guys in the capitainerie had washed it without us asking because they wanted it to look its best!’

A journey to Italy from the French Riviera is certainly more of an undertaking than a run after the school drop off or a quick shopping excursion into Saint-Tropez, and Sicotte has made use of J Craft’s ocean-going capabilities on several occasions. ‘We’ve been to Corsica on a calm day – we left at sunrise and had breakfast there at 10.00. It simply zoomed across.’ Another trip was along the coast beyond Marseille. ‘You go to all these nice little coves,’ says Sicotte. ‘I would like to go to Capri... I’ve been planning it with my wife and we might do it next year as part of a J Craft owners’ event. I raced my America’s Cup yacht in Naples a few times and I’d like to go back. It would take maybe a few days; we’d just hop along the Italian coast; stop off; the kids like to swim; and we all love Italian food!’

You can do this sort of thing in a sailing boat, he acknowledges. But it’s a different kind of trip. ‘A sailboat is great, but it takes time. This is quick,’ says the man who enjoys racing cars. ‘When I’ve got a good sea, I hit 42 knots. This is really fast. I’m a snow skier and I love to do powder skiing. On a flat sea, 42 knots is like doing powder – making effortless tight turns, just leaning from one side to the other.’

He chuckles: ‘When I have people with me and I do one of those amazing turns at high speed they initially think we’re going to flip over, but I say this is what the boat is all about: you can do these turns with no fear. And then when they realise that it’s perfectly safe, they say, “Can you do it again?” That’s the biggest thrill. Going out on the perfect morning to “powder ski” on the ocean.’