Manufacturer catalog
Chantiers et ateliers de la Perrière was a Lorient shipyard active from 1937 to 1989, rooted in the Keroman fishing-port industrial area and later known for steel and aluminium vessel construction. Public archival and maritime-history sources describe the company as a producer of fishing vessels, passenger ships, workboats, support craft for the French Navy, and offshore-racing yachts, including the Vulcain-class clearance-diver support vessels represented in this catalog.
1 weaponsThe company began in 1937 as Ateliers mécaniques de la Perrière, serving the repair needs of the fishing fleet around Lorient-Keroman. After the Second World War it moved beyond repair work into new construction, using Keroman slipway infrastructure and one of the wartime dom-bunkers as a prefabrication and assembly workshop. By the late 1950s and early 1960s the yard was associated with early French all-steel trawlers and rear-trawler designs, then broadened into aluminium construction under Jean Toullec's long management.
La Perrière's output was unusually varied for a regional yard. The BnF notice for François Toullec's Archives municipales de Lorient history lists steel and aluminium fishing vessels, passenger ships, barges, service craft, offshore-platform supply tugs, regional support ships, naval training ships, clearance-diver base ships, and pleasure craft. Ouest-France's retrospective says the yard built 117 vessels between 1946 and 1983 and employed about 370 people when Jean Toullec retired in 1981.
For defense readers, the important point is the yard's small naval and naval-support role rather than heavy warship construction. Its catalog connection is the French Navy Vulcain class, a set of clearance-diver support vessels whose lead ship was laid down at the Lorient yard in 1985 and entered service in 1986.
The catalog's published Vulcain-class record identifies Chantiers et ateliers de la Perrière in Lorient as one of the builders for the four French Navy BBPD clearance-diver support vessels.
Sources: Category:Vulcain (ship, 1986), Groupe de plongeurs-démineursOuest-France's retrospective traces the company to the creation of Ateliers mécaniques de la Perrière in Lorient, initially focused on maintenance and repair for Keroman fishing boats.
Sources: Les Chantiers de la Perrière, vingt ans après...
Maison de la Mer and BnF references describe the company moving from repair into the design and construction of steel and aluminium vessels from 1956 onward.
Sources: Les Chantiers et Ateliers de La Perrière (1937-1989), Les chantiers et ateliers de La Perrière, 1937-1989
The Ouest-France account identifies Paris-Bretagne, launched in 1962, as a pioneering French rear-trawler project that influenced later fishing-vessel layouts.
Sources: Les Chantiers de la Perrière, vingt ans après...
Maison de la Mer and Ouest-France describe the yard's construction of three Eric Tabarly Pen Duick yachts, showing its aluminium and racing-yacht capability outside military work.
Sources: Les Chantiers et Ateliers de La Perrière (1937-1989), Les Chantiers de la Perrière, vingt ans après...
The Vulcain ship reference lists the lead clearance-diver support vessel as laid down at Chantiers et ateliers de la Perrière in Lorient in May 1985.
Sources: Category:Vulcain (ship, 1986)
Ouest-France reports the 1989 bankruptcy and transition of activity to Lorient Naval Industrie; the BnF notice also describes the post-closure continuation under LNI and later industrial successors.
Sources: Les Chantiers de la Perrière, vingt ans après..., Les chantiers et ateliers de La Perrière, 1937-1989
The company is defunct and has no surviving official website. Current sourcing is therefore based on municipal archives, the BnF catalogue record for the Lorient municipal history, regional reporting, French Navy context for the connected Vulcain class, and rights-clear image provenance. The FranceArchives page is used in the website field as an institutional archival landing page rather than a company-operated site.
Category
Warships, submarines, unmanned surface vessels, naval craft, and maritime combat systems.
