Before the First World War, the Americans launched the fashion for fast motor launches that were bigger than any previously built.
This development in boat building was the result of the desire of yacht owners to measure themselves in other types of competitions or to add to their flotillas with "tender" boats.
These "tenders" served to carry privileged spectators during regattas, such as the America’s Cup.
On the other side of the Atlantic some pioneers, such as Sir Cecil Sidley KAY Esq., of Manchester, entrusted the famous boat designer RODNEY W. Paul, of Southampton, with the task of designing a motor-yacht capable of sailing on the open seas as well as on the inland waters of the United Kingdom, and of sailing across the Channel. This result was the Kitikaé. Acquired by a rich Scotsman, the Kitikaé was requisitioned by the Royal Navy during the Second World War and used as a minesweeper in the Channel before being turned into a fireboat.
In 1946, back on "civvy street", the Kitikaé became the property of an English Admiral, Major General John French, who kept her for several years. Between 1956 and 1962, she was used as a lifeboat by the Calls Cambleton Lifeboat association, before crossing the Channel and becoming the property of the famed French post-war journalist Georges Broussine.
Since then, the Kitikaé has sailed in the Atlantic and especially in the Mediterranean, and has called at ports in Italy, Spain, Tunisia and Libya. Over the years, the boat suffered the passage of time and after six years of restoration rose from the ashes to offer you the spectacle of life on board a 1924 gentleman’s yacht.
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