I visited the Annapolis sailboat show October, 2024, looking for new products I might write about in my capacity as a freelance writer for boating magazines. One booth caught my eye because it was displaying beautifully detailed models of boats, that is itself unique for a show that applauds the latest, biggest and most expensive monsters imaginable.
The company is called Abordage and I met Denis Cartier and his wife Cynthia on their booth. www.abordage.com
I reckon I have more than the average critical eye for boat models having made four scale model ships myself, and these models were clearly very 
professionally made with infinite detail.
After a bit of negotiation I decided to have a half-hull model made Britannia.
The boats are made employing the very latest digital technology and copying an owner’s drawings and photographs to produce a very accurate scale model, with details down to 
individual winches and rigging turnbuckles, and in the case of Britannia, pinrails, belaying pins and a fore yard and square sail.
Tthe hulls are formed in a digital printer and on a stereolithography machine 
from a resin which solidifies with a laser and sails are real Dacron. Abordage also makes very impressive full-hull models like the Fleming power boat model that is three feet long, and a classy Raptor that is a massive 5-feet .The display cases are made of mahogany with a plexiglass facing and very light, so the boat just hangs on the wall like a painting. Mine is 20-inches wide x 22-high.
Abordage has been making model boats for 35 years and supply boat owners, shipyards,and yacht clubs. Tthey have been building the America 's Cup models for Team New Zealand and American Magic and other racing teams. The company have a staff of thirty, all skilled modelmakers within their sphere. They are made in the town of San Cristobal in The Dominical Republic and shipped in a reinforced wooden box, that is itself a work-of-art and took a bit of opening.
Prices vary enormously depending on the type of boat, so they quote each project individually. Contact Denis at abordage@abordage.com. If your boat is a well-known make they have probably already made them before so they will likely be able to quote you without seeing drawings or photos. Britannia is very much a custom schooner with its squaresail it took a lot longer to make - eight people a total of 140 hours. The model was exhibited at the October 2025 Annapolis show and caused a lot if interest. It is a very different display to a painting, and will remain a permanent reminder of my beloved Britannia, long after she and I have moved on.
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER HER BY