"Gitana" symbol with the monogram "JR" discretely incorporated in the anchor, used by Baroness Julie de Rothschild to decorate dishes and other objects. Pregny, private collection
1876
The birth of a legend and speed records on Lake Geneva.
Julie de Rothschild
At the end of the 19th century on the waters of Lake Geneva, a woman, Julie de Rothschild, dared to defy convention and challenge the status quo.
To compete in regattas and set records on Lake Geneva, she commissioned La Gitana, her first steamboat; a vessel over 24 metres long, designed for speed. And so the story began, driven by a spirit of freedom!
For more than twenty years, at the helm of her steamers, the daring baroness set times that earned her the title of the world’s fastest ‘yachting lady’.
Watercolour by Marc P.G. Berthier, Official Painter to the Navy. Pregny, private collection
1960
The art of yachting and regattas.
Baron Edmond de Rothschild
Baron Edmond de Rothschild reignited his family’s keen interest in boats, transforming it into a genuine passion for sailing.
He preferred sailing boats to motorboats, and his favoured vessels were monohulls. Drawing on the expertise of the leading naval architects and shipbuilders of the era, the Baron went on to create some of the finest boats of his time.
Whilst speed records were Julie de Rothschild’s driving force in her yachting pursuits, Baron Edmond de Rothschild was passionate about cruising races, tall ships and metric regattas, where the crew and the spirit he instilled in them came into their own and reigned supreme.
For over thirty years, the Baron’s sailing yachts criss-crossed the English Channel, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, securing numerous podium finishes and victories, including the famous Fastnet Race in 1965 and the Nioulargue in 1984.
Gitana Team logo, 2000s
2000
Formation of the Gitana Team and a shift towards multihulls.
Benjamin de Rothschild
As one of his father’s most loyal crew members, Benjamin de Rothschild took his first steps on the deck of Gitana IV. He is just as passionate about the sea as he is about yacht racing.
Together with his wife Ariane, they are steering this unique family maritime legacy towards uncharted horizons.
A new era is dawning: one of speed and multihulls, with the ambition of making Gitana a major player in this discipline. To this end, he created the Gitana Team, a model for an offshore racing team that was unprecedented at the time.
Gitana 11’s resounding victory in the 2006 Route du Rhum marked one of the great highlights of this era.
Gitana 18, the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild
2017
The age of flying ships and high technology.
Ariane de Rothschild
To design and build the first ocean-going maxi-multihull capable of sailing at high speed on the open sea and winning across all the oceans; this is the ambition that the Gitana Team has been pursuing, spearheaded by Ariane de Rothschild, since 2015.
To break new ground, when no one is certain that these carbon giants will ever be able to sail at high speed sustainably on the open sea; is the challenge that Ariane de Rothschild decided to take on. In her own way, she is thus carrying on the pioneering spirit that has driven the Gitana lineage since Julie de Rothschild: to go where no one has gone before, and to turn the impossible into a new playground.
This conviction took shape in 2017 with the launch of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, the first of its kind — a boat that had no equivalent at the time, designed to pave the way for a new generation of offshore racing. From prototype to prototype, from learning to daring, the Gitana Team is inventing a discipline rather than following it, and with every campaign pushes the boundaries of what seemed possible at sea a little further.
Gitana
The origin of a name that has become iconic.
In January 1853, Giuseppe Verdi premiered Il Trovatore at the Teatro Apollo in Rome. That evening, without realising it, the composer unwittingly set in motion a story that was not his own. Julie de Rothschild, then aged twenty-three, attended one of the Neapolitan performances that followed the Roman premiere.
Twenty-two years later, in March 1875, Georges Bizet premiered his opera Carmen in Paris, adapted from Mérimée’s novella — a work that would go on to become one of the most frequently performed in the world. Once again, the baroness was in the front row. Was it the figure of La Gitana, a strong-willed heroine pursuing her own aspirations for freedom, that inspired Julie de Rothschild? Be that as it may, in the weeks that followed, she commissioned her first boat from the Thornycroft shipyard in London and christened it La Gitana!