Artist Residency

Since 2007, Marfret has been hosting artists in residence. Until now, these residencies have taken place on land in our offices and at sea on board our ships. As the Covid-19 pandemic has limited access to the ships, we have opened an artist’s studio a few steps away from our Head office, at 13 bis quai de la Joliette.
We are currently hosting the artist Pierre-Marie Vergnes for a two-year period. In his series Entre Présent et Présence, painted in oils, the port’s infrastructures, its cranes, its container ships, all its colours blend harmoniously with scenes of urban life where the diversity of lifestyles are united by one constant: the omnipresent exchange between the men and women to whom the artist gives life, between the city and its port.

Pierre-Marie Vergnes’ work is a good illustration of our approach to residencies: each one is above all a meeting between the artist, our sedentary teams and our crews. The artist offers our teams, who are maritime professionals, a new perspective on their activity, allowing them to see it differently, in all its sensory and emotional dimensions. The works of art resulting from these encounters are then shared with our clients and partners during exhibitions that we hold in the port chosen by Marfret and the artist from among all those on our ships’ itineraries.

Marfret and Xavier Macaire – a long-term partnership.

Having already sponsored the yachtsman in 2020 on the Solitaire du Figaro, Marfret has decided to renew its partnership with Xavier Macaire in 2022.

The collaboration takes on even more significance this year since, after winning the Drheam Cup last July, Xavier will be taking part in the Route du Rhum, which leaves Saint Malo on 6th November for Guadeloupe, an island we have been serving for more than 40 years. Who knows if he might even pass a Marfret ship in the middle of the Atlantic? One thing is for certain: it will be aboard one of them, the Marfret Niolon, that Xavier Macaire’s Class40 yacht will be travelling back to France after the race.

Beyond the financial and logistical support, the partnership is a moment of fruitful exchanges between the Marfret teams and Xavier Macaire and his crew. This was certainly the case on 7th September last, when our staff were treated to a day sailing with Xavier Macaire on his Class40, one that left them impressed with the yacht’s outstanding performance!

Marfret boosts presence in Belgium

The partnership with Neptumar will consolidate the shipping company’s position in Belgium.

Marfret has been serving Belgium for more than 30 years, both with its trans-Atlantic container services and, more recently, its roro MPV line, which calls at the port of Antwerp.

To consolidate its presence in Belgium, Marfret is reinforcing its partnership with Neptumar, part of the Menzell & Döhle Group, who will be responsible for managing operations and sales for all its port calls in Belgium. “With this extended cooperation with Neptumar, and the Menzell & Döhle group who are also our agent in Germany, we are joining a network to conquer new territory. We will be setting up our sales and operations teams within the Antwerp agency tasked with both supervising port calls and freight forwarding,” says an enthusiastic Guillaume Vidil, Marfret’s managing director, who plans to be in Antwerp at the beginning of October and will attend the AntwerpXL event, taking place from 4-6 October, with the MPV service teams.

Marfret’s latest service, the MPV, now calling at Antwerp

Launched at the height of the health crisis, the MPV service is a direct, multipurpose and regular service providing an easy way to ship consignments such as yachts, buses and aircraft wings without transhipment. The destinations served from Le Havre and Antwerp are Pointe-à-Pitre, Fort-de-France and Dégrad-des-Cannes, with a transit time of 42 days. For the past year, Marfret has been able to appreciate the reactiveness, flexibility, reliability and efficiency of the Antwerp’s comprehensive range of logistics services. “We need reliable partners, whether it’s for handling, fuelling or maintenance,”  acknowledges Guillaume Vidil. The combination of good labour relations at Antwerp, the richness of its hinterland and the reactiveness of the port’s stakeholders provide the perfect conditions for developing Marfret’s services in Belgium.