Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie

Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie (CMN) is a French shipyard located at Cherbourg. It employs approximately four hundred employees covering the various specialities required for the construction of luxury yachts and naval ships.

Since its foundation in 1945, the shipyard has delivered over 350 vessels. It is part of the holding company, Abu Dhabi MAR, which is steered by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

The shipyard was founded in 1945 by the French aircraft constructor, Félix Amiot in Cherbourg, France. The first vessel built by CMN was a wooden trawler which was launched on 23 June 1948 and soon diversified its products to minesweepers, coast guard vessels, fishing boats, barges, Patrol Boats and Fast Attack Crafts.

In the 1960s, the shipyard specialized in building vessels with the CMN patented "glued laminated wood technique", especially the Mine Sweepers for the French and German Navies. One of its major minesweeper series was the well-known CIRCÉ class Minehunters (the first one was launched on 15 December 1970, the following four between 1971 and 1972). The glued laminated technique was the best answer to the ship qualities in terms of non-magnetism, noise 's absorption or noise's reflecting.

From 1967, Félix Amiot diversified CMN's offerings with Fast Attack Crafts with a wood-cored laminated hull. The incident that marked the beginning of a new class of fast attack craft in shipbuilding - La Combattante I, was the sinking of the Israeli destroyer INS Eilat on October 21, 1967 by two Egyptian Komar missile boats, as she sailed in international waters off Port Said.