Mirage Yachts
| Privately held company | |
| Industry | Boat building |
| Fate | Out of business |
| Founded | February 1972 |
| Founder | Dick and Irene Steffen |
| Defunct | 1989 |
| Headquarters | Pointe Claire, Quebec and later Vaudreuil, Quebec, Canada |
| Products | Sailboats |
|
Number of employees
|
15 (circa 1975) |
Mirage Yachts Limited was a Canadian boat builder initially based in Pointe Claire, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal and founded by Dick and Irene Steffen. The company specialized in the manufacture of sailboats.
The company was founded in February 1972 and went out of business in 1989.
The Steffens had owned a yacht dealership for C&C Yachts, that was located in Pointe Claire. The company had done good business selling C&C boats, but the C&C line did not offer a boat smaller than the C&C 27. Dick Steffen was a competitive sailing racer and thought that there would be a good market for a C&C 24 foot keelboat. At his request C&C designed the boat, but decided not to proceed with production. Steffen bought the design from C&C, founding Mirage Yachts in February 1972 to build the design.
Initially the new company was located on the second floor of a rented building in Pointe Claire, a major Canadian sailing centre.
The Mirage 24 sold well and the company soon had 15 employees constructing the model. One factor in its brisk sales was its racing record in Midget Ocean Racing Club (MORC) class events. Even 15 years after its introduction a Mirage 24 won the production boat division in the MORC national championships.
Caught off guard, C&C decided to produce a competitor, the C&C 25, which was very similar to the Mirage 24's design. The Mirage 24 continued to sell well and usually beat the C&C 25 in competition.
Steffen approached C&C to design an enlarged version of the Mirage 24, but C&C turned down the effort, calculating that it could hurt sales of their models in that size range. As a result, Steffen asked Peter Schmitt to design the Mirage 27 in 1975 and American Robert Perry to design the Mirage 26 the following year.
Needing larger facilities the company was moved to a location in Vaudreuil, Quebec that offered 12,000 sq ft (1,100 m2) of floor space. This was expanded to 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m2) and in 1983 to 35,000 sq ft (3,300 m2), with the spars being built in a 5,000 sq ft (460 m2) facility in Dorion, Quebec.
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