By the turn of the 20th Century, there were more than a dozen fishing families in Monaco, Rinaldi told me. Even as recently as the 1960's, pointus, the brightly painted traditional wooden fishing vessels that are typically found along the French Riviera and in Provence, shared the harbour with early-style pleasure yachts. Yet, the decade would prove a turning point for several reasons, said Jean-Yves Giraudon, a member of the editorial committee of Annales monegasques, the Historical Review of Monaco. "Boat-building techniques changed and the profession of marine carpentry all but disappeared with the advent of fibreglass. At the same time, Monaco's economic development saw increasingly larger yachts coming into its port," Giraudon explained.
