50 AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 2019 | International Boat Industry ibinews.com
Markets & Regions
BOATBUILDERS | SOUTH AFRICA
Voyage director Tom Lubbe (left) and the Paardsen Eiland yardwork, which are subbed out locally, and the
stainless steel work which is imported. All
hulls are infused save for the 58’s. A new
managing director was appointed at the
beginning of 2019, Peter Gilliam, who has
spent much of his career in the automotive
industry, 27 years of which were in senior
production posts within BMW; various
director-level roles at plants in Germany,
the UK, USA and South Africa. He says
his principal focus at R&C now is “quality
and efficiency”; and that the key means of
achieving those will be “proper training”.SOUTHERN WIND
Located in Athlone, Cape Town, but with
its commercial office in Genoa, Italy, the
Southern Wind Shipyard was started by
the late Willy Persico, who died suddenly
on May 12 last year while still chairman
and major shareholder. His passing was
a massive blow to the company that he
established almost by accident in the
early 1990s, when he needed somewhere
to finish off a 72ft Ron Holland-designed
sloop as the local yard that had been
building her had gone bust.
Scroll on to today and the Southern
Wind afloat fleet numbers 54 sailing yachts
with LOAs from 72ft-110ft. The average
is 90ft, 80% of which are based on Farr
hulls and the remainder Reichel-Pugh
platforms, save for that first Ron Holland
project. Most of the early ones had Antonio
Minniti interiors. But for the past 20 years
Southern Wind’s association with Mario
Pedol and Massimo Gino’s Nauta Design
studio in Milan has been hugely successful.
The company shares are now split
75:25, respectively between a syndicate
of external investors made up of one
Spaniard, one Dutchman and a Swiss
family – and the management team,
which consists of Marco Alberti,
Alberto Del Cinque, Andrea Micheli and
Giampaolo Spera.
Current work in progress includes
three super-sloops. There is a full-custom
all-carbon 100-footer, which Southern
Wind first announced back in early August- The creative credits for this one go to
Reichel-Pugh and Nauta. Delivery should
be spring 2020. Then there is the third
SW96, which should launch in May 2020,
and the fourth SW105, which is scheduled
to splash in January 2021.
“We are various stages of negotiations
for various other monohull projects,” says
Alberto Del Cinque. “Plus we are now
responding to what seems to be a growing
demand for super-cats. We are just starting
to promote our first concept with Berret-
Racoupeau and Nauta.”
A 100ft catamaran, he tells us, would
be almost exactly double the volume of a
100ft monohull – and so probably twice
the price, which we estimate would be a
ball-park €20 million.
The only delivery this year was the third
SW105 SY Power of 2, which launched
in early February and handed over in
mid-April 2019, but two delivered the year
before, the second SW96 SY Seatius and
the second SW105RS Kiboko^3 , her owners’
third project with Southern Wind.
“Custom care is vital in this business,”
adds Del Cinque, who has been with
Southern Wind for over 20 years. “One
owner has built three boats with us and
several clients have built two, although
ironically all present projects are for first
time clients.”
Today Southern Wind employs around
300 people.
Current yard capacity would be around
115ft. The largest Southern Wind to date
was the 2010-delivered 110RS SY Thalima.VOYAGE YACHTS
Paardsen Eiland, Cape Town-based Voyage
Yachts has delivered no fewer than 215
cruising cats since it first started in 1996,
although today’s volumes are well down
on past peaks. Back in 2001 it employedaround 200 people on the same site as
today and delivered a record 16 sailing
cats that year, a mix of 10 or so of the old
Voyage 440 and half a dozen of the old 500.
Today it employs around 85 and last year it
delivered four of what has been until just
recently the company’s only really active
model, the Alex Simonis-drawn 480. It
has been building four or five of those a
year since the first one handed over in
early 2016.
“This year is something of a transition
year for us,” says Voyage Yachts director
Tom Lubbe. “We will complete just two
boats this year as we switch focus from
the 480 to the bigger 590. In January we
delivered Voyage 480 #15, our first fully
electric cat, which is now chartering in the
BVI, and we’re working on the first and
second new 590.” The 590 was designed by
Phil Southwell. The first should complete
for late November 2019 and is scheduled to
deliver to the US at the beginning of 2020.
The second and third 590s are already sold
and will be US bound in March and June
2020 respectively. And the fourth and fifth
are said to be ‘almost signed’, again both to
US clients.
Virtually everything Voyage builds ends
up in either the USA or Caribbean.
Prices are competitive. The basic-
spec price of the 480 is US$572,000,
but a typical delivery would be around
US$700,000. Similarly, the 590 starts at
US$1.35m, but final out-the-door prices can