90 CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018
We visit Spirit’s biggest project to
date, the 111, and two other builds
WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES
STRIPPED
FOR ACTION
Y
ou see only one thing when you step inside the twin
gables of Spirit Yachts’ hangars at Ipswich Haven Marina
at the head of the Orwell. It’s not the fact that the yard
has doubled in size since renovating the shed next door
last year; or the workforce that has also nearly doubled in size, to
just under 50. It’s the 111ft (33.8m) yacht in build on the main shop
floor, perhaps the largest single-masted wooden sailing yacht built in
Britain since 1930, when the J-Class yacht Shamrock V was launched.
The singular sight dominates the space completely, and from Spirit
boss Sean McMillan’s office, a typical walk-up with a big glass
window, you get a great view of it, with men and women in white
overalls scuttling around on the upturned hull. Things are good at
Spirit and Sean seems very relaxed, partly thanks to two employees
who have arrived in the last few years: new MD Nigel Stuart and
office manager/PA Karen Underwood, who shares the office. It’s a
wonder Sean ever managed it all on his own, is her take on it. With a
full order book some way into 2019, there is still pressure though.
Sean says: “We need 10 new people – tomorrow.”
After a chat over some coffee around the new Spirit-built table,
complete with logo inlay (coasters are provided), Sean takes us on a
tour of the yard starting, of course, with the titanic 111. A team of 10
in smart white overalls (five on each side of the boat) is quietly at
work glueing on the first layer of fore-and-aft planking, in readiness
for the four layers of double-diagonal that will follow. This first layer
is screwed on for glue adhesion, but these will be removed after
curing. As Sean points out, there are no hull fastenings of any kind
on a Spirit yacht. That means no metal at all on most hulls, although
the 111 has a steel inner cage amidships to absorb the loads. In total,
the planking team is adding eight full-length plank runs a day.We’ll hear more about this yacht as it evolves, but as previously
reported, it has a very unusual interior, which resembles a series of
organic swirls (seemingly everything is circular or elliptical), designed
in collaboration with Rhoades Young. The boat is being built for an
owner in his 30s, and is electrically powered, with battery technology
from the BMW i8, and a very efficient regenerative propeller, which
will be capable of replenishing the battery for the next 24 hours from
a state of near depletion, in just four hours of sailing at 10 knots. This
is achieved with a speed loss of approximately just one knot. When
charged, the battery should provide four days of luxurious living
without resort to the emergency generator.
With stats like these, it’s clear that the days of the diesel auxiliary
are numbered. Like all modern yachts of this sort, everything will be
powered for easy short-handed sailing. This Spirit also has in-boom
sail furling – it's a big mainsail.LONG-RANGE MOTOR BOAT
There is another unusual boat in the yard right now, too, and that is a
P70 motor yacht designed to cruise from Britain to Norway and back
at 18 knots without refuelling. She’s strip plank and double diagonal
like all Spirits, with twin 800hp diesels and 10,000 litres of tankage.
We watch in awe as a sophisticated, long-reach, high-ab lorry drops
one of these engines, a tonne-and-a-half of metal optimistically
painted white, into the bilges.
The boat is of the semi-displacement type and designed in-house
(as with all Spirits) by Sean, who enjoyed the challenge of doing
something different, although in fact, every Spirit is unique, from hull
to interior to rig. This reflects the different needs of customers, all of
whom will have different requirements in terms of draught, style ofYARD VISIT: SPIRIT YACHTS