Island Spirit sailboats: a Cape Town catamaran line under American ownership
Island Spirit is a cruising-catamaran brand built in Cape Town, South Africa, and owned in the United States by Stephen and Estelle Cockcroft, who established the brand there after taking a stake in the South African factory building the boats. Phil Southwell designed the line, with a factory partner crediting Jannie Els alongside him on the largest model, the 401 — a brand small enough that its own owners built and sailed one of its boats themselves.
Origins and ownership
Stephen and Estelle Cockcroft used their stake in the Cape Town factory to establish the Island Spirit Catamaran brand in the United States. They were partners in that factory when their own boat, the Island Spirit 401 Siyaya, was built there; launched in December 2005, Siyaya put the couple through the entire building process as owners rather than customers. Phil Southwell designed the Island Spirit 37, built by the Fortuna catamaran yard, and the larger 401 carried design input from both Southwell and Jannie Els, per a factory partner involved from the boat's initial design through its launch. Every Island Spirit, a SAIL Magazine review reported, was delivered on its own bottom from Cape Town and underwent a rigorous sea trial before handover; that magazine's 2003 review of the 40 named Trade Wind Yachts, of Gloucester, Virginia, as the boats' U.S. agent.
Construction
SAIL Magazine's review of the Island Spirit 40 found the hulls and deck hand-laid fiberglass, vacuum-bagged over a balsa core — cored construction throughout, not solid glass below the waterline. The magazine also credited the boat with simple, robust, and accessible systems and high-quality deck hardware, over an interior finished in white Awlgrip with no molded hull liner, and a plastic-laminate teak-and-holly sole it judged durable and easy to maintain.
Who Island Spirit is for
Island Spirit suits a buyer drawn to a small-yard, hand-built cruising catamaran with a traceable design pedigree — Southwell's own hand on the 37 and 40, and Southwell and Els together on the largest model, the 401 — rather than a mass-production brand with a long model history to sift through.