Prima sailboats: one boat's name, carried by a Poole yard through a single decade-long run
Prima is not a company name - it's the boat. The Prima 38 was built by Seaquest Ltd, a British yard founded in Poole, Dorset in November 1993 by Mike and Dawn Eaton, after Mike identified a gap in the market for a production cruiser-racer yacht. Seaquest described itself, on its own site, as one of the only British boat builders specializing in mid-range performance racer/cruiser yachts, and the Prima 38 was the vehicle for that ambition: designed by Stephen Jones and Jonathan Sherwill, the same pair behind Seaquest's debut SJ320, and named 1998 RYA Yacht of the Year before the yard closed UK production in December 2004 and relocated to Dubai the following year.
Origins and ownership
Seaquest Ltd was formed in November 1993 by Mike and Dawn Eaton, with the original factory based in Poole, Dorset. The company's own account frames its founding around a gap Mike had identified in the market for a production cruiser-racer yacht, and Seaquest went on to describe itself as one of the only British boat builders specializing in mid-range performance racer/cruiser yachts. In 2004 the company formed Seaquest Yachts NA Inc as its official North American distributor. The following year, in late 2005, Seaquest's operations moved to Dubai, following the formation of a joint venture with MKM Commercial Holdings LLC, headed by Sheikh Mana Bin Khalifa Al Maktoum of the Dubai Royal family.
The designers
Stephen Jones was commissioned to design Seaquest's first model to Mike Eaton's specification, and the SJ320 was launched and built in 1994; the hull was Jones's work, the interior that of industrial designer and stylist Jonathan Sherwill. The builder's own record credits the SJ320 with winning Cowes Week class 3 - one company page says three years running, another says the boat went on to dominate the event for four straight years. Following the SJ320's success, Seaquest developed the Prima project with the same design team, and a nucleus of four prominent owners is credited, alongside the design/build team, with giving the company the impetus to produce the boat's pre-production tooling. The 1998 RYA British Nautical Awards named Seaquest's 38-foot Prima One Design its "Yacht of the Year," and, by the builder's own account, the judging panel described her as "an unabashed cruiser/racer intended for serious racing and comfortable cruising."
Construction through the eras
In 1997 Seaquest took on a contract project based in Cornwall; the work introduced the company to the Cornish workforce and the factory it relocated to that year as it continued to grow. Beyond its own designs, Seaquest built other architects' boats on contract, including Steven Thomas's Projection 762, Rob Humphries's Humphreys 35, and Blue Boats Ltd's Powercat 35, and more recently Hunter Boats' Mystery range - the Mystery 35 - under license. In 2000, Reichel-Pugh approached Seaquest and the two parties agreed a contract to build the SQ36 and SQ45. By 2005 Seaquest's own range spanned the Stephen Jones/Jonathan Sherwill SJ320, the Seaquest 32, the Seaquest 36, the Prima 38 and Prima 38 OD, and a new Reichel-Pugh-designed Seaquest 36. That November, in 2004, the Seaquest 36 won "Race Boat of the Year USA 2005" from Yachting World magazine, and the Prima 38 itself won IRC Class 1 of the 2005 Fastnet Race. The last Prima 38 to leave the factory was purchased by Dutch owners who took delivery in December 2004, closing out UK production before the company's move to Dubai.
Lines and generations
The Prima line was sold in two forms: the Prima 38 and the Prima 38 OD, built for the one-design class the company set out to establish. Seaquest's stated goal was to get ten Primas on the water to found that class; by October 2002 the builder counted 24 Primas on the water, supported by an established one-design class association chaired by owner Jonathan Perry, and its 1999 homepage had already billed the company as home of the "award winning" Prima 38 and SJ320. By the time of Seaquest's 2006 history page, published after the move to Dubai, the builder counted more than 25 Primas on the water, still supported by that same class association.
Who Prima is for
A Prima 38 buyer is buying into a single yard's decade-long run under one design partnership - Stephen Jones and Jonathan Sherwill - built for owners who wanted a boat that could hold its own in one-design fleet racing and still cruise comfortably, the combination the RYA judging panel singled out in 1998. With production closed since December 2004 and the builder itself relocated to Dubai, the model's story is a finished one, carried on today mainly by the one-design class association Seaquest helped establish.