S2 sailboats: the sailboat-only chapter in a Michigan boatbuilding dynasty
S2 Yachts existed as a distinct company for a little over a decade, sandwiched between two much longer chapters of the Slikkers family's business: the elder Chris-Craft-trained builder's original power-boat company, Slickcraft, and the Tiara and Pursuit power-boat lines that absorbed the family's attention once sailboat sales declined. Understanding S2 means understanding that in-between period — a non-compete clause that pushed Leon Slikkers into sailboats, a decade split between an in-house designer and an outside Chicago firm, and a shutdown that different sources date differently.
Origins and ownership
Leon Slikkers began building boats at Chris-Craft in 1946, and in 1955 left to start his own company, Slickcraft, which built wooden runabouts in its first model year before Slikkers began experimenting with fiberglass hull construction in 1956; by 1960 Slickcraft had dropped wooden hulls entirely in favor of fiberglass. In 1969 Leon and Dolores Slikkers sold Slickcraft to AMF Corporation, with Leon staying on as president of the Slickcraft division; the sale agreement barred him from building powerboats for a period afterward but placed no restraint on sailboats, according to Practical Sailor. On February 18, 1974, Slikkers founded S2 Yachts, Inc. with his sons David and Robert, focused on sailboats, and construction began that year on a 72,000-square-foot plant. Good Old Boat describes the resulting company as one built around clean, climate-controlled production, hand-laid fiberglass, and racer-cruiser designs that blended performance with comfort.
Two years into the sailboat-only venture, the family reentered powerboats: Tiara Powerboats launched in 1976 with the 20-foot Overnighter and 25-foot Vacationer, and S2 added the Pursuit fishing-boat line in 1977. When the conglomerate that then owned Slickcraft saw declining sales in the early 1980s, S2 was able to buy the Slickcraft name back at a fraction of its original sale price, per Practical Sailor; by Tiara's own account the repurchase came in 1983, with Leon becoming CEO of S2 Yachts and son David named president. That same year, a second 72,000-square-foot plant went up in Fort Pierce, Florida, concentrating Pursuit production there and leaving the Holland, Michigan plant to focus on Tiara. Sailboat building wound down over the following years — Practical Sailor dates the 7.9's production run to 1986, Tiara's own company timeline gives 1987, and Good Old Boat puts the final shutdown in 1989, tied to Slikkers' 1986 repurchase of the Tiara name. The Pursuit line S2 had added in 1977 stayed with the family until 2018, when S2 Yachts sold the brand to Malibu Boats. S2 Yachts continued as a family-run business into a third generation of Slikkers family leadership, and Power & Motoryacht reports that founder Leon Slikkers instilled a faith-based, Seventh-day Adventist work-life balance at the company — Saturday is treated as the Sabbath, and employees don't work that day, including at boat shows.
The designers
Arthur Edmunds served as S2's in-house designer and handled all of the company's early cruising boats, according to Practical Sailor. Beginning in 1981, S2 also brought in Chicago naval architects Scott Graham and Eric Schlageter to design its racing-oriented cruisers — Edmunds continued contributing engineering and design detail to their hull designs even as the outside partnership grew. Graham and Schlageter's first project, the 7.9, was the first in a series of competitive production boats originally sold under the name "Grand Slam," later dropped by the company; designer Don Wennersten is credited with filling out the smaller end of that performance range, including the 5.5 daysailer and the 6.7 trailerable racer-cruiser, later developed into the 6.9.
Construction through the eras
S2 built its Holland plant as a model of production-line efficiency: hulls were laid up in an enclosed, climate-controlled room and stayed in their molds until most of the interior was installed, minimizing deformation. Practical Sailor found the company had built an industry-wide reputation for its gelcoat and hand layup, and noted that S2 was among the first sailboat builders to use fabric as a hull liner — a detail that became almost a trademark of S2 interiors. Decks across the range were commonly cored with end-grain balsa, joined to the hull on an inward-turning flange bedded in flexible adhesive and through-bolted at close intervals; unusually, the 7.9's hull was balsa-cored as well as its deck. Good Old Boat credits the resulting boats — priced 20 to 30 percent below competitors — with building a cult following among Great Lakes and coastal sailors.
Lines and generations
Two threads ran alongside each other through the 1980s: a numbered cruising range, several models built off shared hulls in separate aft- and center-cockpit versions — a pattern that shows up on the 9.2, the 11.0, and the 8.0 — and the Grand Slam-descended performance line, running from the daysailing 5.5 up through the 7.9. Both threads used the same metric naming convention: the 9.2 is 9.2 meters, consistent with the 7.3, 7.9, and 10.3.
Who S2 is for
S2 suits a buyer interested in an affordable, well-built cruiser-racer from a family boatbuilding dynasty that treated sailboats as one distinct chapter rather than a permanent identity — the company itself existed independently for barely fifteen years before folding back into the Slikkers family's longer-running power-boat businesses. Anyone drawn to that story should also expect a company whose own record is inconsistent on exact dates, since S2's corporate successor, an outside marine-industry retrospective, and the boats' most detailed used-boat reviews don't fully agree on when sailboat production actually stopped.
