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Spirit Yachts in new ownership as founder Sean McMillan steps back

As the company marks its 30th anniversary this year, it now becomes majority-owned by a group of Spirit yacht owners, who have committed significant capital to strengthen future business growth.

The company continues to be run by its existing Managing Director Karen Underwood, who is supported by strong design, production, and sales teams.

Karen will be assisted by a newly appointed Production & Design Director and Spirit Yachts’ Marketing Director, Helen Porter, who has raised the profile of the company for the past eight years.

Sean McMillan will continue to be closely involved in the design of Spirit’s custom yachts working alongside Spirit’s award-winning designer Tom Smith, and the company’s in-house team of designers and naval architects,

Karen Underwood, Spirit Yachts’ Managing Director, commented, “Since Spirit Yachts was founded 30 years ago, Sean has instilled his creativity and vision into the DNA of the business.

“From humble beginnings in the Suffolk countryside to multiple award wins, yachts in two Bond films, and over 80 bespoke yachts located worldwide, Spirit Yachts is a unique success story that continues to push the boundaries.”

Karen continued, “Today, the challenges are greater with supply chain hurdles, staff shortages, and the need to remain agile in the face of global events, but our commitment to quality, beauty, and lowering the carbon footprint of our yachts remains at the heart of Spirit Yachts.

“With a full yard, a strong sales pipeline, and secure investment, the team and I are well-equipped to deliver a prosperous future.”

Spirit Yachts was founded by McMillan and Mick Newman in 1993. The pair set out to offer yacht owners a beautiful, unique, and sustainably sourced alternative to fibreglass production boats. Today the company is the leading Spirit of Tradition builder and has also led the marine industry on sustainable boat-building, winning numerous awards.

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Spirit Yachts announces new ownership structure and management change

Wednesday, March 1st, 2023

Written by: Marine Industry News

Yacht design and build company Spirit Yachts has announced a new management and ownership structure. Following its original founder Sean McMillan taking a step back from his CEO role to become a consultant designer and brand ambassador, Spirit Yachts is now majority-owned by a group of Spirit yacht owners, who have committed significant capital to strengthen future business growth.

The company continues to be run by its existing managing director Karen Underwood , who is supported by strong design, production, and sales teams. Underwood will be assisted by a newly appointed production & design director and Spirit Yachts ’ marketing director, Helen Porter, who has raised the profile of the company for the past eight years.

Sean McMillan [pictured far left, with Karen Underwood and Mike Taylor] will continue to be closely involved in the design of Spirit’s custom yachts working alongside Spirit’s award-winning designer Tom Smith, and the company’s in-house team of designers and naval architects.

Underwood says: “Since Spirit Yachts was founded 30 years ago, Sean has instilled his creativity and vision into the DNA of the business. From humble beginnings in the Suffolk countryside to multiple award wins, yachts in two Bond films, and over 80 bespoke yachts located worldwide, Spirit Yachts is a unique success story that continues to push the boundaries.

“Today, the challenges are greater with supply chain hurdles, staff shortages, and the need to remain agile in the face of global events, but our commitment to quality, beauty, and lowering the carbon footprint of our yachts remains at the heart of Spirit Yachts. With a full yard, a strong sales pipeline, and secure investment, the team and I are well-equipped to deliver a prosperous future.”

In 1993, Suffolk-based Spirit Yachts was founded by Sean McMillan and Mick Newman, who set out to offer yacht owners a beautiful, unique, and sustainably sourced alternative to fibreglass production boats. This goal remains at the core of the company’s ethos today.

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Spirit Yachts reveals new owners and management team

GAIA, Sail n: , Nationality: SWE, Length: ”30,62”, Class: B, Designer: Spirit Yachts, Builder: Spirit Yachts Day 1

Sailing superyacht builder, Spirit Yachts has revealed a new ownership structure and management team.  Company co-founder, Sean McMillan, has stepped down as CEO with a group of Spirit Yacht owners taking majority ownership of the UK-based shipyard.

McMillan will continue at the firm with the role of consultant designer and brand ambassador. The company will continue to be run by its MD, Karen Underwood. She will be assisted by a newly-appointed production and design director and Spirit Yachts’ marketing director, Helen Porter.

“Sean has instilled his creativity and vision into the DNA of the business,” said Underwood. “ From humble beginnings in the Suffolk countryside to multiple award wins, yachts in two Bond films and over 80 bespoke yachts located worldwide, Spirit Yachts is a unique success story that continues to push the boundaries .”

The Suffolk-based shipyard was founded in 1993 by McMillan and Mick Newman, who originally set out to offer yacht owners a “ sustainably-sourced alternative” to fibreglass production boats.  The firm said that this remains at the core of the company’s ethos today.

McMillan will now continue to be closely involved in the design of Spirit Yacht’s custom yachts alongside designer Tom Smith. According to the firm, the new owners have committed significant capital to strengthen future business growth.

Spirit Yachts is known for building sailing superyachts up to 30.5m (100ft). A 2007 Spirit 100 yacht (pictured) is currently on sale with McMaster yachts for a cool €2.95m.

Underwood noted that the challenges of supply chain hurdles, staff shortages and the need to remain agile in the face of global events are greater than they have ever been. “But our commitment to quality, beauty and lowering the carbon footprint of our yachts remains at the heart of Spirit Yachts,” she said.

“With a full yard, a strong sales pipeline, and secure investment, the team and I are well-equipped to deliver a prosperous future.”

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Spirit Yachts : Owners commit to the future of the shipyard

The British shipyard Spirit Yachts is taken over by a pool of owners of these exceptional yachts. An investment that allows the shipyard to project itself into the future, with the gradual withdrawal of the founder.

Owners at the helm of Spirit Yachts

Spirit Yachts, the British shipyard specializing in high-end sailing yachts, announced on February 27 a change in its management and capital structure. 30 years after Sean McMillan created the shipyard in 1993, the founder has decided to gradually step back, leaving his role as CEO and becoming a designer consultant and brand ambassador. He also sold a part of his shares. The majority in the capital is now held by a group of Spirit Yachts owners, passionate about the brand.

The transition was recently anticipated with the arrival of Karen Underwood as Chief Operating Officer, assisted by a new Production Manager and Helen Porter as Head of Marketing.

Ensure the future development of the brand

With the arrival of these new investors, Spirit Yachts hopes to continue its growth trajectory, while maintaining its DNA of exceptional boats, as explained by its director Kern Underwood. "Today, the challenges are greater, with a complex supply chain, lack of manpower, and the need to remain nimble in the face of global events, but our commitment to beauty, quality, and lowering the carbon impact of our boats remains at the heart of Spirit Yachts. With a full yard, a strong order book, and secure investments, the team and I are well equipped for a prosperous future."

Spirit Yachts announces new management in its 30th anniversary year

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Spirit Yachts: Inside the British yard behind some of the world’s most beautiful boats

• February 6, 2020

Few builders possess the power of seduction demonstrated by British wood epoxy experts Spirit Yachts. David Glenn reports

Spirit Yachts’s workforce with one of the laminated sapele frames of the Spirit 111. Photo: Emily Harris

Today, Ipswich-based Spirit Yachts is embarking on a new phase in its development, having recently launched a 111ft sailing yacht that exploits the benefits of electric propulsion, the latest high voltage lithium battery technology and smart control systems to reduce the need for fossil fuel power.

Like all Spirits, she was constructed in timber from sustainable sources and because of her light and easily driven hull she could potentially become one of the most efficient sailing yachts afloat. On the face of it she’s an eco-warrior’s dreamboat, which means she was scrutinised down to her last plank of Douglas fir before her launch last year. But more of her later.

A joiner marking out a below waterline area. Photo: Emily Harris

In spite of a full order book, Sean McMillan, founder of Spirit Yachts, whose distinctive design style and inherent skill as a woodworker are responsible for these luscious-looking yachts, is the first to admit that it hasn’t always been an easy ride: “It’s been a roller-coaster, but it’s also been a great experience,” he says.

McMillan’s passion for wooden boatbuilding, and dogged determination to retain a highly skilled workforce through thick and thin has put him and Spirit at the very forefront of modern wooden yacht building.

Raising the profile

Five years ago the Ipswich-based company was facing a tough market as the ripple effect of the 2008 financial crisis continued to hobble business. Refit came to the rescue, but only up to a point. “I knew that we could not afford to lose staff,” said Sean, who has always placed his boat builders at the heart of Spirit’s success.

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The directors also realised that running the company and designing the yachts (as well as not being able to resist some hands-on boat building), was too much for one man to handle. So they appointed Nigel Stuart as managing director. He came from Discovery Yachts and quickly raised Spirit Yachts’s profile.

Together with the Brexit effect and the consequent fall in sterling, making British products considerably more attractive, things began to look up. Today the company has an enviable, trend-bucking order book.

Fling in timber

The Spirit 52D Oui Fling racing in the Solent in July 2017. Photo: Emily Harris

After just a seven-month build period Spirit launched one of its more remarkable modern classics in the summer of 2017, the completely stripped out Spirit 52D for high profile, serial racing yacht owner Irvine Laidlaw, who was keen to add a modern classic to his fleet of Highland Flings. The D incidentally stands for ‘Distilled’.

On her first outing at the Panerai British Classic Week in Cowes, Oui Fling , surely the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing, dispatched the opposition in short order. Her victims included Sean McMillan (sailing his own Spirit 52, Flight of Ufford , which is anything but stripped out) who couldn’t quite catch Fling on handicap!

Laidlaw’s boat, which apparently touched 16 knots in the Solent, weighs just 6.8 tonnes – extraordinary for a wooden 52-footer – and is two tonnes lighter than Flight .

In addition to Oui Fling ’s exploits, the announcement of the 111ft sloop contract was a massive boost, in fact a potential game changer for Spirit. Sean McMillan believes she is the largest wooden yacht of her type built in Britain since the J Class Shamrock V was launched by Camper & Nicholsons in 1930.

The Spirit 111 is, of course, a largely wood epoxy build, but incorporating a high voltage lithium ion battery-powered electric propulsion system and smart electrical management. Together with an original interior by world renowned designers Rhoades Young, and the appointment of a specialist project manager in the form of the highly experienced German Jens Cornelsen, this yacht places the company firmly in the superyacht league.

Spirit Yachts put its toe in the water with larger yachts when the 100ft Gaia was launched in 2007, but there were issues, especially in race mode upwind, when her timber hull deflected marginally more than anticipated, making it difficult to keep rig loads stable. The structure was re-worked back in Ipswich and Gaia returned to the circuit in good shape.

100ft Gaia is soon to be eclipsed as the yard’s flagship. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

Refreshingly, Sean McMillan is not afraid to admit that he and the company have had to learn lessons over the past 27 years. With limited scantling and engineering information available from classification societies for modern wood epoxy construction, Spirit has, at times, had to feel its way along the design route. Today, with what they call their ‘file of evidence’ containing historic calculations and structural data, they are con dent about tackling just about anything.

For the Spirit 111’s structural engineering, there was input from Sean McMillan, his experienced in-house naval architect Lawrence Peckham, composite structures expert Gary Scott-Jenner of Ipswich firm Synolo Design, and the classification society RINA.

Work involved 30 laminated sapele ring frames over which Douglas fir planking was laid and then finished with quadruple diagonal layers of 3mm mahogany veneer. There is some local reinforcement in carbon fibre and the entire structure will underwent epoxy saturation for structural integrity, impact resistance and longevity.

A rendering of the new Spirit 111, which will be the largest wooden yacht built in the UK since the J Class Shamrock V in 1930

The owner of the Spirit 111 had an unfortunate accident with his previous yacht, a Spirit 52, when he hit a rock at eight knots while sailing in the Baltic. The yacht took in no water but a number of ring frames were cracked, so she returned to Ipswich for repairs to include‘ sistering’ or doubling up the frames in question.

Demonstrating his faith in Spirit, while visiting their offices to check progress on the 52’s repairs, the owner caught a glimpse of a previous design Sean McMillan had been amending. Not long afterwards the deal for a boat that would be more than twice the size of the Spirit 52 was on the table.

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The esprit of spirit yachts.

By Nic Compton , Sep 29, 2023

The sleek 52′ (15.85m) Flight of Ufford, launched in 2007, was campaigned hard and successfully by Spirit Yachts cofounder Sean McMillan. The traditionally styled wood/epoxy sloop has become the yard’s most popular model to date.

T he James Bond movie franchise has never shied from any chance to include a yacht in the narrative and as part of the set. And given the urgent nature of the glamorous secret agent’s business, these have tended to be fast powerboats, starting with the Fairey Huntresses and Huntsmen in  From  Russia With Love  (1963) through to the Glastron GT150 speedboat, which performed a spectacular 120 ‘  (36.6m) leap in  Live and Let Die  (1973), and a clutch of Sunseekers in subsequent films. In 2006, while filming  Casino  Royale , the filmmakers decided to do something a bit different. Alongside their usual high-velocity petrol-fueled fare, they featured a sailing yacht: a 54 ‘  (54 ‘  9 “ /16.7m) sloop with a long counter stern and seemingly acres of flawless varnish, which James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) sailed into Venice during a romantic interlude in the film.

Cast in the enviable role was the Spirit 54 designed and built by British boatbuilders Spirit Yachts, located in Ipswich, Suffolk, on the east coast of England. And if that wasn’t enough notoriety for the somewhat obscure custom builder, the producers repeated the trick in the 2021  No Time to Die , this time using a Spirit 46 (46 ‘  6 “ / 14.15m) sailing yacht for James Bond to sail around Jamaica during his “retirement” scenes.

The 54′ (16.7m) Soufrière was built for the 2006 James Bond franchise movie Casino Royale. Her brief appearance in the film making her way up the Grand Canal in Venice added the cachet of an international luxury brand to Spirit’s already sterling reputation as a yacht builder.

The pairing was in many ways a marriage made in heaven. Just as James Bond has come to symbolize the aspirational best of British wit, style, and appetite for adventure, Spirit Yachts offers the best in bespoke sailboats, combining high-performance modern hulls with a classic aesthetic and a price on par with Bond’s generous expense account. The formula has inspired a devoted following and led to a unique line of yachts, steadily increasing in size over the years, from the original 37-footer (11.5m) built in 1993 to its biggest creation so far, the 111 ‘  (33.8m)  Geist , launched in 2020.

Spirit Yachts is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2023, so it seemed the perfect time to visit its expanded boatyard facility in Ipswich, where Spirit has become an increasingly important part of the regeneration of the disused docks and looks set to play an even bigger role as plans for a company-centered boatbuilding university take shape. The year started with the announcement of a major management reshuffle. Founder and chief designer Sean McMillan (now 72) is in effect taking semiretirement, handing ownership to a consortium of Spirit yacht owners and the day-to-day running of the company to Management Director Karen Underwood and the office’s newest recruit, Production & Design Director Julian Weatherill.

McMillan at the drafting table.

Yet the first person I see when I walk through the office door is McMillan, looking as suave and relaxed as James Bond himself, and bearing a roll of drawings for his latest design. No surprises there. Spirit Yachts has always been inextricably linked with this former-art-student-turned-boat-bum-turned-boatbuilder-turned-company-director. It turns out that he’s staying on as a consultant for the next three years, before fully retiring from the scene. Though it seems to me unlikely that will ever really happen.

“Sean is hanging on to the bits he likes [the designing] and letting go of the bits he doesn’t like [running a busy boatyard],” says Underwood, with a cheerful chuckle. She has worked in the marine industry for the past 25 years (including 15 years at Oyster Marine), and you get the feeling the company is in very safe hands.

She and McMillan are meeting a client at 11 a.m., so after a lengthy chat, newly promoted Marketing Director Helen Porter shows me around the yard. “We’ve had both sheds full of new builds for the past three years, catching up with pent-up demand after COVID,” she says. “We’ve had three 72s, one 68, one 52, and two 30s. We’ve now finally got space to take on some refurbishment projects, one for a couple who has been waiting a couple of years. The 52 in-build over there is Spirit hull number 80—or Sean’s 100th boat, if you include the ones he built before Spirit Yachts.”

A Spirit 72 in the busy yard in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, last June. At the time, the 30-year-old company was building its 80th hull.

It’s all a long way from the cottage in Saxmundham, about 18 miles (29 km) north of Ipswich, where I visited McMillan and his then-business-partner, Mick Newman, in 1994. They had just built their first boat, the Spirit 37, in a disused cowshed at the back of Newman’s house, and I had come to interview them and take photos of the boat for what would turn out to be the first-ever test sail of a Spirit yacht. Not that any of us had the slightest inkling of what was to come.

It all seemed to be a bit of a laugh. Sean had already had his fingers badly burned when his company, McMillan Yachts, had gone bust in the global financial crisis a few years earlier. Those boats were strip-planked gaffers, usually with modern underwater hull shapes and fancy joinery that fairly shouted out, “I am a wooden boat!”

“I was already playing with the visual joke about having a traditional-looking boat which is very modern below the waterline,” McMillan says. Not everyone got the joke, however, and after building a dozen boats, the company ground to a halt.

Back in ’94, he had joined forces with Newman—a former barge sailor—to create something completely different. The original Spirit 37 was inspired by the skerry cruisers of the Baltic, with their improbably tall rigs designed to catch the wind blowing over the tops of the flat islands, and their long, narrow hulls for optimum speed rather than comfort. But the new partners wanted to push the type to its limit by building the boat in super-lightweight materials and with a modern underwater shape—that McMillan joke again.

The first Spirit 37 (11.5m) was built in 1994, inspired by the tall-rigged skerry cruisers but with a modern hullform. She sailed beautifully and spurred multiple orders for boats of the same type and form.

The Beginning of Spirit Yachts

The first Spirit 37 was by any standards an extraordinary boat. With her long overhangs and narrow 7 ‘  (2.1m) beam, she looked superficially like a classic yacht from the 1920s, but underwater her bulb keel and skeg rudder told a more contemporary story. A judicious use of modern materials—including a strip-planked hull sheathed with fiberglass set in WEST System epoxy—meant the boat turned out exceptionally light: just 2 tons (4,000 lbs/1,814 kg), with an impressive 60% ballast/displacement ratio. It had a retro-looking fractional rig with knocked-back mast (curved aft at the top) combined with a modern-looking T-section boom and full-battened mainsail. The double cockpit and modern deck fittings suggested she was a serious racing boat, while the black walnut trim set it all off to dramatic aesthetic effect. Below decks, the boat had only sitting headroom, despite her 37 ‘  length, and the fit-out was stylish but spartan.

The Spirit company logo, a distiller’s retort flask, is set in the deck of the Spirit 52 Oui Fling

The pair named the boat the Spirit 37, not from any spiritual conviction but due to the volume of spirits consumed during her construction—hence the distiller’s retort flask in the logo. They had considered calling her the Hashish 37, but wisely decided against that in the end.

On the water, the boat proved nothing short of spectacular, clocking 11.7 knots on that first trial (a record she would take many years to break) and as light and responsive on the helm as an overgrown dinghy. She was every bit the fun boat McMillan and Newman had intended, but at that time she was a complete anomaly. The Spirit of Tradition class had yet to be created, and there were only a handful of identifiable “modern classics” in existence—mostly big cruising boats from the boards of Bruce King and André Hoek.

“[Back then] we were whistling in the dark,” McMillan later told me. “We had no idea whether there was a ‘retro’ movement or not. We just built the boat we wanted, which was fun and of a size we could relate to. Luckily, it struck a chord.”

The Spirit 46 Reprobate reveals the modern bulb keel and spade rudder that contribute to her remarkable turn of speed as she sails hard on the wind.

The Spirit 37 was one of the standout boats at the Düsseldorf boat show in January 1995 and was quickly snapped up by a German buyer, who sailed her for the next 25 years. The company also received two orders for 33 ‘  (10.1m) versions of the boat that would satisfy size restrictions on European lakes. Since then, Spirit Yachts hasn’t looked back.

The 37 was followed in 1996 by the 46 (14m), complete with carbon fiber mast, teak decks, and a serious turn of speed, reaching 18 knots on plane (though, according to my notes, McMillan claims he once got 26 knots out of a 46). Ten 37s were eventually built, as well as a dozen 46s. McMillan is keen to emphasize that no two Spirit yachts are identical, as they are all custom built, and even the 37 has three slightly different hull shapes, never mind the various interiors and deck layouts.

The year 1996 was a significant milestone in another way: it was the first time the Antigua Classics featured a dedicated class for modern classic yachts, and by a happy coincidence it named that class Spirit of Tradition. The Mediterranean classic-yacht circuit eventually followed suit in 2003. Suddenly it seemed that Spirit Yachts’ eccentric foray into imaginative boat design was not so contrary after all and was in fact on the leading edge of a new and growing movement. The bad boys of British boatbuilding were trendsetters in a glittering new vein of yachting.

Crucial to all this was McMillan’s background in fine art, for while he is just as concerned with performance and seaworthiness as other designers are, it is his willingness to take aesthetic risks that has set him apart in what is an intrinsically conservative industry.

After her role in the Bond film, Soufrière collected real-world silver racing in Ireland and at the Classics Week in Cowes.

“I take the view that yacht design is an art with science applied,” he says. “You have to have an instinctive understanding of how the hull moves through water. I gained that by sailing tens of thousands of miles as a delivery skipper, by leaning over the side of the boat and watching the hull, by getting more curious and studying hydrodynamics, and by going out and doing it. Some of the boats were great, and some not so great, but I learned a lot along the way.”

Despite its growing success, the business remained in the old cowshed behind Newman’s house until 2003, when they had to erect a temporary extension to build a 70-footer (21.3m), which was a full 10 ‘  (3.1m) longer than the shed itself. That was the final straw, and the following year the company moved to bigger premises at the old docks in Ipswich.

The slightly shorter Spirit 52 was spun out of that success, including the flush-decked Spirit of Tradition racing machine Oui Fling.

Bond Effect

If you had to imagine what a James Bond sailing yacht would look like, it would probably be a modern classic with exaggerated hull lines and a generous helping of shiny deck gear. So, it was almost an inevitability that sooner or later Spirit Yachts’ classy finish and understated power would attract the creators of the world’s most famous secret agent—and the 54 ‘   Soufrière  was duly built for the 2006 Bond movie  Casino Royale , complete with a luxurious interior comprising two cabins, en suite heads, and (that rarest thing on a Spirit yacht of that era) full standing headroom. The yacht was shipped to the Bahamas and sailed to Puerto Rico, then shipped to Croatia and sailed to Venice, where she is said to have been the first sailing yacht to go up the Grand Canal in 300 years (albeit under power).

All these efforts yielded just a few minutes of footage in the final film, but it was enough to turn Spirit Yachts, until then mainly a British success story, into an international brand. Following the release of Casino Royale , inquiries at the yard increased fourfold—though more often than not the phone went quiet when a price was mentioned. Not everyone, it seems, has a Bond-caliber budget.

Soufrière  turned out to be exceptionally fast and, under her new real-life owner, won a string of trophies at home in Ireland and at the annual British Classics Week in Cowes. Her success prompted McMillan to build a slightly smaller version for himself. Launched in 2007, his 52 ‘   Flight of Ufford  has proven equally competitive, regularly clocking speeds of up to 16 knots and winning British Classics Week three years running in 2014–16—though since 2017 he has had to take turns at first place with the stripped-down, flush-decked 52-footer  Oui Fling , built for Baron Irvine Laidlaw of Rothiemay. McMillan’s proudest moment on his boat, however, was being invited to join the Queen’s Jubilee Pageant on the Thames in 2012—the only modern yacht to be summoned.

The year 2007 was also a landmark for a more somber reason, as McMillan’s longtime business partner, Mick Newman, died in a plane crash. Sadly, he would never see the full flowering of the company he helped to create.

The 111′ (33.8m) Geist, designed for the owner of a 52 who wanted a larger version, was built mostly of sustainable timber, except for the teak decks.

The 52 went on to become the yard’s most popular boat to date, no doubt helped by McMillan’s enthusiastic campaigning of  Flight of Ufford  on both sides of the Atlantic. It also led to the yard’s biggest and most challenging commission. After the Spirit 52  Happy Forever  hit a rock in the Baltic, she went back to the Spirit yard for repair, and while her owner (a young German shipowner) stopped by to check progress he spotted a design McMillan was working on. He asked him to design a 90 ‘  (27.4m) version, and when that wasn’t quite right, asked that it be drawn out to 100 ‘  (30.5m), then 105 ‘  (32m) and, finally, 111 ‘  (33.8m). While the yacht’s hull grew longer with each design iteration, her freeboard remained unchanged—she just got sleeker and more stunning each time.

The result was  Geist , the Spirit 111, said to be the biggest single-masted wooden boat built in Britain since the J-Class  Shamrock  in the 1930s. Not only that, but the yard claimed it was “one of the most environmentally friendly sailing superyachts ever created.” Built mostly of sustainable timber (except for those endless teak decks), it boasted a 100-kW Torqeedo electric engine served by four banks of lithium-ion batteries that could be recharged by the propeller while under sail.

Belowdecks, the owner specified that he wanted only organic shapes—there should be no straight lines and no sharp corners. It was a challenge that the Spirit workforce (with some help from the design agency Rhoades Young) rose to, creating a cocoon-like interior with rounded bulkheads, curved seating and sideboards, and shell-like beds that seem to hover in space. Storage space is mostly hidden behind panels with sensor-activated doors that open to the touch. It was quite simply, as Underwood puts it, “a floating work of art.”

“Building the hull wasn’t a problem; that’s our bread and butter,” says Yard Supervisor Adrian Gooderham, who has worked at Spirit for more than 20 years. “But building the interior was a challenge, especially as they wanted the veneers to match, even in the sink areas, where it comes down the bulkhead onto the countertop, down the side, then onto the shelf, and down again—all matching. If there was a defect in any part of it, you’d have to find another veneer and start again.”

Most of the internal joinery was farmed out, but Gooderham built the distinctive saloon table—56 curved legs arranged in a circle, with a round glass top that bolted to the top of each leg. “Quite complex,” he admits.

Geist’s curvaceous bulkheads, settees, and house structure were built with flawless veneers, glass surfaces, and the absence of trim that could conceal any gaps.

Building Clean

The company’s commitment to the environment stems from its early days when, McMillan points out, just choosing to build in wood would label you as a crank. He still feels just as strongly about it now.

“You can’t build boats and not be concerned about the environment,” he says. “The implications for the yachting industry are dire, yet 99.9% of companies are banging out petrochemical products with no attempt to deal with end of life. There has to be a point when you stand up and say, ‘This cannot be right.’ We are gradually getting rid of diesel engines and trying to build boats that have minimum impact on the planet.”

Laminating diagonal sipo wood veneers over the Douglas-fir strip planking yields a stiff monocoque hull built mostly of renewable wood.

Over the years, the company has refined its focus. Early on, they stopped using Brazilian mahogany when their supplier couldn’t guarantee it came from a sustainable source. They switched to sipo, a similar timber grown as a commercial crop. More recently, they stopped using teak for decks and tried using the teak-substitute Lignia. When that company went bust amid concerns about the durability of the product, Spirit switched to using Douglas-fir, which has proven a good substitute. Various test panels with the alternative decking material are being continuously monitored, in part thanks to an accelerated-aging test tank on loan from electronics supplier Raymarine.

In 2020, they launched the first all-electric Spirit 44E (13.4m), fitted with an Oceanvolt sail drive powered by lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged by two large solar panels on the afterdeck or, while under sail, by the spinning propeller. Her decks were made of Lignia, and her sails were fabricated with 4T Forte recyclable cloth, courtesy of OneSails, which makes most of Spirit’s sails.  Avvento  was shipped to her owner’s home in British Columbia, Canada, where she cruises in remote areas for weeks at a time with no need for external energy supply. Her owner jokes that he’s more likely to run out of food than run out of electricity. Nearly half of Spirit’s new builds are now fitted with electric engines, though McMillan is quick to acknowledge that, environmentally speaking, they are not the “perfect panacea” due to the use of rare metals in the batteries.

Recently the yard has experimented with replacing teak decking with quarter-sawn Douglas-fir.

Bcomp’s flax fiber is a promising alternative to glass fiber laminate for exterior hull sheathing on Spirit’s 30-footers

More recently, Spirit Yachts has been applying flax cloth in place of fiberglass to sheathe their 30-footers—Bcomp’s ampliTex flax 350-g/m 2 biaxial (+/–45°) 1270mm and ampliTex flax twill 2/2, no twist, 1000mm, 300-g/m 2 —and will apply it to the bigger boats once they are happy with its performance. (See “ Flax  Boats,”  Professional BoatBuilder  No. 197, page 44.)

“We had to be much quicker with the glue when laying up the flax, as it is very absorbent,” says Gooderham. “We had to be precise with the quantities of resin, and we had to post-cure in a tent at 25°C [77°F] during the fairing process.”

The Spirit 44E Avvento was the first Spirit yacht with an electric sail drive powered by lithium-ion batteries. She also sported sails made of recyclable sailcloth.

They are also experimenting with bio-based resin in nonstructural areas and hope to use it more extensively in due course.

And there are many other, smaller ways the company earns its eco-credentials, as Helen Porter explains: “We recently replaced our plastic paint trays with sugar cane trays, and we’ve replaced our paint brushes and rollers with low-carbon-footprint products. We’re using vacuum bags made out of recycled materials. We’ve discovered we can reduce waste timber by 20% by using CNC to cut wood. So, we are constantly chipping away in the background. The goal is always to lower the carbon footprint of a yacht as much as possible.”

She makes the point that in most instances, the more sustainable solution will offer other benefits such as reduced noise, cheaper running costs, or greater self-sufficiency, meaning there is less need to call on expensive marinas. When the benefits are fully explained, she says, nine times out of 10 the client will opt for the more sustainable option.

Once again, the company’s once-unorthodox stance has served them well, and while most of the marine industry is playing catchup on burnishing their environmental credentials, Spirit finds itself in the vanguard of the movement. Underwood estimates that as many as 60% of their customers “have sustainability in their minds. They are living and breathing it already. They have an electric car. They have a ground-source heat-pump system at home. That’s why they come to us.”

Custom cabinetry and accommodations are strategically built-in before the cabin structure is sheathed.

Another sign of the times for Spirit Yachts is a greater emphasis on boat interiors, something designer Tom Smith, who trained partly in Italy, is happy to go along with. “The interior never used to get as much attention as the exterior. Now it’s just as much,” says Smith, who heads a team of four designers at the yard. “Lots of people want their yachts to be as comfortable as their homes. That should be possible, as long as you’re clever. I hate it when people say that yacht design is a compromise. There’s no reason to compromise; you just have to be clever with the design.”

In practical terms, that has meant a shift away from traditional wood paneling toward lighter colors, including white satin painted panels. The company is also collaborating with textiles companies to try out new color palettes including cloths made from recycled bottles.

Spirit Yachts Under Power

In recent years, Spirit has added a few powerboats to their stable of designs—from a couple of retro-styled launches, the P40 (12.2m) and P35 (10.7m), to a more substantial 70 ‘  motoryacht, the P70, designed to cross the North Sea from the U.K. to the Baltic and back at 18 knots. Even here, the company is keen to emphasize the designs’ eco credentials, noting that it can build the boats lighter than their GRP equivalents, which means they require smaller engines and therefore have greater fuel efficiency. It’s a virtuous circle that again benefits the client by saving them money in running costs.

Spirit’s most spectacular powerboat to date had finally completed its trials stage when I visited the company in June 2023. The F35 looks every bit like one of those classic North American speedboats from 100 years ago. Long and narrow, with sensuously shaped varnished topsides and foredeck, it appears the epitome of 1920s elegance. But, like her sailing sisters, the F35 has a secret hiding underwater: foils. Power her up to 14 knots or so and she will free herself from the tedious limitations of wetted surface area and fly largely above the water at up to 30 knots (though 22 knots is her cruising speed).

Spirit Yachts joined forces with BAR Technologies (better known for its  America ’s Cup simulation and design) to create this electric foiler with a range of 100 miles at 22 knots. This is a major step forward in electric boating, and all with a classic aesthetic that you don’t expect to perform so efficiently—that old McMillan joke again.

McMillan is rightfully proud of his new design and, back in the office, shows me a video of the boat in action on Lake Maggiore in Italy. Halfway through, the F35 is joined by a copy of the Crouch-designed  Baby Bootlegger , a curvaceous 1924 American mahogany speedboat that inspired his design. (See Paul Lazarus’s “How Fast Will It Go?” in PBB No. 169, page 62.) The family resemblance is clear—though, as McMillan points out, their performance is quite different. The old boat with its 220-hp (165-kW) combustion engine leaves a vast wake, while the big foiler at speed barely dimples the lake surface.

She’s clearly the future of motorboating—fast, elegant, and clean—especially once safety and ethical concerns around some lithium-ion batteries are resolved or competing alternative fuels become viable.

I’m keen to see the roll of plans McMillan has brought in for scanning—he still works in the early stages with pen and paper before submitting his drawings to CAD for the development and production stages—but it turns out they’re top secret. All he will say is that they are for an “extremely radical” electric foiler, considerably bigger than the F35. Even at 72, he is still clearly excited by this latest project.

An F35, the latest model in Spirit Yacht’s sparse line of powerboats, is an electric-powered fully foiling tribute to the mahogany runabouts of the 1920s.

Spirit Yachts’ Academy and Beyond

McMillan is willing to talk about another project close to his heart: the new Spirit Academy. In the past the company was able to recruit staff from all over the world to work in the yard, but that has become more difficult since Brexit, and like most companies in the boating sector, Spirit has suffered a skills shortage. The solution McMillan decided on is to set up a training center in a disused building right next to the yard. The Spirit Academy will be the first university-standard boatbuilding college in the world, training students to a high skill level so they come out ready to start work using modern tools and materials. The course of study will comprise most aspects of boatbuilding, including design, rigging, and sailmaking. The only thing that won’t be in the curriculum is fiberglass construction, which McMillan is convinced will soon “come to a crashing halt.”

He said he hopes to start restoring the building this autumn, with the first intake of students possible as early as fall of 2025. The plan is to enroll two classes a year of 12 students each for a two-year course, with a total of 48 students when it’s fully up and running.

Meanwhile, Spirit Yachts will continue building its distinctive brand of high-quality wood/composite yachts. Despite recent forays into powerboats, sailing yachts will continue to be their focus, particularly in the 60 ‘ –90 ‘  range (their “sweet spot,” according to Underwood). The new 72-footer is particularly popular right now, with three built in two years—one for charter (with a cabin forward for paid crew), one for racing, and the third for bluewater cruising.

McMillan shows no signs of slowing down, and neither does the company he created in a disused cowshed all those years ago. At last, it seems the world has caught up, and the McMillan joke of delivering modern performance boats with vintage aesthetics is one we can all understand.

About the Author:   Nic Compton is a freelance writer/photographer based in Devon, U.K. He lived on boats in the Mediterranean until the age of 15 and worked as a boatbuilder for many years before swapping his chisel for a pen and his router for a computer. He sails a Rhode Island–built Freedom 33, currently based in Greece.

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ON TEST: Spirit 44e – the sustainable future of sailing?

• Theo Stocker
• November 1, 2020

A wooden boat that blazes a trail for modern technology and sustainability sounds too good to be true. Theo Stocker went to see if the Spirit 44e is as good as promised

Product Overview

Spirit yacht 44cr electric.

• Most sustainable yacht available today
• Sails beautifully
• Stunning looks
• Limited accommodation for length
• Upkeep of wooden boat

Manufacturers:

Price as reviewed:.

Boats have been built out of wood since Noah first put axe to tree, but when it comes to cutting-edge yachts, timber is right back at the top.

Spirit Yachts have been building head-turningly pretty wooden yachts with stiff, lightweight laminated wooden hulls since 1993, including the largest wooden yacht built in the UK since the 1930s in the shape of the Spirit 111 , launched this year.

But away from all the fanfare, the Ipswich-based yard has also just launched Avvento , smaller sister to its 47 and 55 Cruising Range yachts.

Far from being a lesser vessel, however, the Spirit 44 Cruising Range Electric Boat (44e for short) hides advances in sustainable technology under its gleaming topsides that offer a glimpse into the future of boat building.

Unrecyclable fibreglass and sails, toxic antifoul, and fossil-fuel propulsion are replaced by sustainably sourced timber, self-sufficient electric propulsion and zero-carbon emissions.

The proud new owner is Vincent Argiro, a retired technology entrepreneur who lives and sails in British Columbia in Canada.

Explaining his motivation to go for such a radical concept, he said: ‘My first sailboat was also the first of its kind to be built all-electric. I have never owned anything else, nor will I.

‘To me, it is a terrible corruption of the beauty and simplicity of sailing to add internal-combustion propulsion to it.’

She is built, Spirit claims, to last a hundred years and to be largely recyclable when the time does come. In the intervening century, she will burn no hydro-carbons whatsoever with not even a backup generator on board, or, for that matter, any obvious renewable energy sources. I was curious to see how she worked.

THE TEST VERDICT

The Spirit 44e is a fabulously expensive boat given her limited accommodation and shorter than average waterline length, if you are going to judge her by volume.

As managing director Nigel Stuart says: ‘You need to think about her volume relative to her waterline rather than overall length.’ That’s a nice idea, if you have the luxury of not worrying about marina fees.

You can get a lot of boat for this kind of budget, so why would you buy the Spirit 44e? Firstly, she is drop dead gorgeous. From her sleek lines to her dovetail joints, there is no part of the boat that is not a pleasure to look at.

Then, she is utterly engaging to sail. Lightweight, powerful and responsive, helming her will put a smile on your face, while she should cope equally well with the rough stuff. Finally, she is light years ahead of most production yachts in terms of environmental impact.

I would opt for the smaller rig and higher boom, and I’d like narrower cockpit seats. Most owners would opt for a backup diesel generator for peace of mind, though with new battery tech on its way, unlimited range is within reach.

The Spirit 44e goes a very long way to prove that yachts can be built and run in a sustainable way.

Would the Spirit 44e suit you and your crew?

This boat isn’t about mass-market appeal, but who wouldn’t fall in love given half a chance? In reality, for the kind of cruising most sailors really do, weekends and a few weeks here and there, she is luxuriously comfortable for a cruising couple with occasional guests. Liveaboard cruising is more of a stretch, but entirely feasible, while she’ll also do well racing round the cans.

There’s plenty of entertaining space, particularly on deck once you’re in harbour, and if you don’t mind the stares, she turns heads wherever she goes.

Very few boats out there could hold a hydrocarbon-free candle to the Spirit 44e. Even Noah might have been tempted to leave his animals for this boat.

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25 YEARS OF SPIRIT YACHTS

From a disused cow shed in rural Suffolk to a 1,500 square-metre yard housing a 34m superyacht, a 21m motor yacht, a cruiser-racer and a deckhouse yacht.

This year Spirit Yachts celebrates its 25th anniversary. Find out about the journey from a disused cow shed to Spirit’s current 1,500 square-metre yard and an insight into future plans from company founder Sean McMillan.

When Mick (Newman) and I started Spirit Yachts in 1993, the goal was always to build the most beautiful yachts in the world. Mick always used to say ‘why do modern yachts have to be fat, white and plastic?’. We set out to prove that theory wrong and every time I see a Spirit yacht on the water I am reminded of why we do what we do every day.

Mick and I started building yachts in redundant farm buildings in rural Suffolk, which was fine as the early boats were all relatively small (the first Spirit was 37ft). However, in 2003 we built a 70ft yacht in a 60ft shed with a crude extension at one end, which meant we didn’t have the space to see how it looked as a whole. That was the turning point as it pushed us to move into our current premises in Ipswich marina.

n 2006, there was also the small matter of designing and building a yacht for the James Bond film Casino Royale, which was undeniably a turning point for Spirit. It took us from being relatively well known in the UK to the world stage. The following year, we launched Gaia, a beautiful 100ft Bermudan sloop that can be seen competing in the annual superyacht regattas in the Mediterranean.

By employing the best boat builders in the world, many of whom live on our doorstep, we have continued to grow, weathering the 2008 recession and picking up a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the process. That’s not to say the recession was easy; it really wasn’t.

Today, the day-to-day running of the company is looked after by managing director Nigel Stuart, who joined in 2015 and has helped push Spirit Yachts on further still. Since his appointment we have doubled the size of the yard and our order book is looking very healthy for the foreseeable future. I remain committed to designing the most beautiful boats you will ever see and when I am not at my drawing board, I can be found keeping an eye on our new builds in the yard or on the tools finishing my own 40ft motor yacht.

25 facts for 25 years of Spirit Yachts:

Founders: Sean McMillan and Mick Newman

When and where was Spirit Yachts founded? 1993, in a disused farm building in Benhall, Suffolk

Current location: Ipswich Haven Marina, Suffolk, UK

Total builds to date: 63 in the water, 67 including boats currently in build (62 sail, 5 power)

Number of employees: 54

Number of designers / naval architects: 4

Longest Spirit Yacht: Spirit 111, currently in build, is 34m long

Shortest Spirit Yacht: Spirit 33, 10.1m long (two Spirit 33s were built for the German lakes in 1994/95)

Most recent launch: Spirit DH63, a 19m yawl-rigged, deckhouse cruiser-racer

Currently in build: Spirit 111 (34m superyacht), Spirit P70 (70ft / 21m power boat), a Spirit 50CR (50ft / 15m cruiser-racer sailing yacht) and a Spirit DH65 (65ft / 20m hybrid electric, deckhouse sailing yacht)

Size of the yard: 1,500 square metres

Average size of team per build: 10

Construction method: Wood-epoxy

Timber used to build a Spirit: Sapele, Douglas fir, yellow cedar and khaya for the hull, mahogany, yellow cedar and teak for the interior and decks

What is the Spirit Yachts’ logo? The outline of a whisky still (which is used in the distilling process)

Racing class: Spirit of Tradition / modern classics

Longest journey undertaken by a Spirit Yacht: Spirit 50 Deckhouse Roving Spirit sailed from Europe through the Panama Canal and up to California. Spirit 65 Snoozle sailed from Valencia to Antigua via the Canary Islands, a journey of 4800 Nm, crossing the Atlantic in 15.5 days.

Employee nationalities currently working at Spirit Yachts: Australian, Canadian, British, Spanish, Dutch and German

Top three quirkiest pieces of customisation on a Spirit Yacht:

– curved S-shaped interior walls and a bed in a C-shaped pod on the Spirit 111

– a completely stripped out, racing interior on the 52D

– night sky constellation carved into the ceiling of a Spirit gaff-rig

Number of Spirit Yachts kept on lakes: six

Number of Spirit Yachts still with their original owners: 54

Number of electric or hybrid boats: three: Phantom, Spirit 37, the Spirit 111, and a Spirit DH65 (the latter two are currently in build)

Most successful racing Spirit to date: Spirit 52 Flight of Ufford (owned by Spirit Yachts founder Sean McMillan).

Flight of Ufford racing highlights :

2018: Class 1 (Modern Classics) winner and won Yacht of the Regatta trophy at Panerai British Classic Week

2015: Class 1 (Modern Classics) winner and won the ‘Je ne sais quoi’ award (for a stunning yacht with an all-round friendly, approachable and helpful crew) at Panerai British Classic Week

2014: won the single-handed race at Antigua Classic Week

2014: line honours in the Around the Island Race at Panerai British Classic Week

Most famous Spirit Yacht: the Spirit 54 that starred in the Bond film Casino Royale in 2006

Most environmentally sustainable Spirit Yacht to date: Spirit 111. Eco credentials include four BMWi lithium battery banks that can be charged by propeller shaft regeneration whilst sailing, via the back-up generator or shore power. A Torqeedo electric propulsion system using a 100kW motor charges the batteries by rotating the propeller shaft whilst the yacht is under sail. On deck, the yacht is equipped with energy efficient Lewmar hydraulic deck hardware and water is heated using a Webasto system, which only heats water on demand ensuring no wasted energy. The heated water is stored within high density insulation and finned tubing for rapid heat transfer and temperature retention.

RELATED YACHTS

Spirit sy111.

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SPIRIT YACHT CHARTER

54.3m  /  178'2   amels   2011 / 2020.

• Previous Yacht

Cabin Configuration

Special Features:

• Worldwide adventurer with exceptional performance
• Sundeck Jacuzzi, bar and grill
• Skylounge serves as cinema room
• Huge master suite with private office and lounge
• Spa treatment room

Luxury yacht Spirit is the perfect charter platform for yachting vacations spent entertaining in style

The 54.3m/178'2" motor yacht 'Spirit' by the Dutch shipyard Amels offers flexible accommodation for up to 11 guests in 5 cabins and features interior styling by Italian designer Nuvolari Lenard.

From bow to stern, Spirit is brimming with an fantastic array of social and dining areas, both inside and out, making her the ideal yacht for relaxing and entertaining whilst on charter. Her features include a spa, beach club and gym.

Guest Accommodation

Families will particularly love Spirit thanks to her child-friendly setup. Built in 2011, She offers guest accommodation for up to 11 guests with a layout comprising a master suite, two VIP cabins, one double cabin and one twin cabin. The supremely spacious full beam master suite incorporates its own study and dressing room. There are 7 beds in total, including 4 king, 2 queen, 2 singles and 1 pullman. She is also capable of carrying up to 13 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht charter experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

On your charter, you'll find plenty to keep you busy and entertained such as a serene luxury spa, for the utmost in relaxation. Head to the beach club and take advantage of indoor-outdoor living and entertaining or you can visit the well-equipped gym so that you can keep up with your fitness routine at sea. Soak up the bubbles in style in the deck jacuzzi.

Whatever your activities on your charter, you'll find some impressive features are seamlessly integrated to help you such as Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing you to stay connected at all times, should you wish. You can stay comfortable on board whatever the weather, with air conditioning during your charter.

Performance & Range

Built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, she offers greater on-board space and is more stable when at anchor thanks to her full-displacement hull. Powered by twin MTU engines, she comfortably cruises at 13 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 15 knots with a range of up to 5,182 nautical miles from her 115,000 litre fuel tanks. An advanced stabilisation system on board reduces the side-to-side roll of the yacht and promises guests exceptional comfort levels at anchor or when underway.

Spirit knows a thing or two about fun on the water, with an extensive selection of action packed water toys and accessories for you and your guests to enjoy whilst on charter. Principle among these is a Freestyle Cruiser waterslide bringing a sense of fun that all the family can enjoy. Guests can feel the wind in their hair and jump the waves on one of the two Yamaha VXR WaveRunners. Additionally, there is a towable toy offering fun and adventure. If that isn't enough Spirit also features waterskis, scuba diving equipment, a seabob, wakeboards, kayaks and much more. When it comes to Tenders, Spirit has you covered - with two tenders, including a 6.75m/22'2" Meyer Open Tender.

Book your next Bermuda and the Caribbean luxury yacht charter aboard Spirit this winter. She is already accepting bookings this summer for cruising in the Mediterranean.

With a highly experienced and talented crew of 13, you can be sure that each and every need will be met and exceeded while on board this prestigious motor yacht.

TESTIMONIALS

There are currently no testimonials for Spirit, please provide .

Spirit Photos

Amenities & Entertainment

For your relaxation and entertainment Spirit has the following facilities, for more details please speak to your yacht charter broker.

Rendez-vous diving only.

Spirit is reported to be available to Charter with the following recreation facilities:

• 1 x 6.75m  /  22'2 Meyer Open Tender
• 1 x 6.2m  /  20'4 Pascoe RIB

For a full list of all available amenities & entertainment facilities, or price to hire additional equipment please contact your broker.

• + shortlist

For a full list of all available amenities & entertainment facilities, or price to hire additional equipment please contact your broker.

PADI CERTIFIED TRAINING CENTRE

Your family and friends could learn to scuba dive on your charter vacation onboard this luxury charter yacht. Motor Yacht Spirit is a certified PADI Dive Centre yacht so you could obtain your PADI diving card .

APPROVED RYA WATER SPORTS CENTRE

Your family and friends could learn to use the water toys on your charter vacation onboard this luxury charter yacht. Motor Yacht Spirit is a certified RYA Training Centre yacht.

'Spirit' Charter Rates & Destinations

Summer Season

May - September

€295,000 p/week + expenses Approx $321,500

High Season

€325,000 p/week + expenses Approx $354,000

Cruising Regions

Mediterranean Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Turkey

HOT SPOTS:   Amalfi Coast, Corsica, French Riviera, Mykonos, Sardinia

Winter Season

October - April

$295,000 p/week + expenses

$325,000 p/week + expenses

Bermuda Caribbean Antigua, Bahamas, Cuba, Saint Martin, St Barts

HOT SPOTS:   Virgin Islands

Charter Spirit

To charter this luxury yacht contact your charter broker , or we can help you.

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Who is Ajay Thakore? San Diego Lamborghini Yacht owner threatens dock worker in viral video

A n Indian-origin California business owner Ajay Thakore recently made headlines when he reportedly threatened a dockyard worker at San Diego's Marriott Marina after the latter refused to let the former park his $4.5 million Lamborghini Yacht, as per Times Now News.

The video of the incident has now gone viral online. While the face of the man threatening the dock employee saying "I will kill you!" multiple times remains unclear in the footage, many media outlets, including the New York Post confirmed it was Ajay Thakore, who has previously been part of similar confrontations.

Apart from threatening to kill the dock worker, the man in the video also flashed at the latter, as the yacht moved away from the marina. In the wake of this incident, here's looking at who Ajay Thakore is.

Ajay Thakore also goes by the name Ace Rogers

According to Daily Mail, Ajay Thakore also goes by the name Ace Rogers and he is a wealthy businessman and philanthropist based in San Diego, California. He is the CEO of Doctor Multimedia, a local medical marketing agency, and Gopher Media LLC.

He has previously faced similar controversy in 2021 when he was accused of harassing the employees of a La Jolla pizza joint called American Pizza Manufacturing. Its founder Andrew Melone alleged back then that it all started with Thakore defaming the take-and-bake pizza establishment on social media.

However, things escalated when the Indian-origin business owner reportedly parked two of his cars directly in front of the eatery, blocking its entrance, with texts, "Take N Bake Pizza Sucks" glaring on top of it.

Melone also claimed that an airplane flew over the locality with the banner reading, "Just Say No to Take N Bake Pizza." Not only that but Ajay Thakore reportedly involved another pizzeria in the area Carino's, with planes displaying messages like "Carino's Pizza is Better than Take N Bake."

Additionally, Thakore and his companies filed a $10 million lawsuit against Andrew Melone and his public accusations, claiming that they were "exercising their First Amendment Rights" and protesting against discrimination. The owner of the pizzeria countersued, alleging Thakore had persistently harassed him and his company. The two civil lawsuits are still underway.

Exploring the recent controversy surrounding Ajay Thakore

On the afternoon of March 10, 2024, Ajay Thakore's multimillion-dollar Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63 yacht was not allowed to park in the Seaforth Boat Rental lot in San Diego's Marriott Marina. He was reportedly there to pick up an employee. The video of the incident has now gone viral.

It shows a man standing on the edge of the yacht threatening to "kill" the worker identified as Joseph Holt, as per CBS 8. Later, as the boat moved away from the dock, the former dropped his pants and made inappropriate gestures toward the 21-year-old employee. The harasser even threw $100 bills at the guy which fell into the water.

Holt told reporters that he "respectfully" told the driver not to park in the private space and was hoping to have a "conversation" with him about his "cool boat," when "it completely went the other way."

"I really didn't know how to process it. I really was trying to restrain myself from getting fired from my job or stepping out of line. The only thing I did was give him the bird," Holt stated.

The employee also mentioned how Thakore berated him for his minimum wage labor and called him a nobody who did nothing on a "silly job." The expensive boat owner allegedly threatened to have him fired using his "connections" and ruin his life.

The dock worker further continued,

"He had dropped his pants and started to make gestures to everybody watching and me. You can't act that way in public. It's just not okay. Especially threatening my life, at the very least. There were women and children there. That's the most important part."

In contrast, Ajay Thakore's public relations team told CBS 8 that the "interaction" was "regrettable."

"What started as a minor misunderstanding escalated into an argument, and I apologize for my actions and to those who witnessed the unfortunate exchange," the statement added.

Later, Ajay Thakore's employee Jason, whom the former was supposed to pick up during the fiasco, also issued a clarification via his boss' Instagram (@acerogersceo). He said that he was not allowed to get aboard, and was asked to "stand back" and even "forearmed" which is when Thakore allegedly "flipped" as he was protective of him, his fiancé, and his other employees, tagging it as a long-drawn misunderstanding.

In the caption of the post, it was Ajay Thakore who seemed to issue a statement:

"As a leader, I defend my own fiercely with everything I have, and I will never apologize for that. You can choose to believe that I just pulled up to the dock and started yelling, or you can realize that a lot happened before the cameras were rolling and that it takes two sides to escalate a situation."

Notably, in the aftermath of the incident, Port of San Diego Harbor Police were called in, who arrived 10 minutes after Ajay Thakore's boat left the marina. Joseph Holt told the news outlet that the officers didn't take his complaints seriously and were even laughing at him.

The department responded by telling CBS 8 that they were called in to deal with a "possible intoxicated vessel operator" who had departed the area before they got there and that they were unable to do anything with. The statement went on to say that a report had been made and that the police had spoken with the complainant and witnesses.

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On board with Paul and Maureen Petracca, owners of 49m superyacht Trending

After racking up 40 charters, the Petraccas decided it was time to buy their own boat – and all that experience informed one far-reaching refit, as they tell Tristan Rutherford...

The moment that Maureen and Paul Petracca knew they wanted to own their yacht came after 40 successful charters.“On our last trip the captain was the worst we’ve ever had,” says Maureen. “He even stranded our son and his fiancée on a tiny island off St Barths . Genuinely no one knew where they were.” After four hours playing Robinson Crusoe, the young couple were lucky to hitch a ride with a passing boat back to the Petracca family’s charter. “For the amount you pay for a week aboard, you want the charter experience to be perfect,” continues Maureen. “At that point Paul and I looked at each other and said: ‘We need to take control of this ourselves. Let’s buy a yacht of our own!’”

The result is Trending . “After 20 years of chartering several times per year we knew what we wanted,” says Paul. The twin-angled brief called for a shallow draught for cruising the Bahamas, the Petraccas’ nearest fly-in, kick-back island chain, plus a maximum length of 50 metres “because above that some ports need a pilot, and there are other regulations and entanglements”, says Paul. The equation delivered seven or eight possible yachts, leaving two 50 metre Westport 164s in contention. One became the perfect blank canvas for an ambitious overhaul into an understated and luxurious six-cabin superyacht that cruises across the Atlantic at up to 20 knots.

She’s certainly a step up from Maureen and Paul’s first foray on to the water. “We both grew up as lake people,” explains Paul. “Each of us had a summer house, and mine came with an aluminium boat with a nine horsepower engine.” As powerboats were a rarity, the family runabout was used to the full for fishing and racing. Maureen’s family was based on a lake on Cape Cod. “Our first boat was fibreglass with a six horsepower engine out back, and we graduated to a 5.8 metre on which we learned to waterski.” When married, the couple jointly purchased a 9.7 metre Edgewater. “We still use it to hop over to Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard,” says Maureen.

From their Massachusetts home, the Petraccas’ career and vacation horizons broadened. Paul is now the chief investment officer at Pemco Management, which focuses on public equity investments, primarily in the technology and healthcare spaces. Maureen oversaw a far more important project: the annual yachting trips for their three children and family friends. After dozens of charters from the likes of Camper & Nicholsons , Fraser and IYC , the Petraccas knew precisely what they wanted from a week in the Mediterranean or Caribbean. “By the end of our charter life we started bringing our own specialised fishing gear,” she explains. “We sometimes brought our own divemaster. Once we even shipped in our own tender.”

Undersea exploration would play a pivotal part in the Petraccas’ charter adventures from 1996 to 2015. The entire family are PADI certified divers. The 700 islands of the Bahamas particularly appealed, not least the Exumas. Croatia also delighted the Petraccas a few years back with its countless wreck dives. It was Dubrovnik that entranced Maureen. “We toured the medieval walls and UNESCO-protected Old Town, which were beautiful.”

Before the Petraccas’ own Westport could set sail for Europe there was work to be done. “Our purchase was a 1980s throwback,” recalls Maureen. It contained thick rugs, and heavily upholstered furniture littered the voluminous interior. The vessel, formerly called Vango , had been owned by a retired couple who used it infrequently, “which was great because she had very low engine hours”, says Paul. It was Maureen who oversaw the interiors as part of an all-encompassing refit from 2015 to 2016.

Light marble and white stone were laid across the main saloon. Oversized windows pour light on to the chrome, taupes, mirrors and creams. Rainforest showers and double sinks grace every en suite. A hint of individuality is provided by Maureen’s underwater photography portraits from as far afield as St Barths, Barbuda and Saba, the Dutch Caribbean island that contains the Netherlands’ highest peak. “Our experience from 40 charters has been distilled into this space,” says Maureen. Most importantly, the finish isn’t regally stiff but royally comfortable, with sky blue fabrics and enough crystal glasses to decant the entire Napa Valley.

Stepping aboard, it’s clear why they purchased a Westport over any other yacht. “Quite simply, we knew we could modify the hell out of it,” says Paul. A bridge extension has been constructed behind the tri-deck’s upper saloon, creating an additional raised dining area for all 12 guests. “The view is great, but the privacy is priceless,” says Maureen. “As Trending is sometimes tied up in a Mediterranean port you get people promenading past.” And who wants them watching you having dinner? An illuminated bar sparkles in the night sky, as a sound system rocks the extra club area installed on the Portuguese deck just in front of the bridge. “We’re a little afraid of the sun these days so sails shade the top by day.” A therapeutic Michael Phelps Signature Swim Spa with shaded lounging areas was added too. “I prefer pools that can accommodate many guests,” says Maureen. Hers can welcome eight.

Westport, based in Washington State, comes with five decades of North Pacific experience. “The company is up to hull No 15 or 16 for our largest model, the W164,” says Paul. “So most issues would have been resolved, which allowed us to incorporate those improvements in our yacht. We also knew we could get any spare parts as we’re based in the US.” Ultimately, the refit cost $5 million. “One name we thought of for the yacht was Legacy Killer, as it was just so appropriate,” he laughs. “This yacht keeps me coming to work and earning my keep.”

The electronics on board were a focus of Paul’s. “As guests aboard our own yacht we want to share videos from our iPhones directly on to all the screens,” he says. “I believe charter clients want to do the same.” His flotilla of toys, meanwhile, is truly enviable. There are Seabobs for speed snorkelling and glass-bottomed kayaks for slow drifts across virgin reefs. “When we bought the two RIBs I asked: what’s the biggest our crane can lift?” The result is four metre and 5.5 metre Novurania tenders, the latter with 120hp out back for fishing, diving, island picnics or secret beach retreats. Paul’s desire for perfection is ever present. “I’m a maintenance freak who wants every toy to work all of the time, for our sake and everyone else’s.”

The flotilla flagship is a 11.3 metre Boston Whaler. “Our son Christopher is a qualified captain in his own right so it’s his chance to drive,” says Maureen. The Petracca family uses it for sunset cruises, but only after speed records have been smashed via its triple 350hp outboards. The boat has “all the creature comforts” including electric shades, a barbecue, night vision equipment and an air- conditioned front cabin. Guests are welcome to invite Trending’s PADI instructor along for the ride. The Petraccas frequently use the boat for their latest craze – kitesurfing – which is best practised on the mirror-calm, searing-breeze waters off Barbados and the Grenadines.

Greater adventures await in the next two or three years. Maps have been consulted for a grand voyage through the Panama Canal. The route would allow for whale watching off Baja and leopard shark dives off LA’s Channel Islands, before passing Westport’s HQ near Seattle. Prince of Wales Island would then mark the gateway to an Alaskan summer. Will charter guests be able to book part of their route? “Sorry to disappoint, but it’ll be only us the whole time,” says Paul. “That is if I can keep myself away from the office for that long.” After 40 charters the Petraccas are now master of their own yacht.

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