spirit yachts team

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 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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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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Boat of the Week: This Classic 70-foot ‘Gentleman’s Yacht’ Is All High-Tech Beneath Its Wooden Skin

The spirit p70 looks like a boat from the 1930s, but its list of modern technologies includes lithium batteries to power the house systems., howard walker, howard walker's most recent stories.

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Spirit Yachts ’ flagship P70 may look like an extra from The Great Gatsby , but this oh-so-elegant wooden motoryacht, with its gleaming mirror-varnished mahogany and classic flag-blue paint, is new from the keel up.

The 71-footer was built by Britain’s Spirit Yachts for an experienced Norwegian owner who fell in love with the timeless lines of the company’s classic wooden sailboats, but wanted the style to translate to a powered yacht.

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If the Spirit name sounds familiar, this was the builder that has enthusiastically supplied yachts for Daniel “007” Craig to sail in those epic James Bond romps Casino Royale, and the newest, No Time to Die.

Note the beautiful grain of the quarter-sawn sapele mahogany on the exterior.  Courtesy Spirit Yachts

But according to Sean McMillan, Spirit Yachts founder and chief designer, the owner didn’t simply want a classic-looking cruiser with a retro Roaring Twenties vibe that would sit at a marina. He wanted a boat that could go places. “The brief was to build a motoryacht capable of cruising from Britain’s south coast, across the North Sea to the Baltic and on to Norway, at an average speed of 18 knots. And he wanted the boat to go there and back—that’s over 1,000 miles—without having to refuel,” McMillan told Robb Report .

To meet the challenge, McMillan and a dedicated team of eight woodworking craftsmen, turned to the same wooden boatbuilding techniques they use to craft Spirit’s range of classic sailboats, including the recently launched 111-foot masterpiece Geist . That involved creating a framework using tough sapele hardwood. To this, longitudinal strips of Douglas fir were screwed and bonded to build the hull shape. Then, on top of this, multiple layers of Japanese kaya wood were glued diagonally to deliver carbon-fiber levels of strength and rigidity.

“It creates a hull that is immensely strong and light. The P70 weighs just 24 tonnes, which is almost half the weight of similar-sized fiberglass counterparts,” explains McMillan.

The lines have a retro feel, but the boat was designed to be a fast ocean-runner, capable of reaching 29 mph, but able to run in rough seas.  Courtesy Spirit Yachts

Lighter weight also allowed smaller than usual engines to be mounted in the P70’s over-sized engine room. The twin 800-hp six-cylinder MAN turbo diesels are capable of delivering a top speed of 29 mph, with cruising at a more relaxed 20 mph.

Without doubt, it’s the lines of this timelessly elegant 1930s-style “gentleman’s” motoryacht that sets it apart. But the process of creating such a head-turning profile wasn’t easy. The owner, a highly experienced and knowledgeable boater, had firm ideas on what he wanted. It resulted in McMillan modifying the design more than a dozen times.

“He really liked the style of some of the Spirit power boats I’ve designed over the years. So, we combined the flared bow and tumblehome stern from our Spirit P40 with the 1930s style of our sailing yachts, and applied it to a larger motoryacht design,” he explains.

The main salon.  Courtesy Spirit Yachts

The result is nothing less than a piece of floating art, with a classic slender waist—the beam spans just 16.5 feet—and that tall, proud bow. And there are some lovely classic design features, like the stainless-steel engine vents on the cabin sides that were inspired by those from a classic ‘50s Mercedes-Benz 300SL.

“To keep the sleek, uncluttered look, we did away with the typical stainless handrails, and lowered the level of the deck to make it safe and easy to walk around the yacht,” says McMillan.

Below decks, the slightly unconventional layout requested by the owner includes a central wheelhouse, a rich, leather-lined salon area forward, and a spacious galley and dining area aft. And on the lower levels, the master suite is in the bow with twin guest cabins at the stern.

The outer helm on the flybridge leads into the main wheelhouse a few steps down.  Courtesy Spirit Yachts

The quality and attention to detail are exceptional. You can understand why it took a team of three painters almost seven months to varnish the bare-wood interior. From start to finish, building the yacht at Spirit’s yard in Ipswich, on Britain’s east coast, took almost three years.

But while the P70 looks classic and elegant in its design, beneath the skin it’s packed with some of the latest maritime technology. That includes a bank of lithium-ion batteries that can power the yacht’s air conditioning and zero-speed stabilizers while at anchor overnight, without cranking-up the generator.

“Wooden motoryachts like this are the future,” says McMillan. “They’re light, sustainable, have a great strength-to-weight ratio, are highly fuel-efficient, and, as our P70 shows, can be turned into things of real beauty.”

It took three painters seven months to varnish the interior.  Courtesy Spirit Yachts

The price of a new P70 starts at £4 million, or roughly $5.5 million.

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On board the award-winning Spirit 111 flagship sailing yacht Geist

BOAT International steps on board Geist , the flagship of British shipyard Spirit Yachts that combines classic beauty and green technology with beguiling grace...

When Spirit Yachts’ flagship grew from 27 to 34 metres overall before she had even left the drawing board, she was already destined for the record books. At this size she would be the largest wooden sloop-rigged yacht to be built in the UK since the famous J Class yacht Shamrock V back in 1930. Given her long, elegant lines and low freeboard, so typical of the J Class , it was an interesting comparison from the off. And there was more to come.

The decision to head from Spirit Yachts’ yard in Ipswich on the east coast of the UK to Gosport in the south for the sea trials, was intended to make it easier to get into open water. But it was also a move that provided another connection with Sir Thomas Lipton’s famous America’s Cup challenger. The Gosport base for the Spirit 111’s sea trials was the famous Camper & Nicholsons yard (now Endeavour Quay), where Shamrock and the three other British J Class yachts had been built in the 1930s.

Unlike the competitive Js, the Spirit 111, named Geist , has been designed for a more relaxed life – a cruiser with the ability to take part in the occasional regatta. And while she’s been built in a traditional material, her wood epoxy composite construction on a steel space frame takes advantage of the very latest materials and techniques.

From her carbon mast with its non-metallic rigging, to her advanced sail- handling systems, her classic looks conceal a very advanced technical specification. For example, a bank of four BMW lithium batteries and a 100kW Torqeedo propulsion system capable of regenerating power once under way lie at the heart of her operational hardware.

Another significant difference is in the intended make-up of her crew. Here, the biggest clue as to how she has been designed to be operated can be found in her layout below decks.  Aside from being beautiful, it offers an owner’s cabin and three guest doubles – far fewer than you might expect of a boat this size. Furthermore, there is no skipper or crew accommodation: this is clearly an owner/driver superyacht.

Wherever you look, the Spirit 111 is a fascinating boat and when you talk to her creators, (“builders” seems so inappropriate for something so artful and innovative) it becomes clear that the project was a voyage of discovery for them at times too.

“In the early stages we built a model and presented it to the owner who said, ‘No, it looks a bit dumpy. Can’t we pull out the bow and stern?’” explains Spirit Yachts’ managing director Nigel Stuart.

“So the boat grew, but not the freeboard – but this was just the start. As you’d expect in the accommodation, the Sipo mahogany walls were drawn to sit vertically but they ended up raked, sweeping around the accommodation with a crease. There are no door handles and American walnut was used around corners in ways you simply wouldn’t expect and many believed couldn’t be done. The saloon table has 64 individually made legs, while the seating that wraps around it took a dedicated team 2,000 working hours to build. ‘Organic’ was a word that was used endlessly throughout the project.”

Designed by Rhoades Young and Spirit Yachts, her interior is extraordinary. “The client had recently visited Antelope Canyon in Arizona and this was the catalyst for the idea of the warm, soft flowing walls creating unique focal points within the room,” says Rhoades Young partner Jonathan Rhoades. Based on a set of linked circles which sweep around in an S-shape, the bulk of the accommodation is set amidships. The saloon, galley and navigation area is one open, circular area, lit from overhead by Spirit’s trademark fan windows in the deck.

From cooker to chart plotter, every item of equipment can be hidden behind slick fitted panels where the grain provides seamless continuity. Combined with vellum panels and an ingenious lighting system that not only switches on and off automatically but also balances itself against the ambient light, the overall appearance is striking.

Devoid of any decoration or soft furnishings, it looks a little stark at first, but this is an interior to savour. Like walking into a gallery at the Tate Modern, when you stop and look you start to get drawn into the light, the lines and the subtle range of colours that sweep through her interior. It’s an intoxicating experience.

It’s difficult to do the accommodation justice in a few words, other than to say that it has to be one of the most extraordinary yacht interiors I’ve ever seen. From the minute the electric motor propels you silently from the dock, through the effortless hoisting of the in-boom furling mainsail and the roller furling headsail, it is clear how much distance there is between the 111 and a J Class. The classic yachts of the 1930s require well in excess of 20 crew to race them – we cruise around the Solent with just five on board, and really only three are necessary to handle the boat.

On the helm she’s a very different boat to a J. She’s amazingly light, direct and beautifully balanced, steering herself upwind with ease. In 12 knots of true breeze we slice uphill at nine knots. Downwind she’s just as silky smooth and while she’s clearly a very large yacht, she’s also a proper sailing boat with all the feel you’d expect of something a third of her size.

I’m privileged to have taken the helm of both Shamrock V and Endeavour and while these were both very special moments, the fact remains that Geist has a much better feel on the wheel. And so she should.

Her fin and bulb keel along with the carbon spade rudder contrast starkly with the less- efficient rudder that was hung off the trailing edge of the keel on a J Class. At 65 tonnes fully laden she’s also less than half the weight of a J Class. While neither of these characteristics are that easy to see, they are good examples of 80 years of progress.

So, while the Spirit 111 was never envisaged as a modern-day J Class or engaging in the type of sailing that the Js became famous for, she does represent a similar approach: using modern materials and techniques to push the boundaries of design and technology, while at the same time delivering elegance that will turn heads, whatever the era.

The wood works

As a boat that glorifies wood – from her hull to her interior design – it was vital that the Spirit 111’s timber was ethically sourced to fit the yacht’s green ethos. For Douglas fir the yard went to Canada, which it knew had robust regulations. “Those forests have been commercially managed for over 100 years,” says Spirit Yachts’ managing director Nigel Stuart. “They plant two trees for one [felled] and they only harvest one per cent of the timber in Canada a year.”

Taking it a step further, the father of the yard’s timber dealer went to the forest to record “exactly where those trees were felled”. Sipo wood was sourced from Forest Stewardship Council-run forests in West Africa and the teak was also responsibly sourced – although since the project began four years ago, the yard’s view on teak in general has changed. 

“There have been certain cases highlighted [within yachting] where teak was bought with the best intentions, but was later found to have actually come from Burma – with all the implications that entails. So that’s why we said that we can’t trust the paperwork.” Instead, the yard now uses Lignia, an alternative from sustainably managed softwood plantations, treated to provide a durable timber that looks and feels just like teak.

But the careful sourcing of wood was only a fraction of the work. The timber is machined into planks before being air-dried for months (a low-energy method). At the yard it is sliced into the required thickness, mostly six millimetres for the interior, revealing the grain’s beautiful flames. “Then we store it on site to let it settle for two or three months,” says Stuart. “It has a tendency to relax when we treat it like this.”

Then the joiners get to work, using only hand tools. “I think we’ve probably got the finest joinery team in the world,” says Stuart. To give an idea of the skill required for this extraordinary interior, he points to the grain on a bathroom wall. It runs all the way from the ceiling, down the wall, undulating over the sink, and down to the floor – perpendicular all the way. This was installed in three separate sections with the grains perfectly matched. That means hundreds of pieces of wood, each referring to each other. Mess up one of the three sections and you start again from scratch.

So fine was the work, they spent eight months making eight doors with flared handholds. They even invented a new method of steam bending walnut wood, which is particularly rigid. The result, however, is one of the most impressive examples of woodwork afloat.

This feature is taken from the October 2020 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.

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Cruising the Moskva River: A short guide to boat trips in Russia’s capital

There’s hardly a better way to absorb Moscow’s atmosphere than on a ship sailing up and down the Moskva River. While complicated ticketing, loud music and chilling winds might dampen the anticipated fun, this checklist will help you to enjoy the scenic views and not fall into common tourist traps.

How to find the right boat?

There are plenty of boats and selecting the right one might be challenging. The size of the boat should be your main criteria.

Plenty of small boats cruise the Moskva River, and the most vivid one is this yellow Lay’s-branded boat. Everyone who has ever visited Moscow probably has seen it.

This option might leave a passenger disembarking partially deaf as the merciless Russian pop music blasts onboard. A free spirit, however, will find partying on such a vessel to be an unforgettable and authentic experience that’s almost a metaphor for life in modern Russia: too loud, and sometimes too welcoming. Tickets start at $13 (800 rubles) per person.

Bigger boats offer smoother sailing and tend to attract foreign visitors because of their distinct Soviet aura. Indeed, many of the older vessels must have seen better days. They are still afloat, however, and getting aboard is a unique ‘cultural’ experience. Sometimes the crew might offer lunch or dinner to passengers, but this option must be purchased with the ticket. Here is one such  option  offering dinner for $24 (1,490 rubles).

If you want to travel in style, consider Flotilla Radisson. These large, modern vessels are quite posh, with a cozy restaurant and an attentive crew at your service. Even though the selection of wines and food is modest, these vessels are still much better than other boats.

Surprisingly, the luxurious boats are priced rather modestly, and a single ticket goes for $17-$32 (1,100-2,000 rubles); also expect a reasonable restaurant bill on top.

How to buy tickets?

Women holding photos of ships promise huge discounts to “the young and beautiful,” and give personal invitations for river tours. They sound and look nice, but there’s a small catch: their ticket prices are usually more than those purchased online.

“We bought tickets from street hawkers for 900 rubles each, only to later discover that the other passengers bought their tickets twice as cheap!”  wrote  (in Russian) a disappointed Rostislav on a travel company website.

Nevertheless, buying from street hawkers has one considerable advantage: they personally escort you to the vessel so that you don’t waste time looking for the boat on your own.

Prices start at $13 (800 rubles) for one ride, and for an additional $6.5 (400 rubles) you can purchase an unlimited number of tours on the same boat on any given day.

Flotilla Radisson has official ticket offices at Gorky Park and Hotel Ukraine, but they’re often sold out.

Buying online is an option that might save some cash. Websites such as  this   offer considerable discounts for tickets sold online. On a busy Friday night an online purchase might be the only chance to get a ticket on a Flotilla Radisson boat.

This  website  (in Russian) offers multiple options for short river cruises in and around the city center, including offbeat options such as ‘disco cruises’ and ‘children cruises.’ This other  website  sells tickets online, but doesn’t have an English version. The interface is intuitive, however.

Buying tickets online has its bad points, however. The most common is confusing which pier you should go to and missing your river tour.

“I once bought tickets online to save with the discount that the website offered,” said Igor Shvarkin from Moscow. “The pier was initially marked as ‘Park Kultury,’ but when I arrived it wasn’t easy to find my boat because there were too many there. My guests had to walk a considerable distance before I finally found the vessel that accepted my tickets purchased online,” said the man.

There are two main boarding piers in the city center:  Hotel Ukraine  and  Park Kultury . Always take note of your particular berth when buying tickets online.

Where to sit onboard?

Even on a warm day, the headwind might be chilly for passengers on deck. Make sure you have warm clothes, or that the crew has blankets ready upon request.

The glass-encased hold makes the tour much more comfortable, but not at the expense of having an enjoyable experience.

Getting off the boat requires preparation as well. Ideally, you should be able to disembark on any pier along the way. In reality, passengers never know where the boat’s captain will make the next stop. Street hawkers often tell passengers in advance where they’ll be able to disembark. If you buy tickets online then you’ll have to research it yourself.

There’s a chance that the captain won’t make any stops at all and will take you back to where the tour began, which is the case with Flotilla Radisson. The safest option is to automatically expect that you’ll return to the pier where you started.

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U.S. Eyes $156 Million Yacht in Dubai Linked to a Russian Oligarch

The U.S. Justice Department is taking steps to seize the Madame Gu, a 324-foot luxury yacht, but it will be diplomatically thorny.

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By Kate Kelly ,  Michael Forsythe and Julian E. Barnes

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — On a clear morning in late October, the jewel-blue hull of the Madame Gu, one of the world’s most luxurious superyachts, gleamed, its aluminum rails shimmering in the sun. Workers on the pier said they had recently seen people painting, cleaning and generally keeping the ship with its helipad and six guest staterooms in pristine condition.

In past years, such a scene would not have been noteworthy. Many superyachts come and go from Dubai’s Mina Rashid Marina, best known as the home of the Queen Elizabeth 2, the trans-Atlantic ocean liner-turned-hotel that dominates the waterfront here.

But Russia’s war in Ukraine has turned an otherwise routine tableau into a diplomatic battleground between the United States and the United Arab Emirates, an important American ally that has established itself as a safe haven for Russian money and assets out of the reach of U.S. sanctions.

The $156 million Madame Gu epitomizes the problem. In June, the United States designated the vessel, which is linked to Andrei Skoch, a Russian steel magnate and lawmaker under sanctions, as blocked property. That means the yacht cannot use American companies for its upkeep, employ U.S. citizens or even use the dollar. The Justice Department is now taking steps to seize the Madame Gu, according to people with knowledge of the plan.

But the United States can’t seize property in a sovereign nation without permission from its government. The Emirates, which has taken a friendlier position toward Moscow, is balking at cooperating with the United States to pursue oligarchs, American officials said. The Kremlin is also using oligarch-controlled companies in the Emirates to acquire war supplies that the West is trying to keep out of Russia’s reach, according to a Western official involved in the sanctions effort against Russia.

Emirati officials did not comment specifically on the Madame Gu but said in a statement that they took their role “protecting the integrity of the global financial system extremely seriously.”

A closer examination of Russian assets in the Emirates shows that even before the war in Ukraine, Dubai had become a playground for Russians with links to President Vladimir V. Putin. At least 38 businessmen or officials with ties to the Russian president own homes in Dubai that are collectively valued at more than $314 million, according to the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. Five of those owners are under U.S. sanctions.

Since the Russian invasion, Dubai has established itself as a safe haven for Russian yachts and aircraft unable to sail or fly elsewhere. After Russian jets were barred from the European Union in late February, the Emirates became the destination for 14 percent of all private flights leaving Russia, up from 3 percent before the invasion.

“It’s frustrating when you see huge assets that are sitting out there and it appears that the country is not cooperating,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, referring to the Emirates. “It would be nice if there were more common cause against Putin while he’s busy shelling hospitals and schools.”

Mr. Whitehouse is sponsoring legislation that would use proceeds of the sales of seized Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine. Senior officials at the Treasury and State Departments have also complained publicly about the situation.

U.S. officials view the presence of superyachts in places like Dubai and Bodrum, Turkey , as a symptom of wider Russian circumvention of sanctions and continued access to financial markets. Yachts have also come to symbolize the decadence of Russia’s oligarchs, especially at a time when Russian soldiers are scrounging for body armor and sleeping bags on the front lines.

Pursuing the Madame Gu

Built by the Dutch firm Feadship and put into service in 2013, the Madame Gu has a large helicopter pad on its forecastle with a hangar underneath that can double as a squash court when the chopper isn’t on board. The vessel has berthing for 36 crew members, according to one trade magazine.

Mr. Skoch, a member of Russia’s Parliament who is linked to assets worth billions of dollars, according to U.S. court filings, has had sanctions imposed on him twice by the United States, first in 2018 and then after Russia’s invasion this year. The Treasury Department has cited his “longstanding ties to Russian organized criminal groups.”

Mr. Skoch could not be reached and did not respond to messages left at his office at Parliament.

In an interview in October about the government’s broader efforts to go after the assets of oligarchs, Andrew Adams, a federal prosecutor leading the Department of Justice’s KleptoCapture task force, declined to discuss the Madame Gu. But the United States, he said, is warning companies they must not do business with individuals and assets under sanctions. The government, he said, will pursue oligarch-owned assets whose sale could be used to aid Ukraine.

“Where we know there is an asset that can potentially provide significant remuneration for Ukraine, that obviously is an attractive case to pursue,” he said.

U.S. officials are likely to use the case they made for impounding a $90 million Airbus business jet linked to Mr. Skoch in August as a blueprint for seizing the Madame Gu, said people familiar with the plan.

That means investigators will aim to show that the owner of the vessel, or the companies that have been providing services to it, have intersected with the U.S. financial system.

“If there are U.S. dollars or a U.S. nexus associated with supporting this vessel, massive enforcement actions could take place,” said Adam M. Smith, a former official overseeing sanctions at the Treasury Department. Companies that provide support to entities under sanctions could potentially face their own sanctions, said Mr. Smith, who is now a lawyer at Gibson Dunn in Washington.

This year the United States has carried out two high-profile seizures of yachts tied to Russians under sanctions, working with cooperative governments. The $300 million Amadea was taken in Fiji in May and sailed to San Diego under an American flag. In April, the United States worked with Spanish police to seize the $90 million Tango.

A Problematic Partner

Diplomatically, the Emirates has been reluctant to take a clear anti-Russian position when it comes to the war in Ukraine. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, recently met with Mr. Putin in St. Petersburg, and the Emirati foreign minister recently hosted his Russian counterpart. Yet Sheikh Mohammed has also talked with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, more than once and recently gave the country $100 million in humanitarian aid.

The United States has publicly expressed dismay over the mixed messages.

During a visit to Dubai in June, Wally Adeyemo, the U.S. deputy treasury secretary, warned of the need for vigilance and proactive steps in combating Russian evasion. That same month Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s under secretary for Near East Affairs, said at a congressional hearing that regarding the Emirates, she was “not happy at all with the record at this point” on sanctions enforcement. Mr. Adeyemo reiterated his concerns in a meeting with Emirati officials in October in Washington.

A senior State Department official said in a statement to The New York Times that the agency continues “to reinforce the importance of conducting enhanced due diligence to prevent sanctions evasion and investigating allegations of such activity” to the Emirates.

The Treasury Department declined to comment on the Madame Gu or the relationship with the Emirates.

Last month, the Treasury Department announced it had placed sanctions on an Emirates-based company, Constellation Advisors Ltd., that the American government said was operating on behalf of a nephew of another Russian oligarch, Suleiman Kerimov. Mr. Kerimov, according to American court documents, was the owner of the Amadea superyacht .

American officials are also worried the Russian government is using the Emirates to acquire military supplies for its war in Ukraine. On Nov. 15, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on two Emirates-based transportation firms that had worked with another Iranian firm under sanctions, which in turn had helped transport drones and personnel from Iran to Russia.

Moored in Dubai

Based on a recent visit to Dubai’s Mina Rashid Marina , where the Madame Gu is moored, it is clear that international companies are playing a critical role in its care.

The Emirates-based company DP World, through its subsidiary P&O Marinas , oversees the pier where the Madame Gu is moored. Employees from another DP World subsidiary , World Security, staff the small guard box at the entrance. That makes DP World, which is owned by Dubai’s royal family, potentially vulnerable to American sanctions.

DP World “fully complies with all applicable local and national laws and intends to continue doing the same regarding the Madame Gu and other vessels utilizing our services,” said Adal Mirza, a spokesman for the company. He added that DP World had not yet heard from the United States or other countries that had placed Mr. Skoch under sanctions, including Britain and the European Union.

A generator set that dock workers said in late October was powering the Madame Gu — two container-like structures near its stern — bore the distinctive orange logo of Aggreko , a British company. The generator set was connected to the superyacht by thick cords; one of the containers was emitting grayish exhaust.

At the Mina Rashid Marina, soon after Aggreko was contacted by The Times, workers removed the generator. “Having identified that the generator was being used to power a vessel that is allegedly connected to a sanctioned person, we immediately terminated this rental and have since recovered the generator,” the company said in a statement.

Mr. Mirza, the DP World spokesman, said the Aggreko generator had been replaced with one from a local supplier.

P&O Marinas arranged for the diesel generator to provide power for the Madame Gu because that part of the pier, a holding area, has no shore-supplied electric power, said a port official in Dubai, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the press.

“At the end of the day, if the U.A.E. hasn’t imposed sanctions, it’s not really their job to enforce other countries’ laws within their borders,” said Nabeel Yousef, a Washington-based partner at the law firm Freshfields, where he runs the sanctions practice. Nevertheless, “companies should not take comfort in the fact that their country has not imposed sanctions,” he added, “because even the smallest connection to the U.S. can lead to U.S. penalties.”

There has also been a notable absence onboard the Madame Gu in recent weeks: a flag. Unlike other ships moored nearby, including the Quantum Blue, a superyacht linked to the billionaire Sergei Galitsky, the Madame Gu appears to be stateless, apparently having been deflagged by the Cayman Islands.

Cayman Islands officials didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry about the ship’s status.

If DP World were to face fallout from U.S. sanctions enforcers, it wouldn’t be the first time the company has been the focus of attention in Washington. In 2006, DP World was seeking to manage some terminal operations at six American ports but dropped out of the deal after a bipartisan uproar in Congress.

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Turin, Italy, and Oleg Matsnev from Berlin.

Kate Kelly covers money, influence, and policy as a correspondent in the Washington bureau of the Times. Before that, she spent twenty years covering Wall Street deals, key players and their intersection with politics. She is the author of three books, including "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh." More about Kate Kelly

Michael Forsythe is a reporter on the investigations team. He was previously a correspondent in Hong Kong, covering the intersection of money and politics in China. He has also worked at Bloomberg News and is a United States Navy veteran. More about Michael Forsythe

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. More about Julian E. Barnes

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

The United States and six other major world powers warned Iran not to provide ballistic missiles to Russia  to aid Moscow’s war against Ukraine and threatened to retaliate if it did by cutting off Iranian air travel to Europe, among other measures.

A U.N. commission said it had uncovered new evidence of widespread torture of Ukrainian prisoners  held by Russian security forces, detailing a range of what it described as Russian war crimes, including summary executions and sexual violence.

Ukrainian authorities said that a Russian missile attack on Odesa  had killed a t least 20 people and had injured 73 others , the latest in a series of deadly air assaults on the southern Ukrainian port city.

Targeting Russia’s Oil Industry: With its army short of ammunition and troops to break the deadlock on the battlefield, Kyiv has increasingly taken the fight beyond the Ukrainian border, attacking oil infrastructure deep in Russian territory .

Electronic Warfare: Drones have become a critical weapon for both Russia and Ukraine. But Moscow’s capability to overpower Ukrainian signals  by broadcasting on the same frequencies at higher power is putting Kyiv at a disadvantage.

Helping the War Effort: Since the early days of the war, thousands of Ukrainian volunteers have led crowdfunding efforts that have been crucial in supplying the military with equipment. But as the conflict drags on, it is becoming harder to raise money .

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

A guide to watch NWSL’s opening weekend amongst the league’s new media rights deal

Welcome to NWSL opening weekend, starting with the Challenge Cup and six regular season games — including the debut of the brand new soccer-specific stadium in Kansas City, and both new expansion teams Utah Royals FC (who have been here before) and Bay FC.

It should be an eventful weekend of soccer, but with the start of the 2024 season also comes the larger project of making sure fans know where to watch the games thanks to new media partners in Amazon Prime Video, ION/Scripps, and ESPN, along with the return of CBS.

The good news is that there are some regular standing appointments for the league: Amazon Prime Video on Friday nights and ION on Saturdays, but it’s certainly an adjustment from last year’s approach — which largely relied on Paramount+ for watching.

International fans have it considerably easier: everything will be on NWSL+ to stream for free.

More from The Athletic :

• How can NWSL fans watch every match this season? What to know about broadcast, schedule changes
• NWSL players to watch: One key performer for every team’s 2024 season
• Where does NWSL stand entering 2024 season? A focus on player health, incremental growth
• NWSL commissioner on players getting ‘squeezed’ by calendar, World Cup momentum and more
• NWSL kit tiers: The good, the okay and the yuck as every team gets two new looks

NWSL Challenge Cup: Gotham FC vs. San Diego Wave

Friday, March 15 at 8 p.m. ET

Red Bull Arena — Harrison, NJ

Friday night’s Challenge Cup match-up between last year’s shield winners, San Diego Wave FC, and last year’s championship victors, NJ/NY Gotham FC, will stream on Amazon Prime Video. The league has a hub here on the Amazon site, but you can also stream via the Prime Video app on your phone or other devices.

NWSL players say ownership must 'speed up' prioritizing player safety with busy calendar

You do not need an Amazon Prime membership to use Prime Video, but to sign up for it as a standalone service outside of a Prime membership will cost $8.99/month. Otherwise, it’s included for Prime members (ad-free does costs extra).

Kansas City Current vs. Portland Thorns FC

Saturday, March 16 at 1 p.m. ET

CPKC Stadium — Kansas City, MO

The big kick-off for the grand opening of CPKC Stadium will air on ABC on Saturday afternoon, but also be available via ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes (with Spanish-language commentary). ESPN announced earlier this week that former NWSL and USWNT player Ali Krieger will lead their NWSL coverage. She’ll take part in a 30-minute pregame show on ABC (and ESPN+) on Saturday afternoon with Sebastian Salazar at 12:30 p.m. ET.

The Standard. @cpkcstadium | #KCBABY pic.twitter.com/7u4t34iHDU — KC Current (@thekccurrent) March 13, 2024

According to ESPN PR, the lead-in show will also include some interviews, and for any Star Wars fans: Daisy Ridley will be voicing the opening tease.

Racing Louisville FC vs. Orlando Pride

Saturday, March 16 at 4 p.m. ET

Lynn Family Stadium — Louisville, KY

Welcome to the first test of NWSL+ for the 2024 season!

NWSL+ will be free to stream games, with its dedicated website , plus the league has apps for Apple TV, Fire TV and Roku.

Zambia's Barbra Banda joins Pride in landmark deal: "We are putting Africa on the map"

North Carolina Courage vs. Houston Dash

Saturday, March 16 at 7 p.m. ET

WakeMed Soccer Park— Cary, NC

Ashley Sanchez will make her North Carolina debut on NWSL+.

Utah Royals FC vs. Chicago Red Stars

Saturday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m. ET

America First Field— Sandy, UT

Utah Royals FC will make their return to the league on ION. While the network will usually air a Saturday night double-header, there’s actually no late game on Saturday during this opening weekend.

ION has started social channels for their NWSL coverage, but they also have a dedicated website for the league as well. You can either check to see if ION is on linear television in your area, or you can sign in with select existing streaming services.

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Seattle Reign FC vs. Washington Spirit

Sunday, March 17 at 6:00 p.m. ET

Lumen Field— Seattle, WA

It’s going to be weird to not have Megan Rapinoe on the field in Seattle (though the team just announced they’d be retiring her no. 15 jersey later this summer), but the team has its first game of the year on NWSL+.

Angel City FC vs. Bay FC

Sunday, March 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET

BMO Stadium— Los Angeles, CA

Finally, Angel City hosts new expansion team Bay FC in the final match of opening weekend on NWSL+.

And when in doubt…

The NWSL has its own guide to watching games here — and as a friendly reminder, The Athletic and its writers are not going to be versed in any tech issues with any of these services. If you have problems, it’s always best to ask the league or the specific provider or streaming service.

Pair that guide with the league’s schedule , which has broadcast and/or streaming information for every game, and you should be good to go.

(Top photo: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

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Meg Linehan is a senior writer for The Athletic who covers the U.S. women's national team, the National Women's Soccer League and more. She also hosts the weekly podcast "Full Time with Meg Linehan." Follow Meg on Twitter @ itsmeglinehan