#4t Looking at Knysna 500 Catamaran and Lagoon 39 at Cape Town boat show

Then, the big thing. Which make? This is tricky. It is like which car do you like? The blue one!

South Africa may not be a car manufacturer, but we sure do build boats! Collectively, South Africa produces 30 percent of all the cruising catamarans in the world, second only to France. Yet the business models prevailing in the two countries could hardly be more different. Apart from Robertson and Caine, which had built 175 boats in 2016 at four separate plants near Cape Town, the South African builders produce just a handful of yachts each: four boats, eight boats, 12 boats a year. These are typically family businesses operating not as high-output factories but as artisan shops. And without exception, each of these mom-and-pop enterprises is run by very good sailors, many of whom started their company out of the desire to build a single cruising boat for themselves. Several of these builders spent years as full-time cruisers or charter skippers. Most have taken boats across oceans. Each is a veteran of the Cape of Storms. It was naturally that I turned to South African build makers. In this process, I learned something. Most of our boats are bought by foreigners. Most of the boats in the early days, were sailed across the seas to the new owner. In all the cases, East or West bound, the boat must cross an ocean. The catch was that the new owner will not take delivery of the new boat if there was a crack or something broken after the ocean crossing. This told me a lot. Most of the European boats go to Europe, they do not need to cross the wild Southern Atlantic. Therefore, every single boat built in South Africa needs to be built to make that initial crossing without picking up defects. The masts, standing rigging, hulls, and bulkheads need to be flawless. I did however, looked at the Lagoon just because it is a big name.

The interior is absolutely beautiful. But I did not like the look. Sorry, but for me it looked like a tugboat. I also looked at the Outremer.

Awesome boat. Very fast. Massive trampolines and a long nose, like a mustang (aeroplane or car). And I was envying Riley and Alayna when they got their Outremer! Wow! But, I did not like the narrow hulls that much. It does feel a bit squeezed in the cabins. That cat is fast, like racing fast, but, yes, it also looks racing spartan…The South African yachts I looked at, was the St Francis catamaran. They are super luxurious. Lots of space, very good wood finishing. Can handle 60 knots of wind in big seas and doing 26 knots without ploughing. Wow. However, they are now focusing only on the 50ft catamaran and that was way out of our league budget wise. The other hull designs were bought by Knysna Yachts.

The Knysna cats are beautiful. Very graceful and sleek lines. But somehow, I got the feeling that they did not use the free spaces in their design optimally. Perhaps this is one thing, which is important. Packing space. Space for diving gear, space for heavy weather gear, space for sails, space for groceries, for wine, for rum, and water, and fuel. One needs spaces to pack stuff. My opinion is that the Knysna yachts did not use the spaces between the floor and the hull, the spaces between the wall finishing and the hull effectively. They do use it for things such as air conditioner, water makers, electrics, but leave little for the owners, unless you want to put your groceries next to the batteries or the wine next to the water maker. There were other South African boat builders, but I did not visit them physically. A very good read on South African yacht builders can be found at http://www.cruisingworld.com/artisan-cats-south-africa#page-5