If you’re looking for a high-performance catamaran with round-the- world voyaging capability and line honours race-winning potential, there’s a new player in the market that’s worthy of very serious consideration. Kinetic Catamarans, a US-based company with a shipyard in Knysna, South Africa, is building a brand new range of semi-custom, carbon fibre cruiser-racer designs with some very innovative features, world class build quality and a wellproven pedigree.
Kinetic is a joint venture between Bob Hayward, a successful entrepreneur, film studio co-founder and keen ocean sailor, and Leon Scheepers, a highly regarded boatbuilder with vast experience in multihull production. The Kinetic brand is new but the shipyard has a huge amount of expertise. It was founded by Phil Harvey, who built the iconic early Gunboats such as Tribe and Safari and more recently produced some of the world’s finest full-custom multihulls at Knysna, with Scheepers managing the shipyard. ‘I was having a custom 60ft carbon catamaran built by Phil Harvey when he told me he wanted to make ours his last boat,’ Hayward explains.
‘I can see a real opportunity and am giving the yard the capital backing to be world class. We’re competitive on pricing and I’m confident we’ll have a good order book. If you see a pathway to success in a sport and pastime you love, why not?’ Read on.
