By Bobby White
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The motor yacht experiment for Sailing Doodles is coming to an end, and we are going back to basics and sailing. We have spent the past few years motoring around on a Hatteras 60 and then a SeaRay 340. We had a lot of fun, but it’s just not as romantic as putting up sails and crossing oceans. So, we had a brand new sailing catamaran built, and it should be on its way from Thailand to the Chesapeake on a container ship as I write this.
It’s a new twist on a catamaran: a hybrid electric. The brand new Island Spirit 525e has twin electric motors and 210 kW of lithium batteries to power the motors. That’s more than three Tesla’s worth of battery power. The Island Spirit also has a big 65 kW generator that can charge the batteries and power the motors for extended periods underway. There are also nearly 5 kW of solar panels that should be able to handle the daily power needs of the boat. My boat has a 3 Cabin, 3 head layout with an office although 3 to 5 cabin layouts are available. It will be so nice to have an actual office to work from instead of working from kitchen counters and living out of a backpack. I really feel that Island Spirit listened to cruising sailors with the design of the IS525. The boat has a huge flybridge that is a great place to hangout underway or entertain. The trampolines on the bow are slightly reduced in size to allow for a roomy seating area on the bow, the perfect place for enjoying a cool Caribbean breeze. The seating area is easy to access via a door that opens up from the salon which allows plenty of airflow through the boat. Best of all the boat has a full size refrigerator and a washing machine. You can probably tell I value a comfortable, liveable boat over a performance boat. That being said, this boat is no slouch sailing. The Island Spirit 525 only weighs 16.5 tons. For comparison, a Lagoon 52 weighs a chunky 26 tons! That reduction in weight means a lot more speed! The weight savings is due to modern building techniques using 40mm high density foam for the bulkheads and hull cores. 20mm high density foam is used for the internal walls and cabinetry. There is no wood on the boat, so nothing to rot and the solid foam cabinets are c&c milled and won’t “creak”.
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