Amateur: Spirit of sustainability
According to Nigel Stuart, Spirit Yachts are handed down through generations as family assets. They’re so valued it’s not often that one comes on the market for a resale.
Nigel puts it down to Spirit owners being people who like to look after their assets and why wouldn’t they when they’re so beautifully crafted? And now sustainability is becoming even more important to the company.
“I’m a secret fanatic of sustainability,” Nigel says. “Spirit has always built its yachts from wood and it’s always come from sustainable sources. Now we’re buying timber as trees and having it machined.” Once that’s completed, all the off-cuts are sized so that the team can easily use the remainder. Plus, at the end of life of the product, the timber used can be reprocessed into chipboard or mdf.
Spirit Yachts and Wessex Resins and Adhesives have been collaborating for over 25 years.
“We’ve used epoxy made by Wessex Resins since we started,” says Nigel. “We’ve continued to use them ever since. We’ve looked at all the other resins and their backup but nothing compares. Wessex products do what it says on the tin and we’ve had no failures. And the backup you provide has been critical. You were able to give us the support to have panels tested which demonstrated the glue and that it works. We completely smashed the testing and our panels are way stronger than they needed to be. Wessex tells us what we do wrong and provides the training for us. Twenty-six years and no problems at all!”
Watch the full interview from Southampton International Boat Show 2019: