Island Spirit 37

[monaco]

Does anyone have experience with these cats? I am getting pretty interested in them. In terms of space, they seem great. Huge cockpit, good split tramps, flat decks, good access to mast.

After all the bashing of Wildcats, I am nervous of the African cats so am looking for opinions. There seems a general opinion that African cats slam. It is hard to test boats in appropriate weather enough to really know this answer on my own.

There is less info on these (I guess there are less of them out there) than the Lagoon/FP.

The Manta also seems cool and well built, but all seem to be 50k more than I want to pay. 200k seems my comfort range.

[colemj]

I have spent several weeks on the Island Spirit during charters. I liked the boat and they were on my consideration list when looking to buy. Your list of qualities describe the advantages. The disadvantages are that they are somewhat heavier and slower, and also have limited pointing ability. Also, the bridgedeck underbody is flat and has very low clearance. We found it to slam a lot in even the protected sailing waters.

I ended up buying a Manta, but finding one for 200K will be difficult.

Mark