Spirit 72DH Anima II

Launched last year, the first Spirit 72DH Anima II will be at this year’s Palma Boat Show from 27th to 30th April. Now available for charter in the Mediterranean, Anima II was designed for bluewater cruising and occasional regatta racing.

Nearly a year into ownership of his new Spirit, we caught up with the owner of Anima II to find out why he chose a Spirit yacht, the inspiration behind a contemporary interior, and he shares his memories from the first season onboard.

What attracted you to Spirit Yachts?

I will start with the old saying “The path is the true destination”. I was on a 20 year journey to find Spirit Yachts. It was always a dream of mine to buy a sailing yacht and circumnavigate the world. Yes, of course you can do this with many mass production yachts, but why do you want to do something with an ordinary yacht, when you might be able to afford something special. So, the first book I bought was the Bruce Roberts-Goodson Complete Guide to Metal Boats. The book put me on a journey to visit sailing yachts and shipyards across the world. I visited shipyards such as Tayana or Hylas in Taiwan, yachts in Australia and Thailand, boatbuilders like Contest in the Netherlands or Wauquiez in France. The visits brought me to Ukraine, Turkey, the USA and the UK. I learned about all different boat building materials from steel, to aluminum, to fiberglass and carbon, sandwich compositions and even cement yachts. Of course, I knew the wonderful designs of Spirit Yachts before. Only when I understood during my journey that a wooden yacht might be even more stiff and would have the same maintenance challenges as other yachts, I truly started to consider wood. So what was the attraction? Well, I don’t know many people who don’t like wood. If you then take the Spirit craftsmanship and how they make out of wood a piece of art, then it becomes very difficult to resist. Honestly, you need to see, feel and smell the shipyard. We were sold when we set our first step into it. A new three year journey started from that moment.

What was the inspiration for Anima II?

My wife and I have travelled the world and lived with our family for many years in Asia. We moved several times into different houses. Some of them we built and others we bought and made major renovations. All our homes had distinct characters; they all had a lot of open space and light in common. Space to live and space to breathe – room to allow the inner self of us and our children to unfold. We created an environment with a lot of soul. We wanted a sailing yacht which also would provide this and so it became our inspiration when we started the project. We worked with the Spirit Yachts team and used the deckhouse concept for the outside but opened the inside to create space. The galley is not a galley – it’s a meeting point like in all our houses. We love wood, especially the beautifully varnished mahogany and we wanted to use wood as a feature, not just as a material. Life is full of contrasts with shadow and lots of light, so Spirit added hull windows and large fan windows to invite the sun into our yacht. We chose a white finish and light blue fabrics to contrast with the wood. Harmony of materials was important to us to echo what Anima stands for: soul and a little bit of air to breathe.

You and your family and friends did the delivery sail from the UK to the Mediterranean, how was this experience for you all?

As you can imagine, this first trip on Anima was a very unique trip for my wife and I. Our daughter, Kira Karina, who I have sailed with since she was 10, joined us on the first leg. For me, it was very special and very emotional. We first sailed non stop from Guernsey to Gibraltar (1,100 NM) and then from Gibraltar to Malta (another 1,100 NM). For both legs we needed about six days. We had quite a few days where Anima did more than 200 NM in 24 hours. As on many long passages, we had it all: snow, rain, heavy seas, cold, warm, sun, lots of wind, no wind… you name it. Put simply, it was a wonderful trip and a wonderful experience with wonderful people. Anima is a new home for us and a wonderful yacht, which proved to be a great sailing yacht on her first 2,500 NM.