Our Story

After much encouragement from friends, clients and colleagues, we took the plunge and created this website. We hope to tell our story as a way to not only entertain, but also to encourage and educate all the sailing dreamers and planners out there. We have owned many yachts (monohulls and catamarans), many in ownership programs, during our sailing career and have sailed 70,000+ miles in different parts of the world. Our story starts in 1992 in Cape Town, South Africa. With the same feeling of ‘wanderlust’ and a dream of traveling around the world, there was only one thing for us to do…make the dream a reality!

Stephen launched our 45ft Bruce Roberts design sloop called ‘Royal Salute’ after two years of building her in a friend’s back garden. We left Cape Town harbor soon after and set sail for the east coast of Africa. We explored, discovered, forged friendships, learned about life, sailing, people, cultures and most of all we learned new things about ourselves. This adventure would never have been possible had we not set a deadline and made the decision to cast off the lines.

Our dream became our life! We now are based in the USA (and proud American citizens!), but travel regularly, so much so that the first words out of our family’s mouths usually are “where are you now?” We are living proof that one can successfully meld a career with the cruising lifestyle and that one should never be hampered by the constraints of every day life.

Our partnership is born of the same passion for the sea and all its creatures, exotic cultures, and the exploration of faraway lands. We seldom follow the ‘pack’. We are considered slightly unorthodox and sometimes eccentric by the people who know us and we refuse to live by a set schedule. Our incessant quest for freedom and independence is evident throughout the pages of Catamaran Guru™ and possibly stems from our aversion to restrictions on our personal freedoms.

In the process of exploring the world on our boat we, previously considered to be two “Plonkers”, became the “Gurus”, not without a lot of struggle and a steep learning curve on the high seas! Our experiences are documented throughout these pages and we hope that you will enjoy and ultimately learn from our experiences and mistakes. To learn more about us, read our sailing experiences bios here.

Catamaran Guru™, the catamaran experts…?

We definitely do not profess to be the only and ultimate authority in all things catamaran or sailing, since there are at least five correct ways to do things on a yacht. However we have accumulated an enormous amount of information, knowledge, and experience in the last 30+ years while sailing the high seas, teaching sailing, and working in the yachting industry. We mostly learned by trial and error. In those days (the early 90s) when we first set off, there was no internet, bloggers, or forums to get information from. Heck, we were lucky to find a working telephone anywhere! We often had to coax information out of the local “old salts” by trading our precious rum supplies for information about best anchorages, sailing routes, and navigational hazards in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea! So, we have compiled a bunch of that information on a whole variety of sailing and catamaran issues here in the pages of Catamaran Guru™. We hope that you will learn much from our experiences and “wisdom”.

Live-Aboard Cruisers

Many of you who are in the planning and dreaming stages of cruising on a yacht will benefit from our experience as live aboard cruisers. We have not only worked in the industry, but have been and still are long-term live-aboard cruisers ourselves. We have personally taken the HUGE and difficult step of cutting all ties with the land and going off into the “wide blue yonder” on our yacht. We went through the same stages of self-doubt (as many of you will or have done) while extricating ourselves from good and very lucrative careers and our lives in suburbia. We had all the trappings of a good life, the nice house, the fancy cars, and life in the fast lane. Making the leap was not easy but we were determined that we did not simply want to exist. We wanted to live our lives and be free to do so how we pleased! Our experiences, stories, and anecdotes have been assembled in the pages of Catamaran Guru™ for all sailors to use and learn from. Sailing author, Annie Van De Wiele, once said: “The art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance.”

Sailing Experience

We built our 45-ft Bruce Roberts sloop in our friend’s back yard over a period of two years. Royal Salute was launched in 1992 in Cape Town Harbour from where we cast off to sail around the world.

After living aboard 3 decades (and counting), we sailed over 70,000 miles and visited more than 46 countries, protectorates, and territories. We sailed to foreign lands in Africa, Red Sea, Mediterranean, Caribbean, and North and South America where we landed in strange countries with even stranger cultures, languages, and customs.

Barter trade, sign language and “gifts” to the town elders got us priceless items like a gallon of rum, a fresh chicken, and fruit! Sometimes familiar cultures and customs were a welcome respite from all the unknowns we experienced. After almost three years of sailing to and visiting foreign non-English speaking countries, we were delighted to land on the Rock of Gibraltar where the friendly Irish pubs are a haven of camaraderie for sailors, served up with a steak and kidney pie and lukewarm glasses of Guinness. Mmmm…Heaven! The Caribbean and the Bahamas were our home for a while and we finally “settled” in the US where we ply our trade as yachting and catamaran experts! Our next big adventure is awaiting us!

How We Fund Our Travels

We sold everything we owned before we set off from South Africa which provided enough money in the bank to survive for a 2-year planned sabbatical. Within the first season of being away, our national currency collapsed and our savings were suddenly not worth much. It did not stop us, we were “living large” on only $400 a month in the third world! As we moved along, we worked in different countries (if possible) when the boredom of beautiful beaches and palm trees set in…or the cruising kitty got low. We “integrated” easily with the local population, learned the language and worked as delivery crew, bar tenders, day laborers, divers, etc. We bought and sold merchandise like baskets and trinkets, offered our own yacht for charter and ourselves as crew. We did sail training onboard Royal Salute where we made lifelong friends from around the world. When the ocean called again, we simply stocked up and moved on, just to do it again and again somewhere else in the world. Finances never put a damper on things and 20-something years later, we are still drifting around like gypsies.

We got back into business for a while in the Caribbean with a charter management company and manufacturing of catamarans in South Africa. Currently we are free to travel again as we are able to do our “jobs” selling boats and consulting with catamaran manufacturing companies from anywhere in the world. However, we have made Miami / Fort Lauderdale our base.

Charter Yacht Management Experience

In 1996, we decided that it was time to do some productive work and bought into a charter company in Sint Maarten where we lived for about 4 years. We had 70 boats under yacht charter management up and down the Caribbean island chain. It was a wild ride, but so much fun. We were selling dreams and we tried to make our charter guests’ sailing trips a precious and unforgettable experience. While doing this, we gained valuable experience from the owners of the charter yachts. We learned about their concerns, the pros and cons of chartering such a valuable asset, and what the financial benefits the yacht owner gains. This put us in a unique position where we experienced all aspects of charter ownership. After all, we also chartered our own boat and it mattered to us personally. The ultimate goal was and still is, how to reduce the cost of ownership for our buyers. We specialize in using tax advantages legitimately available to you through the “Yacht As A Business” program to acquire a cruising yacht for retirement at a huge discount.

Manufacturing Experience

We built our first monohull in our backyard and learned a lot about the construction and manufacturing of yachts in the process. We loved our monohull, but we were curious about the catamaran concept and first sailed a catamaran in 1993 in the Indian Ocean, a Shuttleworth design. We were intrigued, but like most people at the time, did not trust that the catamaran was safe. After chartering them in the Caribbean for several years, we were sold on the comfort, stability, performance and safety vs. monohulls. We acquired a share in the Island Spirit catamaran manufacturing facility in Cape Town in 2000 and had one built for ourselves.

The Island Spirit brand was introduced into the US market and was a huge success. We sold more than 30 in the US and more than 50 worldwide including our own Island Spirit which we sailed 7000 miles from Cape Town to Miami. We were involved in the design of the exterior and interior features as well as the sail plan of the Island Spirit 401. Some of these unique features are now used as standard features by most of the popular brands like the galley design, anchoring system and Jack-and-Jill bathrooms. Subsequently we had Zuri, our Prout 45, built in Thailand and have consulted with several catamaran manufacturers.

We have partnered with some of the most prestigious names in the sailing industry, McConaghy Yachts and Dubois Naval Architects, Ker Yacht Design and Engineering, and Schionning Designs. We are developing a new range of “next generation” fast luxury sailing catamarans that will rival and exceed anything currently in the luxury sailing yacht market in quality, performance and safety.

Seaschool Founders

To meet the needs of sailors and sailing-wannabes that want to learn beyond the ASA courses, in 2022, we established Catamaran Guru Sailing Academy. We offer ASA courses, RYA sailing courses (rare in the US!), and specialty offerings such as liveaboard lifestyle sailings and performance catamaran courses, all on our own late model yachts.

Yacht Ownership  Consultants

Over time, we realized that we could help others achieve their dreams of yacht ownership and the sailing lifestyle. Along the journey, we developed Dream Yacht Charter’s North American programs to sell luxury yachts  placed into their charter fleet as well as programs for owners to operate their boat as a business and benefit from substantial tax advantages that were, and still are, available through the various US government small business stimulus programs.

Today, Catamaran Guru™ is independent of any specific yacht management company or programs. We have developed a variety of boat ownership scenarios with several yacht charter companies and, frequently, help boat owners actively manage their own boats to generate substantial tax advantages to offset the cost of yacht ownership through private ownership.

We independently assess what is right for your situation after speaking at length with you, usually over many conversations.

This offers our yacht buying clients the opportunity to utilize a yacht ownership program that fits their plans and needs with management agreements that meet all the requirements and tests to remain in compliance with the IRS rules.  

Conclusion

Our ramblings, reviews, and reasonable advice are offered as a resource for sailing and catamaran enthusiasts navigating the sometimes “stormy” waters of buying, selling, and cruising a yacht. We are in a unique position to have experienced and understand yacht ownership from every angle. We chartered our own crewed yacht, managed a charter fleet, built our own yachts, we live aboard, have cruised thousands of miles and did our share of racing. Our advice is sound, borne from personal experience. We are passionate about sailing and about exploring the planet and we want everyone to experience life like this!