Spirit Yachts

Spirit Yachts builds modern classics in Ipswich — wood-epoxy hulls with 1930s lines over thoroughly contemporary underwater bodies. Sean McMillan and Mick Newman founded the yard in 1993, building their first boat in a disused cowshed behind Newman’s house; Newman died in a light-aircraft crash in 2007, and in 2023 McMillan handed the helm to a majority group of Spirit owners, staying on as consultant designer. The yard’s boats have twice worked for James Bond: a Spirit 54 in Casino Royale, a Spirit 46 in No Time to Die.

Around eleven Spirit 46s exist, and they almost never come up for sale — the range now runs from the R46 day-racer to cruisers and superyachts in the same construction, all built one at a time in the Old Wet Dock.