The UK-based Sprit Yachts is famous for making modern, wooden, UK-built yachts and the P50 Coupe and P50 Sport look set to continue that trend
British boat builder Spirit Yachts has unveiled a new range of elegant 50ft motoryachts. Called the P50 and handcrafted from wood at the yard’s facilities in Ipswich, Suffolk, they will be available in two different versions.
The ‘Sport’ model is an open-backed hard top design for warmer climes, while the ‘Coupe’ has an enclosed wheelhouse making it more suitable for Northern European cruising. Both share the same deep-vee hull with a near-plumb bow, hard chines and tumblehome stern.
Above the gunwale, they look quite different but share the same attractive retro-modern styling that helped establish the yard’s reputation for building some of the world’s prettiest boats since it first launched 32 years ago.
The Spirit P50 Sport
The P50 Sport features an open cockpit design beneath a buttressed hardtop. It has walkaround decks protected by deep bulwarks, an extra-large platform capable of carrying a small tender, and a U-shaped dinette aft for alfresco eating. Amidships there’s a wet bar with the option of three matching bar stools. Further forward, four sporty pilot seats are tucked behind a wraparound windshield with the helm on the centreline. Plus there’s a sun-pad on the bow.
The P50 Coupe has a shorter bathing platform with the same u-shaped dinette pushed further back towards the transom to create enough room in the aft cockpit for two aft-facing corner seats either side of the sliding glass doors into the saloon. The saloon can be configured in various different ways to suit the owner’s preference for seating and dining options. The helm features less sporty bench seating for four.
The Spirit P50 Coupe
Down below both variants have small galleys amidships to port. The Sport has an adjacent L-shaped sofa and either just the one double cabin in the bow with a large ensuite shower compartment or an optional second twin-bed cabin aft of the portside companionway stairs.
The standard P50 Coupe layout includes two double cabins, the owner’s forward and a transverse double aft, as well as two bathrooms, an ensuite shower-room for the owners and a head-shower compartment for the guests and that doubles as the day-head.
Traditional wood building at Spirit Yachts in Ipswich UK
Both P50s share the same powertrain – twin 440hp Volvo Penta IPS600s fed by a 2,000-litre fuel tank. For the P50 Coupe, this is expected to provide a top speed of around 30 knots and a fast cruise of 22 knots with a cruising range of around 300nm. The P50 Sport is lighter, so a little quicker. It should have a top speed of around 32 knots and a fast cruise of 24 knots with a corresponding range of 320nm.
One of each model is already in build at the yard. As with all Spirit Yachts, they are built by hand using sustainably sourced timber sheathed in epoxy to create a rigid but surprisingly light and easy to maintain hull.
The P50 Sport will be first to launch next spring for a Californian owner. The Coupe version, which is currently at the planking stage, is being built for a UK owner who also has a Spirit sailing yacht in build. It will be delivered later next year.
Designs for the xx and the P50 Sport and P50 Coupe on paper in the factory.
Although ostensibly a sailing yacht specialist, Spirit has been developing its power credentials slowly but surely over the past 15 years. The P50 slots between the P40, of which two have been built to date, and the P70, the first and only one of which was delivered in 2020. It also helped design and build a one-off 35ft electric foiling boat that set a new record for circumnavigating the Isle of Wight in an electric craft.
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