Two new brands for Key Yachting

Key Yachting, the Hamble based UK agent and distributor for the phenomenally successful range of performance cruiser-racers from J Boats, has announced this week that they will be expanding their portfolio with the addition of two new brands: Grand Soleil and Santa Cruz Yachts.

Largely as a result of the strength and success of the J Boat brand in the UK, over the last seven years the Key Yachting team has grown from two people to eight; an experienced team which has supplied and serviced a huge number of new customers and established J Boat owners with new and second-hand boats in recent years. The team is comprised of active sailors who understand all aspects of owning and maintaining racing and cruising boats.

Director, Paul Heys said ‘We have been considering expanding the Key Yachting portfolio for some time now and over the last few weeks we have made the decision to take on two new brands and product ranges, both of which we are convinced will complement the J Boats range’.

The first of these is Grand Soleil, a range with which Paul and his wife and Co-Director Marie-Claude Heys have worked before.

The builders of the Grand Soleil, Cantiere del Pardo, have built a brand new state of the art production facility in their home town Forli, Italy. They have developed a new range of high quality, elegant fast cruiser-racers which start with the Grand Soleil 37 and extend to the magnificent Grand Soleil 56. Future plans also include 72 footer. They have a new dynamic management structure, a team who understand the demands of today’s sailors and they are committed to developing an ever improving product range.

Heys commented ‘The way we see it, Key Yachting and Grand Soleil have been reunited and both parties have a really strong story to sell and we are confident that the timing is opportune.’

The second new brand at Key Yachting is Santa Cruz Yachts. Heys was extremely impressed both with the management team, the brand new purpose built production facility and, most importantly, the whole concept behind the SC 37.

Santa Cruz are based in Jacksonville in the USA and Key Yachting have visited the plant to see the first Santa Cruz 37 in build; a twin wheeled, carbon build and carbon rigged, high stability performance yacht. The boat is designed to deliver cutting edge performance with an efficient hull and sail plan whilst still being manageable for either a full race crew or short-handed family sailing. The strap-line for Santa Cruz Yachts is ‘Fast is Fun’ and although the designer Tim Kernan has come up with a boat designed for the pure joy of sailing, the rig and sail plan of course pays credence to the IRC rule, as you would expect.

It goes without saying that alongside these new developments, the J Boat brand continues to move from strength to strength, with record entries in attendance at the J-Cup this year and at the 2008 J/80 UK Nationals. The largest fleet of J/109s in the world (32 to be precise) gathered for the UK nationals earlier this year and this new record will be broken again in UK waters at Cowes Week where 40 boats will gather to race as a one-design class. In Cork, 26 J/109s will line up to race for the Irish National Championship.

For information on J Boats, Grand Soleil, Santa Cruz or Comar Yachts please contact the team at Key Yachting in Hamble or visit the Key Yachting office in the yacht haven at ACC Bank Cork Week.