Leopard 44'

An industrial tool and sound marketing

In the article dedicated to the test of the 39’ (Multihulls World n° 117), we told you about the impressive career of the small-scale company founded in 1991 by John Robertson and Jerry Caine. After having successfully come through the potentially insurrectionary period at the end of Apartheid, the ‘rainbow nation’s’ economic and social fabric avoided confrontation and bounced back to figure today amongst the most promising up-and-coming countries. The South African centre of the nautical industry includes many multihull builders (Scape, Dean, Admiral, African Cats, Knysna, St Francis…); this very dynamic segment is of course, for the most part building for export. Moorings’ choice of having its boats built in Cape Town, then taking shares Robertson & Caine was made under the impetus of Lex Raas (operations manager, defector from Bénéteau), who was familiar with the workings of a high-performance company set up. Lex was also familiar with the specifications of the leader in bareboat charter, as Beneteau was supplying them with monohulls, and he thus adapted his products for this very special customer. Together, these interactions allowed t...