Leopard Named a Best Boat Despite a Quality-Control Scandal
SAIL Magazine Fails To Mention Multi-Year Warranty Nightmare
I would be asking how they are going to guarantee that the new Leopard 46 which is produced in the old Leopard 45 factory won't have similar production issues. —Telicia Campain
A national sailing magazine has named the Leopard 46 one of the “Top 10 Best Boats of 2025” even though it is being made in the same factory responsible for one of the biggest s**tshow warranty claims in the history of production boatbuilding.
The write-up in the January issue of SAIL magazine focused on the design and performance of the 46, failing to mention well-documented construction failures by the Leopard factory.
The predecessor to the 46 is the Leopard 45. Three Australians bought a 45 in 2021 for nearly a million dollars and named her Liger. Since then, she has spent most of the time on the hard at boatyards on three continents, most recently 21 months at a yard in Trinidad.
With the work nearly done, she was launched in late December. The boat had suffered from a host of defects but the most notable were widespread areas of dry fiberglass hiding under gelcoat as a result of incompetently executed resin infusion. These areas had to be identified, ground out and refiberglassed.
No one in the business of reviewing sailboats could claim they had not heard about the case. The owners—Trent Spencer, Telicia Campain and Tynan—had bought the boat intending to populate their Travel Sketch YouTube channel with videos about island adventure. Instead, they documented three years of repairs and dealings with builder Robertson & Caine, which had adopted a “deny, delay, depose” strategy associated of late with the American health insurance industry.
Besides the YouTube treatment, Loose Cannon last year published two stories about the ordeal. Robertson & Caine declined to comment.
Blurb and Reaction
Asked for comment, Telicia Campain said this:
I would first ask if it is a paid advert, as it reads like one. Let's just hope they don't have to repair any Leopard 46's because we have seen how long they take to attempt to repair a single Leopard 45 after hundreds of hulls. I would be asking how they are going to guarantee that the new Leopard 46 which is produced in the old Leopard 45 factory won't have similar production issues. We aren't in the market for a charter orientated catamaran, so while it is positive that they have swapped to glass windows and made some minor improvements, it is of little interest to us as liveaboard cruisers
Paid advert? Recently, Loose Cannon wrote about a media acquistion, which included SAIL. The buyer, a company called Firecrown, announced a $1 billion revenue goal for 2030 that would be achieved under a “content-to-commerce business model.”
All of which begs two questions: What would a boatbuilder have to do to NOT have a boat on the ten-best list. How would you feel if you were the builder of one of the nine other boats on that list?
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
So a travel company gets into the boat-building business to plump its chartering profits.
Fair enough, but instead of competing over reputation for reliability and seaworthiness across decades, boat specs and builds are now driven by expected five-year returns on marine real-estate. So it now no longer matters how competent and dedicated the subcontracted production house is, its sponsorship is calling the tunes on materials, productivity, QA and wastage and sponsor priorities and horizons aren't those of dedicated boat-builders and sailors.
Welcome to the world of vertical integration. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_integration)
Meanwhile that commercial priority isn't visible to most cruising buyers, who are mainly motivated by brand-recognition, comfort and convenience, and who are used to a buying in an industry where major brands also compete on resale.
And then finally, sailing trade journalism doesn't redress this market ignorance, because the products and services championed this year are next year's advertising revenue.
Which means that the following may not be true:
> No one in the business of reviewing sailboats could claim they had not heard about the case.
On the contrary, a low-paid marketing graduate whose job is just to convert a promotional press release to copy for a puff piece would have no problems being ignorant of and indifferent to questions of build quality, robustness and resilience. They wouldn't know to ask, or how to find out.
The editor though, should have known and cared.
On the other hand, boat sales and sailing journalism are international, while consumer regulation tends to be national. From what I've seen, cruising sailing is treated in general media as a luxury hobby while for some reason, international air-tourism is treated as an economic right, to the extent of mass consumer advocacy when $1,500 flights are needlessly cancelled.
I have no idea what a viable long-term solution to this would look like.
Mighty brave journalism at Loose Cannon!