Praising our Boat Manufacturer – St. Francis Marine

Tahina is a St. Francis 50 catamaran and we have a web page that describes her in better detail. We have been very happy owners of our St. Francis, and have received excellent support from them over the years.

When we had a problem this weekend with our Lewmar mainsheet traveller enroute to St. Helena, causing us to divert to Namibia to arrange repairs, I yesterday contacted St. Francis to ask for help in getting the parts we would need. They replied right away with the exact part numbers, and a referral to the Lewmar dealer in Cape Town who can supply us with what we need.

Last night I was thinking I need to put up a post about St. Francis because this is just one out of several times in the past 6+ years we have owned Tahina where they have given us support. Another recent example was a couple of weeks ago. We had spoken to them about wanting to get some replacement custom wine glasses for our wine cabinet. They have the St. Francis logo etched into the side. Over 6 years of use, we had several glasses broken. They sent the glasses to the marina we were planning to visit in Cape Town, and I hadn’t even paid them yet. I had to make a quick phone call as we were in the final minutes of departing Cape Town to make sure to pay them.

There have been several other times over the course of our sailing Tahina around the world, that we have asked St. Francis for assistance. In every case, they have done their best, even when it was for parts that were not manufactured by them. I especially remember when our water heater failed with just 1 month left on its 5-year warranty. With St. Francis support, we managed to get a cost-free brand new replacement sent to us to Singapore at no charge.

So, I not only thank St. Francis for building a great, fast and beautiful boat that has comfortably allowed us to sail mostly around the world, but also for their customer support which is far better than most boat builders in the world. I can say this from having spoken to many other circumnavigating boat owners.