If I didn’t know better, I’d swear a 60ft spacecraft is under construction just around the corner from Hassan’s superette on 3rd Avenue, Retreat.
Propped up on its jig in a large warehouse, surrounded by electric fencing and surveillance cameras, it looks like something straight out of Star Wars: a gleaming metal exoskeleton with two hulls, preparing for battle right under our noses in Cape Town’s southern suburbs.
I’m looking at the latest boat build project at Jacobs Bros, the famed family boatbuilding business that specialises in ocean-going aluminium vessels. The ‘spacecraft’ I’m surveying is actually the impressive curved frame of a 60ft cruising catamaran – the first such build for the Jacobs Bros team.
The milestone project is impressive by any standards and a point of pride for brothers Taariq and Sieraj Jacobs, standing next to me as they summarise how the project took shape over the past year – a relatively quick turnaround from contact to contract. The Canadian client, who is currently in Cape Town to observe the build, brought a custom design he originally intended to build in the East before opting for the quality premium of a Jacobs Bros build.
“This is our first sailing catamaran,” says Taariq with trademark modesty reminiscent of his much-loved and legendary boatbuilding father Fuad who passed away two years ago.
Under Fuad’s leadership, and under Ismail Jacobs before him, Jacobs Brothers built a fleet of robust aluminium boats, both recreational and commercial – everything from ferries to large ocean-going expedition monohulls.
But never a sailing cat, until now.
Yard visitors might be surprised to see the latest build lying upside down, which is the preferred construction method at Jacobs Bros. “Different hull shapes require different methods,” explains Sieraj, who is quick to acknowledge the team effort required. “Our team is very much like our family as well. Literally about 80 percent of them come from the (previous) yard. While everything is all plush now, they know where we’ve come from – and they’ve built this place, essentially.”
Sieraj is referring to the Jacobs Bros original workplace in the backyard of the family home where their business took off. Fuad’s father, a metal worker by trade, also owned a fleet of small crayfish bakkies he kept on a beach near Kommetjie. Little did he know that these bakkies were the forerunners of a family boatbuilding legacy that continues to these days. From bakkies that dare not venture much further than the kelp forest, the family now produces boats that venture right around the world.
The current build is a case in point. At 60ft it is by no means the longest they’ve built – their record is a 74ft monohull – but as a yard they are in unchartered waters with a sailing catamaran and its parallel hybrid system – a diesel engine coupled with an electric motor & generator in one hull, and an electric motor in the other. “That’s also a first for us,” says Taariq.
It’s easy to see why the firm has earned a reputation for quality craftsmanship. There’s an almost surgical precision to the yard layout, with very little clutter sometimes associated with manufacturing. A smaller workboat is nearing completion in an adjacent warehouse, due to be launched later this year. A completed monohull stands sentinel at the back of the main warehouse, dwarfed by the newcomer cat.
The structure and orderliness is all the more remarkable given the yard’s unusual location, far removed from the water and the Cape Town boatbuilding epicentre of Paarden Island. Informal trade overflows onto the surrounding streets, which bustle with suburban life. To the outsider this may seem haphazard, but for Jacobs Bros the environment is part of their DNA. The staff live nearby. Zeekoeivlei where Taariq and Sieraj spent their childhood years sailing optimists – later both winning sailing nationals in their respective classes – is just a few kilometres away.
The catamaran may look like something from outer space, but the irony is that it is as homegrown as a piece tuisgemaakte samoosas. Yes, getting the boats to the water can be difficult – the cat will need to be assembled at an alternative venue closer to Table Bay – but the brothers are nothing if not versatile – there’s always a workaround.
Looking ahead, they view stepping into the sailing catamaran market as far more than a milestone tick on the yard’s checklist. As environmental consciousness increasingly drives owner choices, Sieraj sees their core material as the natural fit for sustainable ocean travel. “We love working with aluminium,” he says. “There’s very little waste if you compare it to the composite guys—you don’t need much tooling or setup to begin a build, and you avoid the expense and environmental waste of plug-and-mould mass production. Beautiful material to work with. As the world becomes more aware of its effects on climate and the environment, it is just the right place to be in.”
Right place at the right time. That might not have always been the case for a family forced to navigate Apartheid’s social engineering, and the laws and bylaws that came with it. But like the sailors they are, adept at trimming sails when needs be, the Jacobs Brothers are still on course, doing what they do best.
Taariq and Sieraj need little prompting when I ask for a photograph inside the yard. Shoulder to shoulder, arms folded, they look like matching pilots gearing up for their next mission. In my mind I see their ‘spaceship’ the right way up, rising slowly above 10th Avenue Retreat and Hassan’s Superette, before shooting off for a new frontier.