CAROLINA SAILING
Home Cookin’ for High Performance One tiny company is setting up to have a big impact in the skiff and sport boat arena. By Dan Dickison
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The VX One is a lively design that can be sailed by two or three people. Courtesy Ovington Boats
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February 2016
SOUTHWINDS
emasee, South Carolina. This isn’t a place you’re apt to remember if you were to stumble onto it. Right off Interstate 95 in a sparsely populated corner of the Palmetto State, Yemasee seems like any small, frontageroad town in this part of the country. There are gas stations, convenience stores, and a two-lane highway that spurs off I95, stretching east and west out of town. With roughly 1,200 residents, Yemasee is recognized as the ancestral home of the Yemasee tribe. It’s also the site of numerous battles fought in the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. In the contemporary era, this little burg is known as home to one of the few commercial breeding facilities in the U.S. for non-human primates. Less known is the fact that it’s also the corporate headquarters of a small, familyowned firm whose products have been making waves in the performance sailing arena for nearly two decades— Bennett Yachting. If that name isn’t familiar, maybe you’ll recognize some of the zippy, skiff-like designs that the company has created, including the Viper 640, the Viper 830 and now, the VX One Design. Bennett Yachting hasn’t always been based here. It started out in Portsmouth, RI, in the mid ‘90s and later relocated to Savannah. Roughly two years ago, the Bennetts moved their base to Yemasee. (That’s “Bennetts” plural because proprietor Brian Bennett runs the operation with the help of his wife Rachel and his son Hayden.) Though the Viper 640 and 830 have achieved nominal success, the 19-foot VX One Design—introduced in 2012— has become one of the most successful models to enter the trailerable sport boat market in recent years. According to Brian—the company’s designer and founder—over 125 VX Ones have been built to date, with fleets taking root in Canada, Chile, Germany, New Zealand, the UK, France and Australia. Here in the U.S., he says, there are 70 to 80 boats actively racing, and that number is growing by about 20 per year. Bennett, a former America’s Cup crew who also designed the Viper 640 and 830, built the first 48 VX One Designs in a small industrial facility in Savannah with the help of Hayden and a few employees. “After that,” he explains, “in 2013, we shipped the molds to the UK so that the boat could be built by Ovington Boats in northeast England.” He refers to his company’s base in Yemasee as its “port of call,” explaining that the “boats are shipped here through the Port of Charleston and then we truck them to Yemasee to fit them out with rig, sails and deck gear. After that, we couple them with trailers and deliver them to owners across the country.” Both Brian and Hayden are on the road more than 100 days a year delivering boats and attending regattas and boat www.southwindsmagazine.com