From Incat via http://www.incat.com
Spirit of Victoria
IMO: ???
Build: 1985 by Incat – Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, no 16
I can’t find too much about this vessel, and I am relatively glad.
From what I can tell, she was built in 1985 as a testbed for a high-speed passenger ferry based on a wave-piercing catamaran design, and that she evidently was quite short lived.
In all reality, this seems pretty self-explanatory. Her design resulted in her looking quite like an ugly little insect, more or less, and I wouldn’t want a nasty bug hanging around for too long, either.
She was indeed built in 1985 and arrived July that year to Port Phillip and continued till 1991 when she was sold to Malaysia as Mathera Bas III and would love to know more about her fate.
The year was 1988 my Dad and I travelled to surfers paradise to look for a boat to purchase . It was to be used at Kawau island NZ this vessel was used from surfers paradise to the World Expo in Brisbane on a daily basis . It had twin Detroits v12 92 series engines and cruised at 25 knots with just a 30 cm wake from the hulls . In her day she was the most futuristic vessel like a hydrafoil only a lot prettier . She held 250 passengers in comfort. we did not purchase the vessel as the logistics and insurance of getting her to NZ were just too expensive ! I THINK SHE IS STILL ONE OF THE MOST FUTURISTIC VESSELS AFLOAT TODAY !!!