Belinda Grimbeek's Biography

I was born is South Africa and spent most of my life growing up in beautiful Cape Town, the southern most point of Africa. As you may, or may not know, Cape Town is now one of the world’s top 10 tourist destination. And you ask: So why did you leave such a wonderful place? – I’ll get to that later.

I got married in 1996 to Kent Grimbeek and have been very happily married ever since. In 1999 we decided that we wanted to do one of three things: go sailing, fly a microlight across Australia or do a trip up through Africa in a truck. We wanted to do something before settling down to start a family. In January 1999 we put our names down advertising ourselves as crew in the Royal Cape Yacht Club. We were contacted within two weeks by the skipper looking for crew to deliver an Admiral 38 catamaran to Fort Lauderdale. Having never sailed before, it was quite the experience. My husband is the one with all the experience, having crossed the Atlantic three times, so he was able to show me “the ropes” so to speak. Literally, on our way to the interview for the delivery, he was telling me that it’s port and starboard, a rope is a sheet …etc. I was the only female aboard so was nominated as cook which was fine with me, although I still did all my share of the watches etc. I was terribly sea sick for the first 3 days (that’s when all my precooked meals came in handy for the guys), but after finding my sea legs, absolutely loved the experience.

Left and right: enjoying the Bahamas aboard our friend's Prout 37 Elite

Two months and 7000 miles later we arrived in Fort Lauderdale and were directed to 2Hulls which is where the boat was headed to be sold. We met the 2Hulls crew, in fact the crew working there at the time was Jim and Vicky Reilly who are now also brokers for Just Catamarans, and the boat was sold 2 months later. And that is how our relationship with 2Hulls began. My knowledge of catamarans expanded dramatically over the next 5 years spent working at 2Hulls and learning from the great old man of the catamaran business himself, John Sykes.

Much to our absolute delight I then fell pregnant. Wanting to be an at-home-mom, I took a long maternity leave and after doing piece-work for 2Hulls for a few months, I finally stopped working altogether. I had no intention of going back to brokering so soon, if at all, and was looking for some part time work to enable me to spend the quality time with Haley which is so important to us as parents. But, as they say, a door opened which allows me to work on my own terms, still allowing me the most important thing – to spend time with Haley. We are now the very proud parents of a “perfect” little daughter and also the very proud owners of a company that we can call our own. We look forward to seeing them both grow.

Left: our Haley darling on her first catamaran trip Right: this is what we want for you - heading off to claim your dreams!

Although I’m still not as technically knowledgeable as I would like to be, I have a pretty good grip of the different models out there and I like to think that I can find anyone the boat they need in order to do the things they want to do. For me, finding you your boat is like completing a puzzle: until all the pieces fit, I haven’t found you your boat.

If there’s one bit of advice I can give to any man wanting to buy a catamaran – be sure to bring your wife along! A boat is not called a ‘she’ for nothing…..