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No need to buy

Originally published in the Financial Times "Wealth" Magazine.
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For those who care about the health of the yacht business, the view this spring towards the town from one of the marina pontoons in Palma harbour was far from encouraging.

Most of the multimillion-dollar superyachts moored to the pontoon were for sale, at least one had been repossessed by a bank and two were sealed off by Spain’s Guardia Civil as a result of legal action.

Turn round, however, and the view was of an elegant and impeccably maintained motoryacht called “Atlantic Lady”.

Technically, it does not qualify as a superyacht. At 25.5m, it falls short of the category’s normal minimum length of 30m. But this so-called “gentleman’s displacement yacht” has other advantages in an era when business boom has turned to financial crisis and ostentation is out of favour among the world’s wealthy.

Built in 1990 to a classic design, the steel-hulled Atlantic Lady is more about discretion and comfort than speed, although with its unusual lines it does turn heads in harbours frequented by scores of near-identical “plastic fantastic” motoryachts.

British owner Paul Vaughan – whose UK-based PVA Management acts as agent for media stars – says his boat “chugs along very happily at 10-12 knots”, one-third of the wave-smashing top speed of the planing, non-displacement motor yachts often preferred by impatient millionaires.

With skipper Tim Harris at the helm, Atlantic Lady offers “total confidentiality” to the celebrities, princes and the merely wealthy who come to enjoy a Mediterranean holiday, says Vaughan. “We can find bays and we can find areas that the paparazzi can’t get into, or if they do, you know they are there,” he says. “We’ve had royals on board and TV and film people and they are moved by the fact they know we are not going to talk about them.”

Atlantic Lady offers all the services that superyacht users have come to expect – help with private jet charters, VIP airport treatment, fine dining, waterskiing – at a price that is, by superyacht standards, relatively modest.

“We tend to deal with people for whom €28,000 [$39,000] a week is not much of a problem,” says Vaughan, noting that for eight passengers that works out at less than the cost of a luxury hotel on the French Riviera.

Vaughan does not deny the severity of the economic crisis for many of his charter customers, and acknowledges that charter rates are now “negotiable” for longer periods or out of the high season. “You get people who are very successful in general business and they tend to be German or Spanish or Italian or British, and they can look on the surface as if their business … is doing extremely well, but under the surface it’s straitened circumstances,” he says.

“I think we’re all in difficulties. There’s no fat on the chop any more.”

 

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LOVELY LADY

Originally published in Lux.

I’ve just met the most marvellous lady. I hope that she will not mind me discussing her vital statistics. She’s 127 tons, carries a crew of three or four to attend to your every wish, and sleeps eight.

She is of course a yacht, the Atlantic Lady (1991), and she’s what I would call a gentleman’s yacht. In other words she’s a serious ship and not one of your usual gin palaces, of which there are many plying the holiday playgrounds of the Mediterranean. This lady has style, elegance and sophistication. Captain Tim Harris is the man in charge, then there’s Simon the chef and all the usual team to serve the food and look after the cabins. Fitted with marble bathrooms ensuite, the cabins are very comfortable and just like hotel bedrooms; two have twin beds and one has bunk beds and is ideal for kids. The master stateroom has a double bed with good reading lights and pure cotton sheets.

The vessel is based on the island of Mallorca and available all year round, but really her season starts at Easter and continues until October when the weather in the Med is often still glorious.