Yachts International Spring 2020

of salty sailors and flying boats

I’m a longtime fan of old-time music. I cycle through Appalachian, Irish, Civil War and anything else that tells a story that captures a moment in simpler times. Recently, I recharged my collection of sea chanteys, which generally chronicle the lonely, longing, hungry, hardbitten lives of men who set off on sailing ships. Listening to the musical tales of life aboard commercial and exploration ships in the 18th and 19th centuries made me think of the many books and rare films I consumed as a younger man, indulging my nascent passion for sailing. I’m a novice in the historical naval fiction of Patrick O’Brian and C.S. Forester, preferring instead the raw accounts of historians or those who actually lived the lives about which they wrote, most notably, the great Alan Villiers.…

living the dream

From the first time businessman Arthur M. Blank saw his boat, with its Espen Øino exterior still in pink fairing compound in the outfitting facility at Oceanco, he knew it would be just right for him. “He was drawn to the combination of Espen’s timeless exterior, Terence Disdale’s elegant, calm interior, and Oceanco’s ability to deliver the boat on time and to the quality he required,” says Dan Jackson, Blank’s representative on the project. “So, after some minor enhancements made to suit him and his family, we got right into it and, 18 months later, DreAMBoat was delivered.” While Øino and Disdale have been prominent and prolific on the superyacht scene for many years, Oceanco provided the two old friends with the opportunity to collaborate on the 295-foot (90-meter) project. And it…

arthur m. blank is living the american dream on his oceanco, dreamboat

Arthur M. Blank believes in balancing downtime with his busy work schedule. DreAMBoat allows him to do just that. In many respects, Arthur M. Blank personifies the American dream. He rose up from a modest background in Queens, New York, and co-created The Home Depot. The wealth he accumulated now lets him focus on his love of family, including aboard his 295-foot (90-meter) Oceanco DreAMBoat. “DreAMBoat is exactly what the name implies” Blank says. “She was built to be shared and enjoyed by my family and close friends. I truly can’t think of a better venue to share and grow our love and appreciation for each other.” Blank founded The Home Depot with Bernie Marcus, starting with just four stores in Atlanta. The Home Depot became the largest home-improvement retailer in the world,…

beauty meets brawn

A dark gray boat with four Seven Marine 627 outboards was backed into a corner slip at a boat show. I stopped, did a double take and crept around the center console, looking for a brand name on the fully enclosed helm. Then, I noticed a number of other people doing the same thing. The boat looked like it belonged to the military, but with a metallic paint job and matching performance engines that seemed luxurious. That’s when Hunter James gestured for me to come aboard. “Hunt” owns Gulfstream Yachts in Tampa, Florida. This boat was a prototype he built to remedy the flaws he found on other center consoles—namely, getting doused by passing showers when he was dressed and on his way to dinner after a day of fishing and diving.…

splendid little sister

Within any range of yachts, there is invariably one model whose size and aesthetics capture the essence of the series better than any other. This impression is likely based on the golden ratio principle, which in yacht design looks for balance and proportion between overall length and height, waterline length and beam, freeboard and sheerline, and so on. Generally speaking, the longer, lower and slimmer the boat, the better she looks on the water. This principle is especially true of fast, sporty yachts, but the Mangusta GranSport 45 defies the convention. When the Mangusta GranSport 54 El Leon, the Italian brand’s 177-foot flagship, won an award for Best Exterior Design at the 2018 Cannes Yachting Festival, it was clear she would be a hard act to follow. Arrow slim and seriously quick,…

a higher standard

The fit-out aspires to superyacht standards, with leather-lined bulkheads, hardwood soles, thick marble and chrome-plated hardware. In terms of influence, superyacht styling has come to have a disproportionate effect on the world of production yachts. We have all seen the new generation of jewel-like runabouts, particularly from European builders. Those boats may be small, but they look like—and sometimes actually are—a million bucks. Now squeezed on style from above and below in terms of length overall, production yacht builders such as Sirena Marine in Turkey are responding. This yard, which has ambitions to build superyachts, recently launched a new 88 that might be interpreted as a trial run. Few yachts of this length have so much interior volume, or a layout that emulates that of a superyacht so successfully. Sirena, established in 2006,…