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First thing in the morning, I noticed the 1972 Feadship. Then, the 1977 Codecasa. Canoe stern after canoe stern carried my eyes down the dock all day long: a 1961 Yarrow & Co., a 1967 Benetti, a 1964 Hall Russell.
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Sometime that afternoon, as I toured the 1961 Feadship Smooth Operator, I looked up at the stewardess and said, “I can’t get over how beautiful some of these old girls really are.” She smiled with the kind of knowing satisfaction that comes from a life surrounded by old money. “It’s special,” she beamed. “The wood isn’t plastic.”
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I counted a baker’s dozen of these classic motoryachts at this spring’s charter show in Genoa, Italy—far more than I’d seen in years prior, and all of them dwarfed by sleek new beauties like the show-stopping 205-foot Oceanco Lady Lola.
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There was a line of brokers waiting to get aboard Lady Lola for a glimpse at her top deck’s cascading waterfall jacuzzi, just as there was a pack of devotees congregating at the boarding area for the towering 280-foot Annaliesse, hoping for a peek inside her sprawling spa with Roman bath.
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None of the classic motoryachts had such features to boast, of course. Their interior spaces were small by comparison, lovingly maintained and refitted over the years, but without the dazzle of frosted glass sculptures and heated marble soles. Even the 120-footers looked small next to similar-length modern yachts, which had tall decks stacked high up into the sky. Many of the classic boats’ crews stood idle on their aft decks, eager for a chance to show off their charges. Some deckhands forced smiles as the traffic passed them by.
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The forlorn display left me feeling sorry, a sentiment I shared with one of the world’s top charter fleet managers.
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“Everybody wants the new ones,” he quipped on his way to play host aboard one a sleek debut. “Why do you think there are so many classics here at the show in the first place, instead of out on charter?”
It’s no secret that yacht design has changed quite a bit since the Golden Age of yachting. Staterooms have expanded to become grandiose, panoramic-view palaces that encompass entire decks.
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George Lucas-inspired entertainment systems have changed salons from comfortable conversation areas into veritable amphitheaters. Swim platforms, which used to be a few teak boards you climbed down onto before taking a dip, are now hydraulically operated way stations for everything from jet skis to personal submarines.
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Classic yachts, for all their beauty, often have a dickens of a time competing with these bells and whistles when prospective charterers sit down to compare brochures. People living in a world full of Sony PlayStations and home gymnasiums tend to gravitate toward the high-tech toys and creature comforts that newer yachts offer.
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It’s a real shame, given that classic yachts can provide just as much fun in the sun—and often at comparatively good prices. “Yes, they don’t have the same volume as modern boats of the same size,” says Mike, a broker. Nor do they usually have the same amount of toys, Jacuzzis and the like. “But I always say, you spend most of your time out in the sunshine. What do you need all those plasma screens and DVDs for?”
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One of the boats Mike manages is Il Odyssey, a 121-foot-long, 1967 Benetti that caught my eye on the dock among all the other classics. She was fresh from a stunning nine-month interior refit, taking eight guests at a weekly base rate of $44,000. “A similar-size modern boat would be at least 30 percent more,” Lane says, explaining that the majority of classic yachts are similarly good deals in terms of dollars. |
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And the newer boats aren’t always worth the extra expense in terms of comfort, he continues. “Il Odyssey has the timber of yesteryear, a classic feel,” Lane says. “You move onboard and you feel comfortable. You think, ‘I could live here.’ The new ones, it’s not a place where you want to sit and while the hours away.”
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I have to admit, although I do enjoy being aboard brand-new jaw-droppers with their luxurious whirlpool bathtubs and super-size sunpads, I tend to feel more comforted by the warm woodwork and real helm wheels aboard older yachts. The classic touches create an ambience of contentedness, whereas some of the newer yachts are styled as showoffs. I’m not afraid to put my feet up and relax aboard the classics, yet on some newer yachts, I’m terrified to touch anything lest the stewardesses follow me around with a chamois to keep my fingerprints at bay.
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I’ve also been surprised at how good the narrow-beam classics feel under way, something Mike says he hears from clients all the time. Yes, newer motoryachts have wider beams to swallow all those creature comforts and support their many tall decks, but they also tend to have shallower drafts for anchoring in small harbors—design factors that can cause more rolling in churned-up seas. “You just can’t get a modern boat with these kinds of sea keeping qualities,” Mike says of deeper-draft classics. “You’ll be a lot more comfortable, even without stabilizers.”
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The crews aboard classic yachts are of course just as well trained as their modern-boat counterparts in things like service and food preparation. And in some cases, the classic-yacht crew are even better skilled. Engineers, in particular, must be highly resourceful aboard boats built 50, 60, or 70 years ago.
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“With so much of modern, high-performance engines, you can’t do much yourself,” Mike explains. In a lot of breakdown scenarios, a modern-yacht engineer’s only option is to call the factory for high-tech replacement parts. “With the old engine, there’s always the case of being able to fix it. That’s what these guys have to be able to do.” And that’s an important selling point if you want to ensure your boat will be shipshape for the duration of your charter.
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As I made my way down the dock in Genoa, I came to the grandmommy of all classic charter motoryachts: the 258-foot-long, 28-guest-capacity Delphine. Launched in 1921 for the family of Horace Dodge, Delphine recently completed a painstaking restoration in preparation for entering the charter market. She happened to be docked in the very next slip over from the modern marvel Annaliesse.
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I stood on Delphine’s bow and took a long look down her side deck, built extra-wide so people could gather there in chairs to watch sailboat races. Indeed, they looked historical next to Annaliesse’s sleeker crew pathways, like spaces you’d see in black-and-white photos instead of out on the world’s oceans.
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Still, something about them made me want to pull up a seat and relax for a while instead of simply walking her length on my way to my next destination. I felt I could enjoy myself being aboard her, instead of having to enjoy the things designers had put inside her.
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It was a classic case, I suppose, of recognizing the real deal.
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Kim Kavin, editor of www.CharterWave.com
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