Super Yachts
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Thu 25 Apr 2013 05:34
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Sitting here, staring at the horizon I remember
things I wanted to describe.
As a yachtee you get a certain pace, time is not
that important, things get done.
And still you have a feeling there is so much to do
all the time.
But what makes you understand things have
become different in your life is of course when
you look at others. A group of turists on vacation
come to a small island, they get off the boat and
you can sense the desperate mood most of them are
experiencing. You look at them and realize their heads are spinning like mad,
their eyes looking for something. They are on a short vacation and time has to
be used. They look and photograph, they search for that experience to bring
home, to tell, or why not, type it on the phone on facebook right
now!
I can feel and anticipate what they are going
through and I can also feel the difference.
But there is a kind of boat people that are more
desperate than anybody else, and no it is not the charter boat
sailors.
It is the super yachtees.
Most of the people we know have hardly seen a super
yacht, because they simply do not go to Sweden, unless they enter the Stockholm
harbour.
A super yacht can be a sailboat or a motorboat,
usually it can be 100 feet upwards. The motor boats feel like they are 100 feet
upwards as well....
A super yacht is usually crewed by very busy people
that always polish the super glossy surface. Next to diesel, rags must be the
biggest cost on board.
Now being that wealthy, having a huge boat with all
possible means of communications (they have a minimum of three satellite domes
bigger than an inuit igloo), you would think they have all the time in the
world. No you are to smart to believe that.
But among desperate experience seekers they are the
fastest we have seen so far.
First time we really experienced a super yacht on
vacation was in San Blas. Before that they seem mostly going here and there with
crews keeping them in shape and being prepared to host their owners and
guests.
We where in Holland Cays and in this beautiful bay
surrounded by corals a S U P E R Y A C H T came in, anchored just in front
of an island with a Kuna family. The yacht was about three times the size of the
ISLAND. It dropped an anchor that must be the weight of Salsa and the size of
the Kuna families entire estate on the island.
As the crew dropped the anchor some other crew got
the crane going in the aft. Two jet skiis, one super rib and a sail boat came in
the water within ten minutes. Within 30 seconds two nice looking people where
driving around the bay like crazy, probably 40 knots or so. But we had not a
chance to get irritated, because they got bored so fast and it was time for the
ribb. So it went. An older fellow took probably his grand child in the sailboat
and did a long run for about 30 minutes.
Then it was cocktail time in the veranda on the
third floor.
As the sun set, the light on the super yacht came
on, and we talk lights. Kunas have no electricity so this night it must have
been a schock to live in the middle of Picadilly Circus, or Time Square for that
matter. The only thing a SUPER YACHT has that these well known places do NOT
have is light UNDER. Yes, you light up the water from under the yacht, so it
looks like a huge swimming pool.
It must take a week for the fishes to recover from
the jetlag they got that night.
As soon as the owners move from one part of the
yacht to another there is a crew member polishing with a huge rag where they
have been. You can tell crew from owners by the uniforms....
So you think they will destroy a
week or so for us at anchor, NO, they move on before you even had a chance to
take a picture.
They move and move, drop their huge anchor in
three places in one day. Not all of them, of course, but many.
The only thing I envy a sailing super yacht is that
their mast is so high that they have no anchor light at the top,
no.
They have areal warning lights so no plane will
crash into them.
And yes some yachts have their own helicopter. And
yes some have more that that....
And thank god there arent many of
them.
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