Call me a virtual “hanger on” but I just love the mega yacht events. \u00a0Ok, so I have come clean on that and am also at peace that I will never be in such an event. \u00a0 The flavor of the moment for today is the St Barts Bucket, one of two events, with the other in Newport of course, that are held each year as an excuse for the big, really big, boys in yachting to get together and show off their yachts.<\/p>\n
So, how is the recession hurting those events? \u00a0I guess that the 1%, no make that the .001% are back in business and in full swing as this year’s event in St Barts is a whopper with 47 boats in attendance. \u00a0 Even with a $12,000 entry fee. \u00a0Supposedly they even turned away a number of boats that wanted to participate. \u00a0I wonder if it’s because they don’t accept AMEX. \u00a0Probably not . \u00a0I am trying to imagine what it would be like to have that many boats, most over 100′ and some more than twice that size, competing on a single course. \u00a0Even if they stagger the starts, that’s a lot of boat-feet moving near each other.<\/p>\n
In trying to get my arms around this one I was thinking about what it must be like to handle a boat (I guess that “boat” isn’t the right word) with a 36′ draft. \u00a0That’s the amount of water that the 190′ Twizzle draws. \u00a0Yikes! \u00a0I guess that the Bahamas isn’t on their destination list given the fact that the banks average 6′ in depth. \u00a0 \u00a0Speaking of Twizzle, check out their site at\u00a0http:\/\/www.twizzle.org\/<\/a>. \u00a0Normally, I would just highlight the name of the yacht with a link but thought that putting the actual link in this case was better as I am very amused that it’s a .org domain. \u00a0I guess that all yachts are NOT-FOR-PROFIT anyway, even if their owners are clearly not.<\/p>\n This video on you-tube was filmed at yesterday’s regatta and posted. \u00a0When I visited it this morning it only had 39 views. \u00a0I’ll bet that there will be more in the coming days as it will only take one visit each from crew on these yachts to clock up several hundred. \u00a0 Check out the featured boat Twizzle. \u00a0I’ll bet that Pandora would fit in the cockpit.
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