High life
Boat people
Taki
On board S/Y Bushido
We hit a hurricane while sailing off the coast of the Riviera last week, or, to be more precise, a hurricane called Tim Hoare hit us. I have never in my long life met anyone quite like Tim. The words tumble out so fast, enwrapped in alliteration and so clogged with onomatopoeia, that a foreign-born like me misses about three out of every four words. Bursting with bombast, generously pronouncing Bushido among the most beautiful boats afloat, Tim then casually informed us how his private jet had an engine blow up in flight and how for 20 long minutes they looked like goners. Even worse, he was flying alone and could see the two pilots struggling to control a wildly bucking aircraft (one engine had exploded and the pieces had got into the rotor, forcing the plane to fly in circles). He fortunately made it down somewhere near Avignon and joined us in St Tropez for a sumptuous dinner. For the next three days, he did not draw a breath, and after he flew back to London the rest of us felt like Katrina survivors.
Mind you, every boat needs a Tim on board because sitting on one can get rather boring. Tim and Nick Scott, probably Britain’s greatest raconteur and mimic, are a one–two punch I defy any yacht owner to equal. Also on board were the ecdemomanic Bismarcks, and in order to save you a trip to the dictionary, ecdemomania is an abnormal compulsion to travel. Chantal Hanover and the mother of my children completed the group. Well, all I can say is that it’s going to be a long time before another trip like this one comes along, except, that is, if Tim and Nick decide that it’s time for premature evacuation from London and get back on board.
And speaking of premature evacuation, I wish Rising Sun, Octopus and Tatoosh would evacuate the Med and go back where I can’t see them, somewhere far away like between New Zealand and South America. Rising Sun belongs to that Oracle fellow Larry Ellison, who obviously needs a very big boat to make up for his inferiority complex. Or perhaps he built such an ugly yacht for the same reason that ladies of the 18th century used to have monkeys draped around their shoulders to make them look less ugly by comparison. Four hundred and fifty-two feet long, with a large glass-enclosed superstructure, it is powered by — get this — 48,000 horsepower. By comparison, my 125-footer is powered by the wind, and a tiny 350 horsepower diesel. I cannot be bothered to calculate it, but I assume that 48,000 horses pollute more in one day’s travel than 350 will in a lifetime.
I was brought up to believe that the first function of a boat was to be beautiful. These monsters are not only environmentally incorrect, they are also hideous to look at and are not in harmony with the sea. They are gold-plated toys that look like office buildings, with interiors inspired by nightclubs. Their only purpose is to show off the money of their owner. Paul Allen, the Microsoft creep, owns Octopus and Tatoosh, and matches them in looks. He, too, is a Riviera regular and polluter, and the reason Ellison built Rising Sun the size he did was in order to ensure that his yacht would be larger than Allen’s. So far so bad. I won’t even go near where Abramovich is concerned. His taste is on a par with Ellison’s and Allen’s, and the way things are going, more and more horrors are being built by nouveaux billionaires anxious to impress the rest of us.
The last thing I believe in is government legislation, but if things keep going the way they are, we will soon have no more fish or plankton left in the Mediterranean. Is it fair that one man can pollute more than, say, thousands of others, simply because of his ego. Back in the Land of the Depraved, General Motors is bribing people to buy the Hummer, as obscene a car as anything ever made, which does nine miles per gallon. Hummers should be outlawed because they serve absolutely no purpose outside the military. Yet America is full of them.
What responsible people should do is not service mega-yachts which damage the environment. Then what would people like Allen, Ellison and Abramovich do? These green types who go around threatening scientists with violence should go after Larry, Roman and Paul, but cowards that they are, they will not. A poor scientist working on finding ways to combat disease is an easy target. Those rich slobs are not.
The only other way I can think of to make mega-yachts redundant is a Lysistrata-type of boycott by hookers. Only those with sailing boats will be serviced, but I will not hold my breath till that happens. Hookers have always been drawn to stink pots. Sweet young things to sails. Happy sailing.
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