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Mirabella V, 2004, Length 75.2 m (247 ft), Beam 14.8 m 49 ft, Weight 1004 tonnes.
Simpson Lagoon Bridge, St Martin width 16.75 m 55 ft. , Weight: Attached to the Earth
Skipper: Some Aussie Dude.
Reason for Entry: Dude looking for new job????????????
Audience: Cruisers in dinks and viewing platform at Yacht Club
Action: See Photos Below
Photo 1: "The Bow was easy...."
Photo 2: "Cap'n the puffy thing won't fit!"
Photo 3: "If you look up you'll see the spread.....ers...!"
Photo 4: "Witnesses"
Photo 5: "Fat ass."
That thing really is a bit of a 'see what I can buy' white elephant. It's not particularly attractive, esp amongst the many gorgeous classics you find at the various Caribbean ports, and it's too tall for most any harbour bridge worldwide.
I was going to charter her for a week @ 300,000/week (2007). I called 300 of my friends and asked them if they would join me. Ok we had a plan - then I went back to the website and it said that the max number of guest was 14!!!!! OMG.
It was probalby good that the plan did not work I cant imagine calling a diesel truck to fill her up at $5 a gallon with twin 1066hp engines and 15,000 gallons fuel capacity. The asking price is 29,000,000 euros/50.000,000 US
If you ever get the opportunity to read the book about the "Maltese Falcon" entitled "Mine's Bigger" its a real education. My wife purchased the book for me last fall and I couldn't put it down. The specifications of the craft are beyond belief and the cost was mind boggling.
You have to try extra hard to make boats this ugly.
1' clearance isn't that big a deal for these vessels. Ships routinely pass through the Panama Canal with similar clearance. Of course, they have 4 or 8 locomotives holding them in the center of the lock.
Mark,
Thanks for the fun photos. You could have named this thread "Mirabella VS Simpson Lagoon Bridge!"
I'm with Faster on this as this boat is not to my taste, no matter how much money I had.
I'm sorry but anyone who says this is ugly has all their taste in their mouths (with respect).
She may be huge and not as pretty as a Catalina 23 (yeah right) but geez, that's a serious piece of kit. And I bet she's tooling along at a cool 25 knots right there.
If you want to see ugly, have a look at Athena, she's presently under wraps in Auckland for a repaint and refit, you can see she needs it real bad.
I've always kinda wondered why there aren't luxury submarines. If I had a couple billion dollars, after I bought a superyacht or two (sail, of course), I'd probably buy a submarine. Also, Vertigo is my new favorite megayacht.
I think Mirabella's owner was clear on his vision for V: he wanted the boat with the tallest mast. Everything else was secondary. Someone else in this thread mentioned the book "Mine's Bigger", the book written about Tom Perkins' quest to build Maltese Falcon. That book also talks about Joe's vision for Mirabella and several other contemporary superyacht sailboats. Very interesting reading for those who like to see how the other 0.0001% lives. When someone noted to Joe Vittorino that his charter fees for Mirabella were really high, he said something like "I only have to find a few millionaires to charter to". Nice.
I think that the funniest part is the photo of Mirabella with the dark hulled boat next to her. The "poor" guy came in and had the most kick butt boat in the harbor until the white whale parked next to her. So she went from "wow" to "hey look at the cute little boat next to Mirabella".
I never said Mirabella was 'ugly'.. just the impression you get is 'huge', even monstrous. From a mile away she looks, like any sailboat, nice enough. But even a Roberts Spray looks good under sail from a distance.
The mere 150 footers manage to still look like yachts up close.
But wandering places like the Antigua YC (whose clubhouse is extremely modest compared to many NA clubs, esp considering the yachts they host year round), and inside Simpson Lagoon at St Maarten where you see 150 foot poweryachts lined up like weekend rental runabouts really hammers home the incredible wealth of the relatively few.
What could these people do for the world if they 'helped out' instead of 'helping themselves'? (I know - a totally other discussion so pretend I didn't write it......)
+1 for Mine's Bigger. Even though it's a Maltese Falcon book, Kaplan goes into a fair bit of detail about Mirabella V and Athena (since this is a Mirabella V thread).
My problem is (as though it matters in the slightest bit what I think of it) whereas Athena looks silly, and Maltese Falcon looks unconventional (and I'm being charitable there), Mirabella V is just too big. And not in an egalitarian "he's-earned-enough-money" or "how-many-people-could-he-have-helped" kind of way. It's just cumbersome. For example, if gybing makes you nervous, don't even worry about it on Mirabella V; she is forbidden from doing it by the insurance company. To go from a port tack run to a starboard tack run entails a 320°+ turn and a tack, a process which, if I'm recalling correctly, takes somewhere on the order of 10 minutes to complete.
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