Stunning.
Wait for the interior.
Oh my.
Stunning lines.
Meh
Find it hard to get excited by Spirit adding another 10ft of teak and one more crystal decanter to the last similar design.
Overly expensive sailing jewellery for rich tossers.
I get more excited watching a bunch of kids whipping oppies round a local lake...or flying a moth in choppy sea off Eastbourne
Overly expensive sailing jewellery for rich tossers.
Yeah, but it is stunning...
The doors are so amazing you have to insert your hand into the super secret motion detector then the door super secretly opens....wait a minute I’ve a much better idea - it’s called a handle!
Also nice and curvy and all that, and I’m sure it’s super expensive and knobbish to make all of the wood from the same log so the grains all match, but the end result of this looks terrible to me. The appeal of wood is in the variation of the grain, not in spending forever making it look as uniform as possible.
But otherwise quite a nice design, especially if you have a pathological hatred of corners.
We were on holiday in Weymouth a few years back, and the black pearl yacht was anchored offshore. Dear sweet Lord, you should see that thing, Sat on the beach one day and a section opens on the side of it and a massive powerboat slides out and sails off. I've never seen anything like it.
Incredible workmanship.👌 Always feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of one dude owning it as a play thing though.
Perhaps a couple of dudes could club together and buy one so you don't feel so bad.
As taste and wealth are often inversely proportional, it at the very least passes that test.
Overly expensive sailing jewellery for rich tossers.
But at the end of the day; this sums me up as well, sorry.
Perhaps a couple of dudes could club together and buy one so you don’t feel so bad.
Yes, that would sufficiently negate the point I was making... 😂 3 would be better.
It's beautifully made, but there's something about it that leaves me cold. All those curves are just dull, sort of businessman-hotel-styling but on a boat. Very clean, very elegant, very boring.
Yes, it's built for some-one with no imagination. At the very least though, it isn't the sort of "Interior by Russian Oligarch" which inhabits most of these sorts of obscene playthings , where if some gold or marble is good, then clearly a whole interior of gold and gold coloured marble is so much more betterer
as long as you can hose it clean, after the coked up hookers have puked everywhere.
I'm in a slightly tricky position as I know the MD of Spirit very well and I supposedly know about all things wood and design.....so have had careful conversations about this before.
It is a labour of love, and has been a massive undertaking. Some of the craftsmanship Spirit get involved in is out of this world. I look at that as a designer/maker and am in awe.
But......it's not for me. Which is a good thing as even if you chipped three naughts off the price I'd still struggle to afford it!
I'd love the yacht and as I understand it, it is perfectly possible to sail it in 'normal' weather singlehanded. Pretty much everything about the exterior is awesome. Granted I'd want more deck access to concealed storage for toys (bikes obvs, sups, dive kit, a small rib, windsurf and kite boards etc etc). The aesthetic is awesome but it is a compromise - no solar, not shade, no weather protected wheel house. I'd probably prefer a more classic bluewater cruiser.
Internally - I can appreciate the beauty but it feels way too compromised to me. I'm very much more a form follows function kind of person. That does not mean fugly, just setup for living and flexibility in use first then crafted to make it stunning. Lack of views from inside is I guess a consequence of the J class styling. I can't imagine that ever feeling like 'home' - but I guess that was never the point - it was made to be a daysailer for the mega wealthy. If it needs shifting between locations when the owner is not onboard I guess the crew would sleep in the guest cabins which is unusual on a yacht that size.
Finally I'd chop 30-40 foot off the length to allow it to access the bettest places. It's a bit like having a 60ft RV and going from large campsite to large campsite rather than a 6m camper and exploring everything in between.
You'd hope the billionaire that commissioned that was a lot more interesting than the typical owner of gold and marble gin palace horror show. And by reports he is.
No crew.... I'm out.
An alternative would be to run it as a club, although the interior wouldn’t lend itself for that.
A template could be the way Overlord is run, and has been since about the time I was born (early sixties). Overlord is windfall yacht and after being taken from the Luftwaffe in 1945 came under private ownership and is owned and operated by the Offshore Cruising Club. It has never cost much to join, you pay a daily rate to sail on her and the fees can be offset against labour during annual refits. My father was a skipper from late sixties to early eighties and I was a cadet member and learned to sail bigger boats on her on various cruises including a number of channel crossings in the mid seventies. Another stunningly beautiful boat but practical and seaworthy.
Great boat and full marks to Nigel and his team at Spirit for getting the buyer and working it across the line and also to the buyer for sticking to his guns and getting the boat he wants.
For those with slightly smaller budgets, I have a 60ft Spirit yacht for sale at the moment.... 🙂
Stunning craftsmanship though.
As a steam bender enthusiast myself, that curved bench thing is rad. Reminds me of the stuff Matthias Pliessnig does.
Still, needs more roses and castles.
Campfreddie, What have you got for sale? Asking for a friend..
For those with slightly smaller budgets, I have a 60ft Spirit yacht for sale at the moment…. 🙂
Fiver and a box of maltesers do it?
Floor's a bit creaky though innit?
Overly expensive sailing jewellery for rich tossers
One of Mrs kilo’ colleagues has / had a big boat, I think it’s a 65 foot oyster or similar. Entered fastnet one year and one of the guys crewing said he’d bring the wine for the trip.Mrs kilo thinks he might have swapped it for something bigger now!
X
Overdone the wood a tad. Who owns it, ****ing Pinocchio?
Always feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of one dude owning it as a play thing though.
At least he's spent the cash employing some excellent craftsmen and women rather that keeping it under the mattress. As for decor, it's more tasteful than most footballer's houses.
Inside feels a bit Radisson Blu business lounge for me.
Beautiful boat with an utterly soulless interior.
My mate started with them in Jan.
Fancy Dan stuff but too flash for me.
People who sail like/want wooden ships chock full of cubbyholes and gin.
People with lots of money want plastic and shiny chrome.
If you're going to have a water caravan, might as well be characterful 😀
A lovely thing to fly around the various places to be on the Med. No obvious tender/dinghy though (sorry, I skimmed through the video with sould off while on a call), so could be limited to where you can practically park the thing.
A beautiful relaxing peaceful holiday for someone with oodles of money, and who likes sailing, or the idea of sailing, while you pay someone to do it infront of you. To my mind, nicer than parking your white gin palace somewhere and sitting on it infront of all the plebs walking the harbour.
A beautiful relaxing peaceful holiday for someone with oodles of money, and who likes sailing, or the idea of sailing, while you pay someone to do it in front of you.
I think the idea is almost the exact opposite, it's a sailing boat first, everything else second.
Hence no 'engine', only a small garage for a motorbike, not jet skis, a launch, SUPS, and whatever else. There are not even any berths for those crew, just guests. And all the systems being set up so you could sail it single/short handed if needs be.
Compare and contrast to the interior of something like Indio with a galley for the chef, crew berths, etc despite being shorter. Even the interior has removable padding so the crew doesn't knock it whilst at sea!
Then compare to stuff like Wild Oats XI, which manages to be both ugly, impossible to sail without a crew, and impossible to sail without the engine running!
I think the idea is almost the exact opposite, it’s a sailing boat first, everything else second.
I phrased it badly, but yes, I meant someone who would enjoy the actual sailing (being 40 degrees over, spray in your face, trimming the sails and so on, not just sit there while someone brings you cocktails); but may (or may not) need to employ someone with the qualifications and experience on a 100+ footer to show you the ropes the first few times.
and so on
Starboard primary winches underwater...... as you realize someone forgot to tie on the port side genoa sheet.(not I)
Where the land meets the sea is not an area you should be sailing directly towards 😆
I phrased it badly, but yes, I meant someone who would enjoy the actual sailing (being 40 degrees over, spray in your face, trimming the sails and so on, not just sit there while someone brings you cocktails); but may (or may not) need to employ someone with the qualifications and experience on a 100+ footer to show you the ropes the first few times.
It'd be interesting too see what his previous sailing history is. Im guessing he's done a bit more than Nielsen holliday, googled for expensive boats and written a cheque. Anyone know what his previous boats were?
Incredible workmanship.👌 Always feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of one dude owning it as a play thing though.
Think of it back to front. He's probably built up a company and sold it to make that sort of money.
Then all that moneys been disseminated to a whole load of designers, engineers, craftsmen, trades etc.
You could be philanthropic or even completely communist and say he should just have given the money to some poor people. But at the end of the day it achieves the same thing. Otherwise you just have a few out of work chippies in Suffolk traded off against whatever you deem more worthy (a researcher in a lab, a farmer growing maize that goes to famine relief, etc).
The MD of Spirit lives just up the road from me, and has fitted out a van as a camper in a similar manner to the boats. Very nice it is too!