On board S/Y Bushido
If a boat can be called a work of art then surely ones designed by William Fife qualify him as the Degas of yacht construction. Fife was a Scot, but unlike fellow Scots such as Blair and Brown, he handed down beauty, not misery, modern maritime Parthenons rather than debt and anarchy. No one has ever got near him as far as art on water is concerned. Cambria, Altair, Mariquita, Moonbeam, Fintra, Viola, Nan of Fife, Mikado, Jap, I could go on. My son sailed on Mariquita as a deckhand while she raced in classic contests, and has been hooked on beauty ever since. The visual aspects of a sailing boat are like those of a woman. Proportions are all. A beautiful figure cannot make up for a very ugly face, and vice versa. Boats are feminine, and a sheerline, a counter or even the way a deck house slopes make the difference between extraordinary beauty and rather dreary artlessness.
Mind you, Fife was no prima donna. He viewed himself as a practical boat builder whose career spanned 60 years (1857–1944). I often wonder what the great man’s thoughts would be were he around nowadays. Especially when viewing the horrors with which the Russians are showing off their ill-gotten gains. Low-lifes rarely buy sailing boats. They go for the stink pot every time, just as they always prefer hookers to proper girls. Show me a modern superyacht and I’ll show you a vulgarian, starting with that bum who owns Chelsea.
But I digress. Why think of ugly things and people while living the life aquatic on board Bushido? As I’ve told you previously, Bushido came about when I got tired of looking at cows. George Nicholson introduced me to an Italian designer who drove up to Switzerland to meet me. We chatted amiably for a while about boats, then I had one too many and began telling him stories. He also got drunk. The next time we met was in Monte Carlo with my captain and my son. The designs he showed us were a disaster. The boat looked like a pregnant penguin, whereas I wanted a Fife. John-Taki, although severely dyslexic, took a pencil and drew the overhangs I wanted and the deck house. As did the captain, a Frenchman who at the last count had had five wives and was working on a sixth. (I have another captain now, a wonderful Aussie whose knowledge of the sea compares to my first captain’s familiarity with a woman’s anatomy.)
After that it became a matter of time. Would the boat be ready for the 2004 Olympics in Athens or not. I planned to arrive with full sails, swing around the yacht club, then head for Vouliagmeni. The mother of my children and my daughter had done a great job on the interior, and we had copied the Creole, the 1927 black beauty, on the outside. Bushido was a success and my summers were secure. The next year, 2005, Pug’s was founded off a private bay in the Peloponnese, and the rest is history, as bores tend to say. One thing is for sure. The bigger and flashier the boat, the shorter and uglier the owner. Better yet, the longer the boat, the shorter the willy. Mine is 37 metres long, quite normal for a steel-hulled ketch which even William Fife might look upon with pride. I am very happy on board, especially as the cabins are roomy, the showers enormous and the crew simply excellent.
Sailing around the isles of Greece is one long cliché. Wine-dark sea and all that. Green Ionian islands surrounded by calm seas, craggy Aegean ones with white caps slapping against the rocky edges, smooth bays with spectacular views on the green Peloponnese. Unspoilt beaches with — alas — ever-present plastic bags and rubbish, chirping cicadas, old toothless women dressed in black, smiling and welcoming us. It is a soft, natural beauty that has been around for ever, one that even man’s greed has not been able to spoil. Pebbled beaches lead to turquoise water, and then there’s Bushido at anchor. I’ve been visiting friends, including Aleko Goulandris, whose friendship began in 1945; and more recent ones such as George Livanos, friend since 1955. Nostalgia reigns. I have yet to run into any horrors, meaning superyacht owners.
Mind you, this could end any minute. At times, in fact, I feel like Anne Frank, but for the moment the bad guys are all in the South of France, where their women wear no pants and where their mega monsters are polluting the little that’s left unspoilt. How will it all end? In tears, of course. The moral imbecility of man has no bounds. The bad taste of the newly rich is infinite. Boats will continue to get bigger and uglier, our shallow, materialistic, celebrity-obsessed, infantile culture will soon dismiss anything William Fife ever designed, and Taki and Bushido will be assigned to the rubbish bin of history. But here’s the catch. Before this happens I plan to enjoy myself. And I’ve got good news. Poseidon himself is on my side. That son-of-a-bitch Abramovich is in Poseidon’s bad books. The Russky has upset him (too vulgar) and Poseidon takes no crap from anyone. Look out for one, or two, or even all three of the vulgarian’s monsters to be swallowed up by Neptune’s waves. Yippee!
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