Marlin275
04-15-2004, 02:13 PM
Seems Donzis are a deal compared to this!
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/15/international/europe/15spez.html
The Perfect Yacht for the Jet Set, and Only $25 Million
You want speed? You've got it. The WallyPower boat is designed to go at roughly 75 miles an hour.
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: April 15, 2004
Sandro Michahelles for The New York Times
The engines devour 1,000 gallons of fuel an hour at top speed.
Sandro Michahelles for The New York Times
Luca Bassani's company built the boat, which sleeps 12 people, including crew, on spec. Anything larger might have been slower, he said.
LA SPEZIA, Italy - Over the course of many decades and countless deprived tycoons, it has been one of humankind's most vexing challenges: how to get, quickly and comfortably, from Portofino for breakfast to Sardinia for lunch and then, should the whim strike, St.-Tropez for dinner.
A fast car won't do; up to now, at least, Ferraris don't float.
A helicopter, perhaps?
"Then you have to drive to the helicopter pad," said Luca Bassani, waving that horrid notion away. A traveler can be expected to endure only so much inconvenience.
Besides, Mr. Bassani was on the deck of his own streamlined solution: a 118-foot-long water-jet-propelled yacht, tapered to the sharpness of a knife's blade at the bow, that looks like the buoyant love child of a Batmobile, a Concorde and a space shuttle.
It is designed to hit a speed of roughly 75 miles per hour and to sustain that for jaunts between the gilded Mediterranean harbors of the inaccurately christened jet set.
"People want more and more the possibility to move fast, to be in Ibiza and St.-Tropez and the Costa Smeralda at the same time," said Mr. Bassani, nailing a nearly universal yearning in this time-pressed age.
Mr. Bassani, for his part, wanted to satisfy that longing, so his yacht-making company, Wally, built the WallyPower 118. On a recent afternoon, it and he sat in a boatyard here, just a bit down the western Italian coast from Portofino and Le Cinque Terre.
Not yet a year old, the boat was receiving fresh coats of paint, new fiberglass floors and other grace notes. It is on the market, for a bargain-basement price of about $25 million.
That sum, incredibly, doesn't even put it in the vicinity of the most expensive yachts on the high-end seas.
According to yachting experts, the most opulent private boats, which stretch well beyond 300 feet, are worth hundreds of millions. Regular folks like Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, and the Sultan of Brunei own them.
But the WallyPower provides an especially interesting window onto the world of aquatic one-upmanship, in which yachting mavens aim for vessels quirkier and cooler than anything that floated before.
Mr. Bassani built it on spec, which is unusual, and bet that a buyer would forgive a somewhat cramped master bedroom and aggregate sleeping quarters for only 12 people, including crew.
Anything much larger might have been slower, he said, and the WallyPower is all about the wager that on the open ocean, as on the open road, speed thrills.
It splits the difference between a lightning-quick motorboat with no room for a pizza oven (which the WallyPower has) and an individually tailored Titanic that can do a party of 500 people but just 20 miles per hour.
The yachting press has strained to find the right metaphors and adjectives for Mr. Bassani's boat, which has been referred to as "origami on steroids'' and a "cruise missile."
A recent article in the magazine Yachting described it as "a futuristic craft that makes boys shout 'wow' and turns old men into boys who whisper 'wow' right along with them."
Mr. Bassani, 47, is a native of Milan whose family made a fortune in electric switches and circuit breakers.
Wally, which he started in 1994, is based in Monte Carlo, but its premier boats are built in Italy, a country obsessed, like Mr. Bassani, with fast vehicles and sleek design.
The WallyPower had distinguished company on Sunday. It sat in La Spezia next to a larger vessel that apparently once belonged to the late Gianni Agnelli, of Fiat fame and riches, and began its maritime life as a tugboat.
"Agnelli was one of the first to start converting working boats into yachts," said Monica Paolazzi, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bassani's company, as she appraised it. "Now, everybody has one."
The WallyPower was covered by an enormous plastic tarp while it was undergoing the renovations. Mr. Bassani parted the tarp like a curtain and led a journalist to the underbelly of the boat, which was raised slightly above a patch of pavement near the water's edge.
He then explained how aerodynamic design, water-jet propulsion and a special polycarbonate material worked to make the WallyPower so fleet. He apparently did not think it worth mentioning that the boat's three 5,600 horsepower engines chug down about 1,000 gallons of fuel an hour at maximum cruising speed. He talked instead about applications of military technology and sophisticated wind-tunnel tests.
That exegesis was at once utterly incomprehensible and very, very exciting.
He climbed on deck, an expanse of teak planks, minimalist black furniture, sharply angled walls and glass as heavily tinted as the windows of a limousine bound for the Academy Awards.
Two new-generation flat-screen televisions in a living room near the stern played a promotional video that featured wide-angle shots of the boat slicing through the sea.
Other shots showed the way the boat's quasi-reflective surface can make it seem gray one moment, orange the next. The soundtrack included bars of music from James Bond movies.
The WallyPower went unsold last summer, after its debut in August, but Mr. Bassani said he was not worried. He had just signed a contract, he said to build a nearly identical boat for a buyer who wanted a few modifications.
"People need time to digest all the innovation," he said. "Everyone is saying, 'It's beautiful, it's beautiful, but we are not ready yet.' "
Soon, he predicted, they would be. The WallyPower would be waiting in the waves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/15/international/europe/15spez.html
The Perfect Yacht for the Jet Set, and Only $25 Million
You want speed? You've got it. The WallyPower boat is designed to go at roughly 75 miles an hour.
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: April 15, 2004
Sandro Michahelles for The New York Times
The engines devour 1,000 gallons of fuel an hour at top speed.
Sandro Michahelles for The New York Times
Luca Bassani's company built the boat, which sleeps 12 people, including crew, on spec. Anything larger might have been slower, he said.
LA SPEZIA, Italy - Over the course of many decades and countless deprived tycoons, it has been one of humankind's most vexing challenges: how to get, quickly and comfortably, from Portofino for breakfast to Sardinia for lunch and then, should the whim strike, St.-Tropez for dinner.
A fast car won't do; up to now, at least, Ferraris don't float.
A helicopter, perhaps?
"Then you have to drive to the helicopter pad," said Luca Bassani, waving that horrid notion away. A traveler can be expected to endure only so much inconvenience.
Besides, Mr. Bassani was on the deck of his own streamlined solution: a 118-foot-long water-jet-propelled yacht, tapered to the sharpness of a knife's blade at the bow, that looks like the buoyant love child of a Batmobile, a Concorde and a space shuttle.
It is designed to hit a speed of roughly 75 miles per hour and to sustain that for jaunts between the gilded Mediterranean harbors of the inaccurately christened jet set.
"People want more and more the possibility to move fast, to be in Ibiza and St.-Tropez and the Costa Smeralda at the same time," said Mr. Bassani, nailing a nearly universal yearning in this time-pressed age.
Mr. Bassani, for his part, wanted to satisfy that longing, so his yacht-making company, Wally, built the WallyPower 118. On a recent afternoon, it and he sat in a boatyard here, just a bit down the western Italian coast from Portofino and Le Cinque Terre.
Not yet a year old, the boat was receiving fresh coats of paint, new fiberglass floors and other grace notes. It is on the market, for a bargain-basement price of about $25 million.
That sum, incredibly, doesn't even put it in the vicinity of the most expensive yachts on the high-end seas.
According to yachting experts, the most opulent private boats, which stretch well beyond 300 feet, are worth hundreds of millions. Regular folks like Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, and the Sultan of Brunei own them.
But the WallyPower provides an especially interesting window onto the world of aquatic one-upmanship, in which yachting mavens aim for vessels quirkier and cooler than anything that floated before.
Mr. Bassani built it on spec, which is unusual, and bet that a buyer would forgive a somewhat cramped master bedroom and aggregate sleeping quarters for only 12 people, including crew.
Anything much larger might have been slower, he said, and the WallyPower is all about the wager that on the open ocean, as on the open road, speed thrills.
It splits the difference between a lightning-quick motorboat with no room for a pizza oven (which the WallyPower has) and an individually tailored Titanic that can do a party of 500 people but just 20 miles per hour.
The yachting press has strained to find the right metaphors and adjectives for Mr. Bassani's boat, which has been referred to as "origami on steroids'' and a "cruise missile."
A recent article in the magazine Yachting described it as "a futuristic craft that makes boys shout 'wow' and turns old men into boys who whisper 'wow' right along with them."
Mr. Bassani, 47, is a native of Milan whose family made a fortune in electric switches and circuit breakers.
Wally, which he started in 1994, is based in Monte Carlo, but its premier boats are built in Italy, a country obsessed, like Mr. Bassani, with fast vehicles and sleek design.
The WallyPower had distinguished company on Sunday. It sat in La Spezia next to a larger vessel that apparently once belonged to the late Gianni Agnelli, of Fiat fame and riches, and began its maritime life as a tugboat.
"Agnelli was one of the first to start converting working boats into yachts," said Monica Paolazzi, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bassani's company, as she appraised it. "Now, everybody has one."
The WallyPower was covered by an enormous plastic tarp while it was undergoing the renovations. Mr. Bassani parted the tarp like a curtain and led a journalist to the underbelly of the boat, which was raised slightly above a patch of pavement near the water's edge.
He then explained how aerodynamic design, water-jet propulsion and a special polycarbonate material worked to make the WallyPower so fleet. He apparently did not think it worth mentioning that the boat's three 5,600 horsepower engines chug down about 1,000 gallons of fuel an hour at maximum cruising speed. He talked instead about applications of military technology and sophisticated wind-tunnel tests.
That exegesis was at once utterly incomprehensible and very, very exciting.
He climbed on deck, an expanse of teak planks, minimalist black furniture, sharply angled walls and glass as heavily tinted as the windows of a limousine bound for the Academy Awards.
Two new-generation flat-screen televisions in a living room near the stern played a promotional video that featured wide-angle shots of the boat slicing through the sea.
Other shots showed the way the boat's quasi-reflective surface can make it seem gray one moment, orange the next. The soundtrack included bars of music from James Bond movies.
The WallyPower went unsold last summer, after its debut in August, but Mr. Bassani said he was not worried. He had just signed a contract, he said to build a nearly identical boat for a buyer who wanted a few modifications.
"People need time to digest all the innovation," he said. "Everyone is saying, 'It's beautiful, it's beautiful, but we are not ready yet.' "
Soon, he predicted, they would be. The WallyPower would be waiting in the waves.