The main business in Nelson's Dockyard is now yachts and super-yachts. There are a few "normal" yachts in the harbour, you can see one in the banner picture above dwarfed by Asahi, a 183ft sailing boat with 15 crew and 6 guest cabins. It is only $250,000 a week to charter (plus expenses), half the cost of Nero ($525,000 a week), the ship with the yellow funnel which also only has 6 cabins and is almost 300ft long.
Two boats which have particularly caught our eye; the first is Nahlin which was built in 1930 with steam power. It has been beautifuly restored by it's current owner James Dyson although it now has diesel enginges (picture taken from the web).
It left the harbour on the 21st so presumably James is here on his holidays.
The other nice boat is called Adix and has a rather more exciting recent history.
It’s owner, a Spaniard called Jamie Botin, had a Picasso on board called “Head of a Young Woman” painted in 1906. It is classified as a “National Treasure” by the Spanish Authorities so he should not have taken it outside Spain without permission but this would not have been a problem whilst it remained on his boat however he decided to sell it. He asked for an export licence from Spain, this was denied but he ignored this and hid the painting on board when a customs man did an inspection, he was planning to take it to Switzerland. He was caught and fined €54m and given an 18 month jail sentence, for some reason the judge later increased the fine to €91m and doubled the jail term to 3 years although apparently he has been let out on health grounds, he is 83.
His yacht moored close to our hotel and is very stylish so he clearly has taste, it is 213ft long has 14 crew and space for 10 guests, it will be interesting to see if he pops over for Christmas.
Gill and I hope you have a great Christmas, we hope to spend it on the beach, a boring picture will probably be in our next blog.