Galactica Star
The yacht is the private jet’s more romantic sibling. Jets are loud and limited by landing spots. Yachts represent pleasure more than convenience. Wealth buys freedom not regulations; the yacht smirks at the idea that you’re bound by anything but a horizon that inches forward as you do.
Furthermore, there’s something irresistibly nerdy about yachts. Learning to sail is another skill to add to the UHNW CV of dreams.
The most famous modern yachts are as much a work of art as they are a machine: The precise curation of art and design in Blue Bird’s saloon makes an expansive cabin look like the lounge of a Belgravia townhouse. Tara Getty’s yacht – rescued from the scrap heap by the oil heiress and and restored to its original splendour – is utterly elegant. Quite different is Dakis Joannou’s Guilty: its exterior is a graphic, architectural print executed by the artist Jeff Koons in an clashing palette of yellow, black, white and blue. It’s different, but like Blue Bird it celebrates the object: the contoured lines of a super-vessel.
Galactica Star
Obviously, if you can afford the best, you’ll want it: in March this year, Dutch company Heesen Yachts launched the Galactica Star, the world’s first all-aluminium fast displacement motor yacht. The yacht scales water particularly efficiently, and has a specialised hull that reduces tension with the waves (less seasickness) and makes it easier to handle in the water. The yacht incorporates technology that reduces its emissions and confounds the norm of gas-guzzling monstrosity. The hydrodynamic design was developed by Van Oossanen Naval Architects and the result is 30% more efficient than a round-bilge motor yacht.
Of course the yacht is more than just a shiny toy you can sail. For all its presence, it is also symbolic of absence: of escaping, of the freedom of picking your destination, of being totally disconnected from reality. This applies whether you’ve sorted out a wifi connection or not. A yachting holiday connotes an adventurous spirit, a love of intrigue, a desire to find the sunset and keep sailing. The Galactica Star is the vessel to do it in. C