High life
In full sail
Taki
T ast Monday I opened the Daily Mail and its centrefold brought back memories. Unlike the filth magazines that feature nude hookers in the middle, the Mail's centre featured a lady, one I had travelled with exactly 22 years ago. Her name back then was the Hiniesta, and she is at present owned by a man called Robert Stigwood, an Australian whose artistic attributes include bringing the Bee Gees to prominence. Not untypically, Stigwood has changed her name to Jezebel, not a bad name for a member of the fairer sex, but one that does not sound right for a noble boat like the Hiniesta. After all, boats built before the war never let one down, nor did their crews, so maybe Stigwood should stick to naming pop groups, but perhaps I'm being unfair. At least Stigwood bought what he calls the last of the line, a truly beautiful and majestic ship that — like everything old — makes those modern super-yachts look as dignified as today's professional tennis players.
The Hiniesta was 250 feet long and had the graceful lines and funnel which were once de rigueur for ladies of the sea. By 1962 she had fallen on hard times and four of us chartered her for two weeks at $5,000 per week. My partners were Porfirio Rubi- rosa, an American called Bob Neal, and one of the most unpleasant men alive, the actor Peter Lawford. The trip was sup- posed to take us around the south of France, and old blue eyes himself, Signor Francis Albert Sinatra was, apparently, about to join us, but after Lawford got through speaking to the press the crooner stayed away.
The fortnight, needless to say, was not a success. Lawford spent most of the time picking on everyone. Rubi could hardly contain his frustration at the former's Jeffrey Bernard will resume his column next week. antics and kept taking it out on me, accusing me of leaving the ship like a rat. (There he was right. After two days of living the way they do in Hollywood I beat it and spent the rest of the week playing tennis.) Neal couldn't work out why there were no hamburgers and drive-ins in the small ports we anchored off, so he re- mained silent and confused. But the real winner was the boat. She had a marvellous, chintzy saloon, a white panelled library, large comfortable cabins, and -overhead revolving wooden fans. The crew was even better. They actually knew how to navi- gate, throw a line, drink and swear like sailors, and treat a lady of the sea the way she should be treated.
Well, I don't want to get into the nostalgia trap yet again, so I will simply say that now that Stigwood has requisitioned her and relaunched her it means that one less ugly boat will cruise around my home waters. And never mind the fact that there will be Hollywood types on board. If she put up with Lawford and survived she can put up with anything. What intrigues me most of all, however, is that so few people with too much money for their own good build or requisition boats like the Hiniesta, but prefer to compete with Khashoggi where ugliness and obscene opulence are concerned. I guess boats today have re- placed the monkeys ugly women went around carrying on their shoulders during the 17th century in order to look prettier by comparison.
Even more amazing is the demand for luxury yachts, which is as great as ever. And by luxury yacht I mean nothing costing less than £5 million. John Latsis, the Greek shipowner who just gave King Fand the 450-foot 'liner' that was outfitted at Vospers, paid a cool £50 million for it. Not a bad present to receive from one who — admittedly — has made ten or 20 times that amount by building the port in Saudi Arabia. The latest Khashoggi horror, a floating freezer, cost more and it even carries anti-aircraft missiles. Her 12,000- horsepower engines will pollute the Med
'I expect he listens to his own speeches
quicker than the Aga's boat, which imagine is the point of owning her.
But maybe it's envy on my part. I know that if I had that kind of money I would spend it on a boat but it would be a sailing one — with Arab arm dealers gone broke, manning the oars. I guess the joke I heard last week at Langan's explained the phe- nomenon better than I ever could. A mouse and a lion are walking along when i the lion falls down a giant manhole and is trapped. So he yells to the mouse for help and the mouse tells him to wait while he gets a rope and his Ferrari. He then ties the rope to the back of the car and throws it to the lion and pulls it out. The next day the mouse falls in and asks for help from the lion, which the lion offers by lowering hi,s, you know what. The moral of the story' Easy. When one is generously endowed by nature one does not need a Ferrari. Or a big yacht.
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