Boating for billionaires

Aspiring sailors are often taunted with the jibe that taking to the water is akin to standing in a cold shower with your clothes on while ripping up $100 notes. Try telling that to Joe Vittoria.

This week his Mirabella V - the world's largest single-masted yacht - will begin its maiden voyage, leaving Portsmouth for Portugal, from where it will continue to the Mediterranean to pick up its first charter. It will be a welcome departure for the £30 million ($87 million) sloop.

Nearly six months late, the Mirabella V has missed the first two major dates on the European yachting season: the Cannes Film Festival and the Monaco Grand Prix, where the world's wealthiest sailors indulge in the international art of nautical one-upmanship.

The project overran its budget by £5.4 million ($15.6 million), hitting its builders Vosper Thornycroft, which signed fixed contracts with the wily Vittoria - a matter he says is strictly for them.

The American-born entrepreneur, who built and sold the Avis rental car chain, is sanguine about the delays. It is said the reason his luxury yacht failed to make it to Monaco in time was because his wife Luciana was unhappy with the floral arrangements on board. It was a nice story and certainly put the project back in the news.

A cruise on his sloop will cost £140,000 ($405,600) a week for the low season rising to £150,000 ($434,600) for the high season.

To break even, Vittoria must find holidaymakers able and willing to find that sort of money for 14 to 15 weeks of the year. If he can book for 20 weeks he will "make a little money" above his running costs of £1.4 million to £1.7 million ($4 million to $5 million) a year.

"There are 497 billionaires in the world and I need just 20 of them," he is fond of saying when asked how he will make such an extravagant venture turn a profit.

Vittoria insists he never reveals the names of his clients and already successfully charters two other 40m-plus yachts, Mirabella and Mirabella III - he sold Mirabella II and decided to skip Mirabella IV. He says Americans, often reluctant to go abroad in times of war, at the moment feel comfortable on board luxury charters.

The typical profile of a Mirabella V sailor, he says, is "a successful business person, who may have created a business and sold it. Someone who is seriously well off but not just on paper".

"There are plenty of people out there who will spend £1 million [$2.9 million] on a holiday."

So what exactly will you get for that sort of money? The yachting world has been reporting in increasing tones of awe on the development of the Mirabella V.

The mighty mast stands 50 per cent taller than any other mast built - making its sails (as big as a football pitch) the largest in the world - and required six months of rigorous testing at the National Physics Laboratory in London to bring it up to the required standard.

Its length is 75m and at top speed can reach a respectable 20 knots - making it a boat that will appeal to the enthusiast as well as those sailors of the gin and tonic variety.

The maiden voyage will take in Naples, the home town of Vittoria's wife, where the crew will undergo familiarisation training. This week she said: "I am a perfectionist. For me the details are very important, I notice every little thing but the Mirabella V has lived up to what I expected."

Vosper Thornycroft used technology from the Grand Prix and aerospace industries to create the yacht. It was built in five sections and then bonded together. Despite its vast size, it is the add-ons, the "toys", as Vittoria puts it, that add the waft of luxury. There are 12 teak and fabric-lined cabins for the guests and a sumptuous state room for the yacht's master - the chief charterer or Vittoria and his wife when they are on board.

There is a pool and a jacuzzi - with room for 20 people - while guests can gather round on the skydeck to take the helm or take in a film at the outdoor cinema. For the connoisseur, there is a 600-bottle wine cellar, for the film buff, a second cinema, and a gymnasium and sauna for the keep-fit enthusiast.

Vittoria has imported silks from specialist museum supplier Antico in Italy for the decor as well as decked out the lavish interior with antique furniture, topped with Cristofle cutlery, Bagni Volpi sheets and Italian table linen.

The rest of the action takes place in what has been dubbed "Joe's garage". This area contains a 9m tender - essential because Mirabella V will be too big to moor in most docks. Vittoria points out: "If I've learned one thing it's that you have to move your guests quickly but, importantly, comfortably, without wrecking the hairdos."

The Mirabella V is a floating watersports centre with diving gear, water skis and inflatables. For real sailing nuts there are also four small Laser racing dinghies and, bizarrely, two 1.5m miniature remote-controlled replicas of the Mirabella V for a gentler workout.

The yacht is being launched into a buoyant economy and analysts are confident this summer's Mediterranean cruising season will be the best yet. Mirabella V has already been booked for a month over the Christmas and New Year period.

Andrew Bray, editor of Yachting World, said: "Big boats are not just buoyant, they are booming. People out there with money want to spend £10-15 million [$29-$43 million] on a boat."

The market, for the sale and hire of boats, is being boosted by the growing presence of Russians, who have been big players in the charter world for nearly a decade.

But the Americans control the biggest wallets and with it the biggest boats. Last year, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, became the first person in 2003 to own three private yachts measuring more than 60m. His flagship is the 126m Octopus, thought to have cost £113 million ($327.5 million). Oracle's chief executive, Larry Ellison, has commissioned a 140m vessel - also his third yacht. The whisper is that it will be launched by the end of the year.

Nick Heming of Camper & Nicholsons, one of the world's leading brokers and charterers, said the only way was up. "There is always something new coming into the market - something bigger and better. If you are rich you always want something more."

- INDEPENDENT

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