Speedboat makes waves
Azimut 50: Italian yacht can travel at speeds of up to 30 knots and costs $1.8 million
LUXE LAUNCH: Three days after arriving from a posting in Cairo, Italian consul-general
Massimiliano Iacchini stood on Fraser Yacht Sales’ Milltown Marina dock. Not to ship out again, but to greet an Azimut 50 yacht that
Paolo Vitelli’s firm built in Viareggio and Ian Fraser’s outfit introduced here. The dolce vita surroundings included shows of Ferrari and Maserati cars and Italian designer fashions, along with enough Giusti Prosecco and still wines to float the 30-knot fast vessel’s dinghy.
Those eyeballing the Azimut and a 43-foot sibling included BMO Nesbitt Burns V-P Jan
Canning and e-commerce consultant-entrepreneur Tish Hill. The two have competed regionally in Southern Straits, Swifture and Whidbey Island sailing races, as well as Antigua Race Week, Hawaii’s Kenwood Cup, the BVI spring regatta and suchlike. Hill’s obvious laughter in the accompanying photo was “because I was pinching her bum,” longtime friend Canning said, smiling innocently.
The fiscal pinch for acquiring a Tuscany-built Azimut 50 speedster would be $1.8 million.
PLACKTIS MAKES PERFECKT? Developer and former luxury spec-home builder Alfie Placktis may not be pinching himself. But his fingers likely are crossed after meeting Jim Ackerman in New York Thursday. The CNBC senior vice-president of prime time alternative programming heard Placktis’s pitch for Renegade Entrepreneur. To be produced with Gavin Wilding, Robert Caplain and Tricon Media Inc., the reality series, mooted first in 2013, would see Placktis and assorted aspirants powwow on putting business deals together.
FIDDLE TO GRIDDLE: Violinist Rosemary Siemens was out of the country recently to perform in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. Janey Harper, who lends her 300-year-old French violin to Siemens, wants to see the latter in the country. Country music, that is. Could be, as Siemens and Bryant Olender — Michael Bublé’s early-career music director — are mulling joint compositions in the Alison Krauss idiom. Country-born herself, Siemens handmade sausages for the Food Network’s Chef In Your Ear premiere episode.
“It was like going back to my Mennonite roots in Plum Coulee,” the self-confessed kitchen klutz said of stuffing the bangers. She’ll return to Manitoba this winter for four concerts with pianist Roy Tan and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
PEDALS FOR HER METTLE: Eco-Century Technologies president Kerry Gibson is a good musician, too. She’d be even better if she could work her century-old piano’s pedals. Ironically, having taught disabled children to ride horses, Williams Lake-raised Gibson is now paraplegic. She dreams of Tetra Society techies devising ways for disabled pianists to utilize those pedals. Meanwhile, she’s working prestissimo to fundraise for Surrey-based Innovation Boulevard’s “partnership of health, business, higher education and government creating new health technologies to improve peoples’ lives.”
GREATER EIGHTY-EIGHTER: In the Waterfall building recently, Steinway & Son president Ron Losby unveiled an instrument he said performs virtuoso works all by itself. The Spirio is a grand-style player piano, but not the roll-driven kind that clunks out Spanish Flea or ancient de Souza marches. Instead, its phrasing, pedalling and volume are reportedly indistinguishable from the 1,700 works Steinway artists performed for Spirio purchasers to access via an iPad app. All for $130,000 or so.
HAND- ME- UPS: Former Saddle Sores band manager Helen Siwak and lawyer Richard Rainey’s Realia Music Inc. offered moviemakers a lot of exclusive soundtrack music for not much money in 2000. She’s still in the bargain business at her and husband Vlassis Xanthopoulos’s THE Closet YVR boutique beside Carrall Street’s Pidgin restaurant. He’s an Athens riot police officer and fellow vegan that she married during a decade in Europe.
Back in Vancouver, a celphone-yacker’s car promptly hit their motorcycle. Recovering from injuries, they began buying and reselling higher-end garments online. So did many others, thus their “not a popup store … where people could see the goods.” The 1,200 items there recently included Siwak’s Alberta Ferretti jacket, half of a $195 set, and Robert Rodriguez linen-blend pants, $95. Her window mannequin’s Burberry trench dress was tagged $215.
“If you buy everything secondhand, you make a great contribution to the environment,” Siwak said.
TUNING UP: Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra readied for its 2015-2016 season with an indoors reception and mini recitals at Van-Dusen Botanical Garden recently. Ken Hsieh, the former Vancouver Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor who now guest-conducts orchestras globally, founded the VMO in 2000. He dedicated it “to the artistic, personal and professional development of outstanding young musicians.” Several, like VSO first violinist Jason Ho, now have professional careers.
That nurturing commitment was counterpointed when a prayed-for sudden shower sent other Van-Dusen attendees dashing for shelter. Watching them, Taiwan-born VMO chair Kevin Chen said: “I’m not an artistic person.” In fact, the civil engineer and Formation Project Management principal did play bass in jazz-rock ensembles. Pal Hsieh recruited him by volunteering to be godfather to Chen’s then-pregnant wife Joan’s child. Hsi eh has played an equivalent musical role many times since.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Try this on for geopolitical size: Putin vs. Trump.