MY FANTASY FLEET
Name: Kevin Bird Current boat: Fairline Targa 38 Berthed: Torquay
fter over a decade out of coastal boating, Kevin Bird of BMW specialist and tuning company Birds stepped back in to nautical life on the ocean with a Fairline Targa 38 that he keeps in Torquay Marina, where previously he’d kept a Sea Ray 390 Express Cruiser back in the Nineties. Unusually, he already owns two of his dream three – just one to go!
2006 FAIRLINE TARGA 38 £160,000
The first on my list would be what I already have, a 2008 Fairline Targa 38. It might not look like fantasy material until you recognise the two years I took to decide what I wanted and finding “the right one”, then factor in my need to get everything right. Of course there is a fairly long (and growing) list of things that don’t work or could do with a little redesign. I would guess at £40,000 on top of the £160,000 purchase price would do it, so it’s still not real fantasy material for most, I guess. Anyone obsessive enough to find out what’s on the list can contact me through MBY. As a dayboat with reasonable running costs, it’s hard to beat. Dream location, I wasn’t expecting to like Torquay so much but walking onto the pontoons brought back many pleasant memories.
1971 LEVI DELTA £45,000
Second, again, I already have. This is a Levi Delta hull built by Italian firm Cantieri Delta back in 1976. Its former owner spent £30,000 restoring the hull and superstructure, and very nearly got there. Save for an “engine rebuild”, which seemed to predominantly involve the application of several aerosols of red Hammerite (both outside and in!), which subsequently had to be done again, she’s close to a dream boat. Respecting her advancing years, she is moored on the Thames, and performs light duties only. The dream would be complete if there were a further splurge of cash to get rid of the potential unreliability and stop things falling off over time. The ultimate fantasy would be to digitise the hull, upscale it slightly to accommodate a couple of Mercruiser V8 petrols and rebuild it in modern materials. I tried to get Adrian Newey interested but he declined to take my call. The Thames is lovely, but I feel a bit daft with a sea boat that isn’t allowed past 5 knots. Can’t be that bad, though, there’s a bloke upriver with a Hunton XRS43. Seriously.
2003/2015 REFITTED BUGARI 29 €2.8M
The last one is pure fantasy. Not too glitzy apart from the underwater lights (thankfully they can and will be switched off), this is a floating five star hotel just waiting for a competent crew to complete it. Large and capable enough for long plods around the West Indies, and also has the credentials to be allowed to berth in Falmouth Harbour (Antigua, not Cornwall). What attracts me most is the engine room, and the extensive measures to avoid NVH. If that is an example of the focus of the entire design, I’m in.
Send in your suggestions of how to spend your fictional £5 million to mby@ti-media.com