Yacht that lost its keel is brought back from the deep
One of the most remarkable restorations of recent years is a yacht salvaged from the seabed and completely rebuilt as a luxury charter vessel.
Champagne Hippy arrived in St Lucia in December on the ARC rally, showing her new owner’s confidence in the work he has done to restore her to glory. This was once the Oyster 825 Polina Star III, which lost her keel off the coast of Spain in July 2015. She sank in minutes after the matrix to which the keel stub attached catastrophically failed. The crew were rescued from their liferaft.
The resulting question of liability was a contributing factor to Oyster going into administration in early 2018.
But just as the prestigious yacht company and brand has risen again, so too has Polina Star III. Despite lying 40m beneath the sea for three months, she was salvaged and brought back to the UK to be stored at
Essex Boatyard. When the insurers settled with the owner, he relinquished the yacht to the boatyard. The yard’s owners, brothers James, Nick, Guy and David Barke, “had to decide what to do. We had £80,000 of costs tied up in it,” explains Nick Barke.
“I saw a sticker with ARC 2014 on the boat. I didn’t know what that was so I Googled it and I said to my elder brother, James, I’d like to do that next year,” recalls Barke. “We are not sailors, we’re motorboaters. I’ve never sailed before but I liked the idea of it. We’ve got our own operation so we rebuilt the boat and we were able to do everything in house.”
Getting the renamed Champagne Hippy sailing again was a huge project that took over a year. “At one stage we had 25 people working 24 hours a day on it,” Barke recalls.
The keel was recast, the whole middle of the port side had delaminated and had to be remoulded, as did the matrix and keel stub. The hole in the bottom of the boat was, Barke remembers: “big enough to park a small hatchback car in.”
All the interior including all the wiring and pipework was removed and rebuilt in a new layout.
With (most of) a new mast, new rigging, new plumbing and wiring, new engine, entirely new interior, the work list was exhaustive.
The rebuild and then transatlantic passage is a fantastic achievement, and a credit to the skills at Essex Boatyard. YW will have the full story coming up very soon.