Hoisting the sales
Gangway, landlubbers! Summer starts off icially this week, which means for those with the means and the boat landing, it’s time to show your stuff on the high seas (or the shallow water bays, if that’s your thing).
Suffice to say, only readers of certain upper six- to seven-figure incomes will be doing a deep dive into these two titles. Even the fashion pages will cause sticker shock — like the $650 boating shorts by Ports 1961 featured in Boat International.
The latter focuses on The America’s Cup, which began on Friday, with a spread on the “billionaire buccaneers” who have competed in the elite race over the past century, including lots of folks’ names who begin with Duke, Sir, Lord and Baron. You get the idea.
The Cup, as Boat’s editors note, has been described as “a pissing contest for the world’s wealthiest men.”
But, it turns out, money doesn’t control the wind in their sails. An avid competitor in his day, media mogul Ted Turner is described as “very much par for the course.”
Another ultra-rich guy who actually won the cup in 1992, Bill Koch, whose Florida property is near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, boasts that he designed the “fastest boat in the world” using his doctorate degree in “fluid dynamics.”
These boaters are really floating in their own worlds.
Yachting is no less snooty, but its cover digs into the people behind the scenes, the shipbuilders who make these floating mansions.
Apparently, the Carolinas not only make a lot of furniture, but are also known for their boatbuilding gurus. Take John Bayliss, who started out as a charter boat captain and now has a booming boatbuilding business in the Outer Banks.
More interesting is a feature on diving with a twist. The author recounts a diving expedition in the Bahamas on what’s called the S 408, a sporting boat by Pursuit.
“Breathe In,” as the article is titled, is half-advertisement and half-travelogue, but at least the photos of diving shoots are dreamy, including one of the author swimming directly under the boat.
Yachting is skimpy on editorial, with nearly half of it occupied by page after page of ads, including one for an $18.9 million yacht called “Party Girl.”