“A transatlantic crossing was on the couple’s minds.”

while on his honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico, Bob Book fell in love yet again — with boating. He fondly recalls taking out a 16-foot outboard-powered boat and being “hooked forever.” In fact, the American had such a great time that he and his wife decided to buy their first boat just a few months later. ¶ After a while, wanting to cruise more, they bought another boat. And then another. And another. Each one was successively larger, “appropriate for a certain period of my boating life,” he says. ¶ Eventually, the Books stepped up into superyachts. A few years ago, while they were enjoying the long range and family spaces of a 130-footer, their 16th — yes, 16th — yacht, Book decided that a full-displacement, metal-hull yacht was in order. A transatlantic crossing was on the couple’s minds, so reliable range and stability seemed the right fit. He had a list of additional musthaves skewed heavily toward technical features versus aesthetic ones. (Spending abundant time with your captain and engineer can have that effect on you.) He visited several shipyards across the United States and throughout Europe. He even knew exactly what length overall he wanted: 180 feet. ¶ Instead, in springtime 2017, two years into the search, the Books bought a 154-footer that was less than a month from completion at Heesen Yachts in the Netherlands. ¶ The 13th hull in Heesen’s 47meter series, started on spec, the yacht ticked a lot of boxes for the couple. In addition, “Heesen was the most impressive in terms of quality of facilities, and production excellence/best practices,” Book wrote in an email. What’s more, he said, Heesen made “an unswerving commitment to deliver the boat on time and on budget,” even while inviting changes that involved more than mere pillow swaps. ¶ To be clear, the Books weren’t interested in starting a yacht project from the keel up. Having owned two semicustom superyachts, a Westport 112 and a Westport 40M, they were accustomed to shorter delivery times than are possible with a custom build. Their desire to cruise the Mediterranean in summer 2017 was another big factor in the purchase. ¶ Book says the quality control built into each yacht and Heesen’s reputa-