FEELING THE HEAT
A sweltering summer on board his Prestige 680 has Mark Weiss reconsidering his cruising plans
The summer of 2021 saw us complete our sixth season cruising on Artemisia, our beautiful Prestige 680 flybridge, which was delivered to us in May 2016 and which we keep berthed in the Marina d’arechi in Salerno overlooking the spectacularly beautiful Amalfi coast, just south of Naples. Apart from the loss of spring, we navigated as best we could the complications of Covid travel restrictions and enjoyed just over six weeks on the boat.
However, a more permanent problem that I now face following Brexit is that I am hit by the 90/180 day rule – unlike my wife/crew who has an Irish passport. Hitherto I have spent four out of the six months of the summer in Europe, split between the boat and our house in France, and with retirement on the horizon I would likely want to spend even more. Sadly, I am sure I am not the only reader of MBY who is going to struggle with this problem.
Another issue was the excessive heat and humidity that the southern Mediterranean experienced, thanks to global warming which undoubtedly is well and truly upon us. This impacted our annual two-week pilgrimage south to the Aeolian islands taken during the last week in July and first week in August.
The stultifying humidity made excursions ashore only bearable first thing in the morning. Even worse was that quite often the steamy conditions during the evening meant that, rather than enjoying our meals on the flybridge followed by listening to music under the stars, we were forced to retreat into the aircon cooled saloon for the night and ended up watching Netflix instead!
We shall see what next year brings but if this is now the new norm, then maybe we will need to reconsider which months we spend on the boat. Maybe more time in the cooler spring and autumn months?
One decision that my wife and I have already made is that Artemisia is to be, certainly for the foreseeable future, our ‘forever boat’. We are not fans of the latest fashion for beach clubs or the new style of flybridges with uncovered free-standing seating and sunbeds at the rear. For us shade is more important, and even more so given the heat we have just experienced this year. We well appreciate that as old fogies in our retirement years, and without children, we are not the market or the future that boatbuilders are currently aiming for, so while we can admire the latest models, especially the truly spectacular X70 and X60 from Prestige with their amazing upgraded finishes and contemporary design, the loss of areas that we so enjoy on our boat do not encourage us to trade up from our more traditional 680.
So we have decided to invest for the future by embarking on a number of upgrades, renovations and repairs not only to maintain the boat in the best possible condition but also to refresh the look of the interior and add functionality in some areas. On the to-do list are things like re-upholstering the interior seating, replacing the canvas sunroof and bimini on the flybridge as well as the worn exterior control panels and switches, and replacing and upgrading the bow sunpads and seat cushions.
I am also considering adding an additional 50 metres of chain to enable us to anchor in deeper waters, which might require upgrading the winch too. What I will not be changing is the distinctive blue wrap, which marks our boat out from the crowd and draws many admiring comments wherever we are.