Le Grand Bleu

benjenbav

benjenbav

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Did anyone out in the Solent on Saturday not see this?

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Mahoosive, but quite lovely!!
 
'tis an anchor ball - yes an actual sphere, not some vaguely round black painted thing like I've got. I should have offered them a forum burgee but missed the opportunity. Perhaps I'll go back.

BTW, I might have been imagining this, but following the dismasting on Friday of a yacht which got tangled up with No.3 pile on the entrance to Lymington, it did seem to me that several raggies were taking a very close look at the static object that had done for their spiritual brother; said object being quite remarkably unharmed by the encounter.
 
Of course the picture is taken from the wrong side for the mobo forum, as there is a 70 odd feet Sunseeker tender on the other side instead of that funny thing with a stick on top. 7/10 - must try harder ....
 
In mitigation, I was in a bit of a rush because I had a deadline to meet swmbo and eldest daughter before they gave up on me and went back to cleaning out the shops in Lymington High Street. :D
 
we saw this on Saturday and again when we returned on Sunday. Just Googled it as we know it had been Abramovitch's. It has a 74ft sailing boat as well as a 67ft mobo on deck.We counted three ribs tucked away, and Abramovitch gave it away to a friend!
 
Paul_G said:
we saw this on Saturday and again when we returned on Sunday. Just Googled it as we know it had been Abramovitch's. It has a 74ft sailing boat as well as a 67ft mobo on deck.We counted three ribs tucked away, and Abramovitch gave it away to a friend!
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Haha..... after he'd just found out the running cost of this little lot over the year!! ;)
 
petem said:
Does the SS have winch points at the front and back (I think I can see the one at the back)? I wonder how that works structurally?
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Yep it has crane attachment points, and as you say the stern one is visible in that pic. It was a special order. Prior to the sunseeker, which was installed about 2006/7, the boat on that side was a Guy Couach flybridge, approx 20m, with navy hull. That too was a special, with winch attachment points.

The port side tender is far more interesting though - it's an Ed Dubois 70foot sloop. Beautiful thing
 
This is Abramodich's old boat or one of them. I Have anchored next to it on quite a few ocaisions especialy around the Balearics. He no longer owns th boat and it is now a charter vessel. The tender is an old Pred 68 used so a couple or three crew can get a day in front to check out marinas or reastaraunts etc.

Its the new way of doing it and the big boats call them chase boats it arrives at the destination before you sorts out all the **** customs , reastaurants, berthing, provisions etc etc and then when you leave the chase boat sort out all the unfinished business. on departur the chase boat then chases after mother ship. Keeps it all running smoothly, then is craned up onto the mothership at sea.

This is becoming so popular owners of big vessels are now not saying tender to the mother ship they now say shadow to the mother ship, especialy if the tender has cabins and has the capability to launch from the mothership at sea and head off at 30+ knots and berth in the same port as the mother ship a day early. it's better than using the chopper as you cant usualy land near enough to the marina.
 
The 68 ' tender' is pretty much identical to my old 'big' boat. She sometimes berths in the dock just up from Ocean Village marina. Wasn't there a rumour he bought the yard just past itchen marine?
 
On the subject of big boats

The boat in the background I understand is the biggest of them all well as far as private boats go. I could be wrong but I have seen smaller cruise liners.

Its called Octopussy and this pic was taken in Sardinia last year.
 
oceandrive said:
The boat in the background I understand is the biggest of them all well as far as private boats go. I could be wrong but I have seen smaller cruise liners.

Its called Octopussy and this pic was taken in Sardinia last year.
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Did you mean Octopussy, or Octopus? The latter is a Paul Allen yacht, and although it's one of the biggest private yachts, it's not absolutely the biggest - Eclipse, the new Abramovich yacht has that title, I think.

Cheers
Jimmy
 
Yep you could be right, I got this info from my deck hand who when he saw the boat in question seemd to know everything about it as it had visited Palma where he lives. So knowing my decky it could well be Octopus as you say. Its certainly one or the other as when we left the anchorage I passed close enough to see the octopus logo on the stern.

Think you could also be right re the owner as well as this seems to ring a bell.

It's certainly a big boat and we had a lot of fun watching the helicopter landing and taking off running all the guests to the reastaurant stunning stuff.
 
Yup it's Octopus, and belongs to Paul Allen (of Microsoft and later Vulcan venture). He also owns Tatoosh and Meduse. Tatoosh like LGB has a sloop (about 60 feet) and a big mobo (45 feet ish) as tenders on huge davits. So far as I can tell he always does Sardinia in July using two boats, with Tatoosh acting as shadow to Octopus.
 
Before Roman got his hands on her, she had this lovely little italian Gozzo as a tender...

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Thats it up for sale at Ancasta in Plymouth a few years back.... Just after she was sold by the Motorola family...
 
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