SUPERYACHT #7
Winter 2006
Article selected from our quarterly magazine dedicated to the largest
and most luxurious boats with information, interviews, technical
articles, images and yachting news
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Article by
Lino Pastorelli
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MELTEMI, A GENTLEMEN'S YACHT
Meltemi belongs to that fortunate category of yachts where good
design is not necessarily connected with a period and the years do
not mortify the original insights. This is the category of
beautiful vessels - whether sail or, as in this case, motor does
not matter - where the important thing is that the adjective
"beautiful" be understood in its accepted marine sense. Not merely
aesthetically pleasuring but a grouping of characteristics which
converge in the one serious purpose for which a boat comes into
being: seaworthiness.
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TECHNICAL DATA
Shipyard: J. Samuel White & Co Ltd, Cowes, England
Year of construction: 1931
LOA: 37.5 metres
Waterline length: 36 metres
Beam: 5.7 metres
Draft: 2.4 metres
Displacement: 240 tons
Engines: 2 x Caterpillar 480 HP
Speed: 12 knots cruising, 14 knots maximum
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Built in 1931 by J. Samuel White & Co., an
important shipyard in Cowes, for a certain captain George Paxton,
at the time it bore the name Braemar. Braemar is a Scottish
village where the United Kingdom's best sea captains are said to
have been born, a sort of Celtic Camogli, and this was Paxton's
third Braemar. Though it came into being as a yacht in the middle
of the Edwardian age - and therefore with a light flavour of
snobbism - the very clear ideas of the first owner with regard to
putting to sea resulted in a vessel that to all effects was a
small ship. A 37 metre hull in 8 millimetre naval steel, a fairly
straight prow, five watertight bulkheads, two ballast tanks for
trim, an enviable keel design and, initially, two 255 HP MAN that
sent her along at 13 knots, one more than the 12 stipulated in the
building contract. Equipment was the most advanced offered by the
technology of the day: electric pumps, hydraulically operated
rudder, a Barr & Stroud rangefinder and electric lighting, power
being supplied by an 18 Kw generator unit with a Gardner diesel
and an 11Kw Maudsley dynamo. The battery unit had 95 cells of 225
AH each and probably generated the 110V direct current for
lighting and services, typical of pre-war English boats.
Originally it did not have the high covered deck which was added
subsequently. This can be clearly seen in a 1931 photo by Beken as
you go down to the owner's quarters. After being launched the
vessel sailed all over and it seems to have made a
circumnavigation as well as several Atlantic crossings before the
tragic years of the Second World War when it was requisitioned by
the Royal Navy and transformed first into a patrol vessel and then
into a hospital ship. For the Braemar, which in the meantime had
become Clorinda II, it was a dark period: she was sunk and then
salvaged, restored and modified. There followed further voyages,
including ocean crossings and another round the world trip between
1981 and 1983, taking in the Americas, Australia, Hawaii, Fiji,
Sri Lanka and Suez, until she was finally used as a luxury charter
yacht, now with the name of Meltemi. With the current owner the
yacht has begun a second childhood: the layout and furnishings are
as close as possible to the original, the solid panelling in
mahogany and oak, the flooring in spruce, the furniture, the
capitonné leather of the sofas and armchairs and the heavy
brocade of the curtains. The layout of the spaces, restored to the
original plan, is classic and rational: the main deck, completely
protected by a bulwark and the projection of the flying bridge
above, includes an external dinette, a dining area when required,
and the aft wheelhouse which, through direct drive on the shaft,
also functions as emergency steering. The technical area forward
houses the hydraulic winch for the two anchors and the entrance to
the crew's quarters. The access door from the aft deck to the
interior is emblematic of Meltemi's building criteria: double,
watertight and with further protection below should she ship a
sea. "...Meltemi had to sail all seas in all climates," the
captain explained. Still on the main deck, the so called music
room, originally the smoking room, welcomes the visitor into a
slightly strange and démodé atmosphere: so it is no
surprise that in the 1980's a certain Reginald Kenneth Dwight,
also known as Elton John, found it irreplaceable for creating his
music on its upright piano. A short corridor leads to the main
saloon, with sofas and damasks, which overlooks the dining salon
below. Few stairs: here too time has stopped and not even the
precious clock-astrolabe can convince us otherwise. There are
model ships, paintings of ships on the walls and six privileged
places around the oval table. Forward there are five double cabins
for the crew (bosun, engineer, two sailors, hostess, cook) and the
skipper, plus the crew mess and a professional galley equipped for
all requirements. There is even a wine cellar, but the great coal-
burning Kooksjoie and the refrigerated cells of 1931 have been
replaced with more practical items. The night zone is aft of the
engine room, centrally positioned to optimise trim and balance:
two double guest cabins with twin beds and private bathroom, where
the furnishings are practically the original ones in Austrian oak,
and the owner's cabin which stretches the full beam and has a
large bathroom. Here the meticulous work of philological recovery
of the spaces is yet to be completed. The wheelhouse on the flying
bridge is equipped with all modern navigational instruments, but
on the chart table there is a sextant and its panoply of charts,
compasses and setsquares. The engine commands are communicated to
the engineer by the engine telegraph, the most archetypal marine
mechanism. With the 1980's upgrade the two 326 HP DAF engines were
replaced by two tough 480 HP Caterpillars that produce a cruising
speed of 12 knots and a maximum of 14. The range is considerable:
6.000 miles with 32.000 litres of diesel. Externally the upper
deck has a vast sundeck and also houses the yacht's various
tenders: an inflatable service dinghy, a 12 foot sailing dinghy
and a replica of the now extinct Riva Turismo Extra of 1946. On a
clear September evening, over a glass of cool white wine,
Meltemi's current skipper Fabio Vespa of La Spezia tells me what
he knows about the boat. Meltemi is moored at the long pier in
Porto Maurizio, near the statue of the Cape Horners, having taken
part in the meet held at the other Imperia dock. Vespa too, with
his three circumnavigations, would have been a Cape Horner if only
his sailboats had been transporting goods instead of dreams...The
yacht will be leaving for its home port the following day: a
chance to get some photos of her under way and to see, as she
casts off, the now out of date "....port... slow ahead..". Shortly
afterwards the sight of Meltemi taken silently to 12 knots, with a
bow wave of rare elegance, somewhat brings back the question of
the gap separating today's superyachts from those of 75 years ago...
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