For me,there are three places you have to experience during a yachting career. 1) sail into Sydney harbour and under the bridge (managed this in 2007 on a 40m ketch) 2) cruise the Galapagos islands (spent 11 hours here in 2007, so not quite done it yet!) and 3) be moored up in Monaco during the Grand Prix weekend. So thanks to a great agent who secured the berth and a generous owner who footed the bill I found myself entering Monaco’s main harbour during the start of Q1 on the Saturday. To be honest I was almost overwhelmed, there were 100’s of boats milling around the entrance some over 50 meters in length and the entrance itself was full of tenders of various sizes, this coupled with the sound of 20 of probably the worlds loudest machines screaming around the outside of the harbour meant that Clare and I couldn’t hear ourselves think let alone shout. Still after managing to miss all the boats, the space we had was for a 40m boat so fitting in the 22m Concerto was pretty easy, even without communication, and right at the exit of the tunnel. The sound these 800hp V8’s make as they scream through the tunnel is to be heard to be believed!
Look how many people are on the balconies!
By race day the harbour was fully packed with some of the largest most expensive super yachts in the world and the atmosphere was fantastic. We used the tender to motor round to where we could see the most action and tied up along side our winter friends Wally B to see the large screen as well as glimpses of the cars on various parts of the track.
An incredible experience which is definitely up there as one of my top days in yachting made even better by the British veteran Button winning with a superb drive.
It’s going to take a lot to beat this!
Gordon