Monaco is always an experience, one way or another… This time I was doing delivery of Mirabeau wine for Edmiston Yacht Management during the twentieth Monaco Yacht Show.
Yes, I know, delivery is normally not a big deal, right? But if you get offered a free pass to the biggest yacht show in Europe, what would you do…? Perhaps spend an hour in search of parking?
Parking…
Parking is never easy in Monte Carlo, let me tell you. If there is any place on earth that has such a premium (pun intended) on parking space it must be within these few square kilometres. Everything here is either underground or extremely above-ground. Suffice to say there is only one underground parking with enough clearance for a tall-riding Defender.
Port Hercule
Those who live here know where that is… And luckily it is not a terribly far walk to Port Hercule. Also the scene of many a Grand Prix fight – you can find the famous swimming pool here. For the next few days, the port plays host to some awfully expensive marine hardware during the Monaco Yacht Show…
I was first greeted by a rather strange looking deep-sea personal submarine – very cool! And what I consider perhaps the largest personal helicopter this side of a Blackhawk, just sitting on a pontoon floating on the Med. This sets the tone for the rest of the show…
A row of ‘tenders’
A tender is normally a small boat, perhaps a dinghy or a RIB that serves a larger yacht, ferrying passengers to- and from shore. Think of a pirate ship launching a ‘tender’ with four or six oarsmen rowing toward the beach to discharge the captain and his shore party. That’s probably how it went in days of yore…
But around these parts a ‘tender’ can match the size of a grand yacht and can serve as a floating gin palace in its own right… There were some rather sleek looking designs, some finished in black that would have made Batman proud…
‘Big is bigger’
There were some incredibly large vessels. Three or four decks in height. Maybe twenty, thirty or forty metres in length? Masts reaching into the sky. This is where super meets mega.
And some interesting ideas. How about a terrace opening from the side of the boat? Or a rear deck at sea-level with viewports in the floor? Jetski’s on the aft-deck or even a Harley parked on the rear salon? There is some serious design intent on display here…
So, yeah… Some cool hardware with the grand backdrop of the hills and mountains above Monaco. What more could you want, captain?
