Friday, January 3, 2014

It's not just a yacht, it's a SUPERyacht!





There are sailboats, there are sailing yachts and … there are sailing SUPERyachts!  The sailing superyacht, Tamsen, pranced into Ocean World Marina in Puerto Plata, DR, for a brief visit after New Year's.









What a majestic boat! This was by far the largest sailing vessel we had ever seen… all 172 feet (52 meters) of her!  "Tamsen" is owned by Steve Firestone and his family from California.  Yes, THE Firestones… think TIRES! Lots and lots of tires!

Launched in April 2007, the Tamsen has a dark blue steel hull and an aluminum superstructure. It was built by Perini Navi of Viareggio, Italy, one of the yachting world's best-known construction companies.  Each Perini vessel takes around three years to build and costs more than 500,000 euros ($625,000) per meter of length, depending on the degree of customization.  That's a total of $32.5 million dollars!

Tamsen's beam is 34 feet; the draft is 11 ft with the keel up and 28 feet with the keel down.  It has two 740 kW Caterpillar engines and can travel at a maximum hull speed of 15 knots.  It has a total sail area of 12,131 sq.ft and the mast height is 170 ft. The mast is so tall it requires red lights on top to alert low-flying aircraft! It holds 3250 gallons of water and  11, 400 gallons of fuel.  (Think… $6/gal x 11,4000…. $68,500 to fill her up. I guess if you paid over $32 million for a sailboat, that's but a drop in the bucket!

We never know what we are going to see.  Although we are not exactly hobnobbing with the rich and famous, we do get an up-close peek every now and then!

4 comments:

Bette Channell said...

So wonderful! Pick me up in Galveston some time!!!!! Ha ha

Anonymous said...

awesome boat. 68K$ to fill the tank? Now THAT's a credit card.

Hey, how's the surge at Ocean World? LA was concerned about that when y'all were here. Glad you went there instead of Luperon?

wyattsailing said...

There is minimal surge and it's not uncomfortable. The transient slips are FAR away from the marina office and are located next to the break wall. There is constant sea spray mist in this area and the boat stays salty. Thankfully, we are plugged into A/C so the inside of our boat has stayed clean and dry. Staff has been friendly and marina has good security. Ocean World is a tourist destination with some outdoor sea world type shows, so the voice over the loudspeaker throughout the day is somewhat annoying. That said, this was a great place to leave the boat for a few days for our trip to Santo Domingo. Would not have felt comfortable leaving the boat unattended in Luperon.

Banana Joe said...

It is currently docked at Ganges Marina here on Salt Spring Island, B.C. Quite the site to see. I just shot this video. June 25 , 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzZYsxNxVpQ