Duran Duran Rio Yacht Back in Action

Panerai CEO Angelo Bonati first spotted the ketch Eilean in Antigua in 2006, poking out of the mangroves in the island’s English Harbour.
The 72-foot boat was rotting, rusted and worm-ridden; termites had polished off its two masts. The ship had, he admits, “clearly seen better days.”
A keen sailor, Bonati noticed an unusual emblem carved onto the Eilean’s hull: a dragon. He immediately recognized it as the crest of William Fife Jr., the Scottish luxury yacht builder who is legendary among sailing connoisseurs for the caliber of his vessels.
“When I saw the well-defined dragon, I realized this was a Fife,” Bonati tells Alexa. “It was still recognizable, despite the boat’s poor general condition.”
Smitten, Bonati grew even more intrigued as he began negotiating to buy the foundering craft. He learned it was built in 1936 — the same year Panerai undertook its first oceangoing endeavors, creating special prototype watches for the Italian navy on the eve of WWII.
The boat was also featured in Duran Duran’s video for “Rio,” which was shot in Antigua in 1982.
Yet after a ferry collision in 1984 and a string of bad luck, the Eilean barely resembled the slick craft from the “Rio” shoot. Rehabilitating it, Bonati knew, would be an arduous, expensive task.
“The vessel was undoubtedly in poor condition,” he recalls. “But [I realized] it would be possible to restore her while preserving a substantial part of the original materials.”



He entrusted the project to one of the world’s foremost shipyards, in Viareggio, Italy, on the coast of Tuscany. There, master craftsmen at the Francesco del Carlo boatyard worked painstakingly on the ship’s composite Burmese teak planking and zinc-plated metal skeleton, using a single tree from Alaska to bolster the bowsprit, boom and mizzenmast.
It took 40,000 hours, but they were able to return the Eilean to its former glory as a handsome ketch that had easily made 36 Atlantic crossings.
After an official rededication ceremony and relaunch at the Italian navy’s facility at La Spezia — Fife’s descendants were on hand to cheer it on — the ship miraculously returned to the racing circuit in 2009.
These days, the Eilean serves as the anchor of Panerai’s 12-year-old Classic Yachts Challenge and is sometimes used by nonprofit groups for sea-related therapeutic initiatives. Bonati most recently raced it last month, in the Régates Royales, once again putting wind in its sails.

via NYPost