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
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