SuperYacht My Song falls off ship
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I am sure that you have already read this story. It has been all over the Internet and even made CNN. It’s the story about the 130-foot SuperYacht My Song that fell off a container ship while being delivered from the Caribbean to Italy. It’s a big story mainly because the yacht has a $40 million price tag and also, just co-incidentally, who loses a SuperYacht overboard? Well here is my take on it.
First of all there is very little information. The company transporting the yacht, a UK company named Peters and May want the lid tightly nailed down on what happened and I can’t say that I blame them. This is not a good PR move for them. It seems that what happened is that the ship was being transported between the Spanish island of Mallorca and the Italian city of Genoa when the incident occurred. It was on the final leg of its voyage from the Caribbean. A statement from Peters and May read; “We were informed of the loss of a yacht from the deck of the MV Brattinsborg at approximately 0400hr LT on 26th May 2019. The yacht is sailing yacht My Song. Upon receipt of the news Peters & May instructed the captain of the MV Brattinsborg to attempt salvage whilst third-party salvors were appointed.” OK that’s basic speak giving out as little information as possible. They probably feel the lawyers circling.
I know many people have chimed in to blast the owner of My Song for having his perfectly good and seaworthy yacht shipped rather than sailed across the Atlantic but this is fairly routine practice – as absurd as that notion is. The wear and tear and cost of the delivery is avoided by shipping the yacht and the yacht transportation business is booming. Entire fleets of yachts are moved from place to place in this manner so I am guessing that it must make economical sense for the yacht owners otherwise they wouldn’t do it. I always thought that the point of owning a yacht was to sail it but who has the time?
Anyway, I digress. My Song was on it’s way to in the annual Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta, to be held in Porto Cervo on the Italian island of Sardinia. The regatta is hosted by Loro Piana, the owner of My Song and they were the returning champions. Loro Piana is heir to the high-end clothing company of the same name and is worth an estimated $1.6 billion dollars according to Forbes. The yacht was on its cradle with the mast up which is the usual way of doing things. I am sure that the cradle was designed and engineered to take the expected loads but I wonder in this case if it was engineered to take the expected loads when on dry land and not on a heaving sea with that towering mast blowing in the breeze. In any case the cradle collapsed and the yacht fell overboard despite being strapped to the deck.
The photos of the wreckage show the boat mostly submerged and the mast gone. There was no way for the crew of the MV Brattinsborg to carry out a salvage operation and they left the yacht to be salvaged by a more professional outfit. My understanding is that it is already under tow and will either be refit or scrapped. The loss must be a blow to the owner. My Song is/was a stunning yacht designed by Reichel/Pugh and built in 2016 by Baltic Yachts. She was a wolf in sheeps clothing with a full-carbon hull displacing 105 tons (including the 36-ton lifting keel) and was powered by a massive 56-meter high rig. The yacht was capable of sailing at 30 knots with fingertip control. My Song won the RORC Transatlantic race from the Canary Islands to Grenada last summer setting a new record time along the way. I don’t think that there is any sadder sight than to see a beautiful yacht in distress.
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