Left: built for Setton in 1999, the 59m expedition yacht Senses has an interior by Philippe Stark – along with all the ‘usual’ features (heli-pad, massive toyshop, drive-on powerboat ramp etc), she was configured so Setton’s Nelson 42 motorboat could be launched from amidships, splashing sideways into the sea like a new destroyer. She has since been sold to the Google co-founder Larry Page. Above, clockwise from top left: it all began with this very light Don Aronow-inspired powerboat which Setton and his father turboed by using multiple outboards in place of heavy inboards; the 57m Feadship Belle France – ‘impractical and expensive to run!’; ready to play – Senses; Pink Shrimp… 32m, twin jet-drives and very fast; Setton’s recent wave-piercing powerboat Enmer has a top speed of 44kt, interior design by… Jack Setton; Enmer’s predecessor; if you’re going to have a RIB, it may as well be a big one; the 80m ocean-going converted tug Ranger is Setton’s largest boat… to date; son of Tofinou… the 26ft Sapphire sits aboard Pink Shrimp
where you like. An engine is still allowed provided that this does not make noise! SH: And your first boat… JS:My first navigation was when I was 10 or 12 years old. Then at the age of 14 we crossed from Cannes to Corsica on a little Zodiac inflatable [over 150nm – ed]. I always had a taste for the unusual. My father loved boats but not at my
level. He once had a sort of 50-50 motor- sailer, never a true sailing boat. Really for him it was motorboats. I helped him launch a new brand of very fast offshore powerboats. The first ones, equipped with outboard engines, were sold to the US Army because they were the only high-per- formance boats that could be reliably parachuted from a Hercules aeroplane. I was then the first to use outboard
motors on big sailing boats. My very narrow sailboat (the famous 75ft Pioneer) was a copy of Michel Malinovsky’s big blue cigar, Kriter 8, designed by the great André Mauric. She had several outboards on the transom and it worked very well. SH:How do you manage such a big fleet? JS: I have lost fortunes on my boats. They are all very special, not easy to sell. Very recently we did sell Ciao Gianni, a 60ft daysailing monohull built with Multiplast to a German Frers design – she had been for sale for three years. Then we have the little Freset, a modern cat-boat also drawn by Frers, to be transported onboard my ‘little’ 33m shrimp boat. Freset is a marvel of the sea with only 1.05m draft with the
keel raised and 1.80m with it down. The boat has been for sale for a year for nothing at all and we haven’t had a single offer. It’s incredible, knowing that she is much better than a Tofinou! I have had another boat sitting there for
two years too, Roljack, designed by Rolf Vrolijk: a 37-footer also built by Multi- plast. Incredible, impossible to sell, the boat weighs just three tonnes with a 60 per cent ballast ratio. I can sail her all alone, and there is almost no maintenance… And then I had another new boat coming
along that I had drawn but this one I have stopped. I wanted to make a 53ft boat like my 60-footer Ciao Gianni made by Multi- plast but I decided to pause things. Instead, I have recently been spending more time buying and trading my competition cars, mainly Formula One (Jacky had his own circuit at home, and still has a modern F1 car in his office). Trading the competition cars is much more profitable (laughs). SH: But you won’t stop building custom boats? JS: I may actually try to stop doing custom boats, but only because it’s too depressing when we want to sell them and have to convince people who have understood nothing about what you have done. I liked Giovanni Agnelli’s (a close friend)
90ft Frers Stealth. She is a fantastic yacht, very fast. She will sail close-hauled as well as an America’s Cup monohull but can cross the Atlantic in perfect safety. Yet after Gianni died no one wanted to buy it at
first… even though I consider her quite a traditional boat. Then an American from San Francisco finally took the time to come over and trial her and he had the shock of his life (he had been looking at a Wally). I want to sell my boats because my pro-
grammes change but it is such a mountain to climb that I must pay more attention, and of course the financial loss is consider- able. To sell a production boat is much simpler. You put an advertisement on the internet 10 per cent cheaper than the others and she is sold immediately. SH:What were your biggest boats? JS:My biggest boat was an 80m high seas tug. I bought it as she was pulling a drilling rig across the Indian Ocean. She belonged to the largest German tugboat owner. After her purchase I brought her to Malta to convert her into a yacht, retaining the characteristics of a tug. I kept the huge open rear deck and low sheer to locate my toys, trimarans, sailboats, helicopter… I then made another similar type of
boat, Senses, but I quickly sold her to Larry Page, the Google co-founder who is also a friend. This was a 59m exploration boat with a ramp to launch my Nelson 42 launch amidship as you would a lifeboat – without the need for a crane. The living area was in the centre of the boat, where the pitch is minimal, and the engines were right at the back to reduce the length of the transmission shaft to minimise noise and vibration. She was awesome! Actually, I think she started a bit of a fashion.
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