Sanctioned billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, who had cleverly saved his warship like $300 million superyacht, from getting seized by hiding it in Dubai for more than two years has finally taken his yacht out in the open and is now sailing off to a mystery destination.
Allegra Gucci’s first palpable memory was aboard her family’s sailboat, the 214-foot Creole. As she recalls growing up, the world’s largest wooden sailing yacht formed a playful cocoon for water fights, running along hundreds of feet of teak decks, swallow dives into the ocean, and, at peak performance, adrenaline rushes as the boat thundered at full sail in the Mediterranean.
The two seniors at Christ Church Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, decided to hit the beach with a group of friends in St. John's County on a senior skip day two weeks ago when the day of fun almost turned deadly. The pair jumped in the water at Vilano Beach, but made the mistake of trying to swim farther than they were able.
Fifteen-foot waves crashed over the deck of Cole Brauer’s 40-foot racing yacht, First Light, in the turbulent Indian Ocean as she tried to maintain her balance in the cramped cockpit in the stern.
So Jody & I were watching the boob-tube up at the Bitchin Ranch when we got a call from our friends Jeff & Debbie Kolod asking if we wanted to take a little trip. It seems they'd gotten a great deal to sail on the Oceania Riviera from Tokyo to Vancouver, BC, by way of multiple stops in Japan, then crossing the Bering Sea, sailing to Kodiak, Alaska, through the inside passage, stopping at multiple Alaskan ports, and continuing along the Canadian coast to Vancouver.
We were trying to figure...
