This summer has been a blast! I finished 6th form college early in order to skipper a boat in Croatia for a week. On my return I took (and passed!) my Yachtmaster costal exam and the week after that I started my first full-time job at Oyster yachts.
For my first few weeks I was based at the boat yards in Ipswich and Southampton, commissioning boats. I didn’t really know what this entailed before I started, but I soon learnt about rigging and tuning the boats, servicing winches, performing sea trials and being part of the commissioning team. My time in Southampton was my first meeting with the 495, Oyster’s new enterprise and the baby of the fleet. Next I flew to Barcelona and joined the team on the first 495 to be built “Carpe Diem” for a few days of private viewings. Once the viewings were finished the team returned to their various bases and I remained onboard, cleaning, provisioning and preparing her for the next stop on her Mediterranean tour, Palma.
After the team had left, I had arranged to take my parents on a private virtual tour of Carpe Diem (who would be my home for the 4 months). I was just getting ready for our tour, when there was a disturbance on the pontoon and as I exited the companionway it became apparent that this tour wasn’t going to be virtual: My mum and dad had flown out to Barcelona, to celebrate my 18th Birthday with me. I spent the day showing them the sights of Barcelona and after dinner I returned to Carpe Diem to find the crew on board ready for a 4am start on the delivery to Palma. We started as the sun rose, and this would be the first of many wonderful early mornings enjoying colourful skies. We had unexpected company on part of this trip, as we were joined by a pod of Dolphins, playing and somersaulting around the bow. This was going to be a great summer.
Oyster have offices and a team based in Palma and this was the base for press and promotional activities associated with the launch of the 495. I continued living on Carpe Diem in Palma and prepared for each day’s activities such as sail trials, maintenance and photoshoots. This gave me a great insight into how involved it is to release a new boat to the market.
After Palma, we sailed to Cannes for the boat show and I met Oyster CEO Richard Hadida and other members of Oyster management. Like everyone else I have met at Oyster they made me feel like a part of the team and I suspect the positive culture I have experienced working for Oyster is going to be hard to equal.
In Cannes the days were long, made longer by nights out on the town and a few too many drinks. It was the 45th edition of the Cannes boat show and this was celebrated with a party, Cannes style. After the boat show we were joined by the owner of another 495 who was waiting for his boat to be built, we had a delightful sail along the coast of Liguria to Portofino in Italy, where we anchored overnight before heading for Genoa. I have been to Italian coast with my family before but seeing the multicoloured towns nestled into the coastal hills from the sea was even more impressive. What was quite magical about this trip was the bioluminescence at night; lighting up the wake like millions of dancing fireflies.
On arriving in Genoa, the crew departed. After living on close proximity with a crew 24 hours a day, it was quite nice to have Carpe Diem all to myself. After a few days, I was joined by the team for the Genoa boat show. We filled up with fuel one day, something that should have been an uneventful, but there was a commotion when leaving the fuel dock. Two Italian boarder force boats accompanied by a helicopter came alongside and asked us for our papers, sometime later they returned and explained they were making a documentary about border force for Italian TV. We signed a consent form to say they could use the footage…who knows I might be making my first TV appearance!
There was talk of Shirley Robertson coming for the delivery back to Palma. I have known about Shirley for years, soon after starting racing dinghies I studied her videos about sailing a Cadet and later used these to help me coach. The thought of being joined by a double Olympic gold medallist was exciting and a bit overwhelming. Shirley (and her partner Tim) were really lovely, but the weather wasn’t! We sailed through a typical mistral that blows down the Gulf of Leon. Some of us had stronger stomachs than others! Fortunately, after a couple of days the weather settled, and Tim and Shirley were able to film the last in a series of promotional videos on the 495.
This was the last of my journeys with Carpe Diem. The next adventure was taking 495/02 ‘Tortuga’ from Barcelona to her home port of Monaco. We moored up alongside the promenade in Monaco alongside some very big boats. At 50-foot Tortuga was a tiddler, some might say a rose among the thorns of the superyachts. One thing I will remember about these deliveries is nights on watch. It feels so peaceful being alone on deck, while the skipper was sleeping. There is a sense of anticipation, waiting to see what display the next sunrise will offer.
The days of Carpe Diem being my home are now over and I think it’s unlikely that I will ever have such a luxurious residence to myself again. I will always have a place in my heart for her, as she’s taught me a lot. Her name seems quite poignant, leaving home at 17 and travelling in the Med with her as my luxury home, It certainly felt that I was ‘seizing the day’. I am now back working with the commissioning team in Southampton and Ipswich. Although my journey with Carpe Diem is over, I hope that my journey with the team at Oyster yachts is only just beginning.
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