Willie K's grand journey

摘要

If he were alive today, William K Vanderbilt II would likely have a yacht in the Top 101. In the 1920s, his 213ft Ara was one of the largest private yachts afloat. Designed by Charles E Nicholson and built by Camper & Nicholsons in 1917, she was for a time owned by the French Navy. The great grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Willie K bought the steel-hulled vessel in 1922, had it refitted and did not leave it to linger in a dry dock for long. He inherited from his family an immense fortune and a love of yachting - "A Vanderbilt took to yachting as a seagull to the sea," writes his biographer Steven H Gittelman -and combined them with his great admiration for Albert I of Monaco, the Explorer Prince. Willie K was gifted his first boat, a 70ft sloop, during his freshman year at Harvard. A succession of incrementally larger boats allowed him to perfect his navigation skills. When he embarked on his first far-flung trip aboard Ara, he took the title of commodore. He had the boat outfitted with the latest technology of the day so that he could keep up with the financial markets and produce with his guests a newspaper called The Ara Daily News. He also documented his trip to the Galapagos Islands in a self-published 1027 memoir.