How is our week going so far? Probably better than Pier Luigi Loro Piana and also no doubt better than the captain of the general cargo ship Brattingsborg. The ship was carrying the 130′ (39.9 meter) yacht, My Song, owned by Mr. Loro Piana, from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean. The yacht was bound ultimately for Porto Cervo, in northern Sardinia, where it was supposed to take part in the upcoming Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta. Sadly, the mega-yacht never made it. The Brattingsborg was struck by a storm near the Gulf of Lion. Sometime late Saturday or early Sunday, the yacht My Song was lost over the side.
The all carbon fiber Baltic 130 yacht was valued at 30 million Euros. Weighing at 105 tons (including the 36-ton lifting keel), she was capable of 30 knots powered by her 56-meter-high Southern Spars rig with North Sails. In addition to winning multiple races, My Song was awarded the Best Sailing Yacht of 30-meters to 39.9-meters in the 2017 World Superyacht Awards. She was also declared Boat of the Year at the Italian Sailing Federation’s Sailor of the Year awards.
BALTIC 130 “MY SONG” 2017 – 4K Full Review – The Boat Show
Thanks to Roger Eastman for contributing to this post.
As a guy living on a 10 ton, 38′ boat with a 35′ mast, I feel the pain. I mean, I wail when a screwdriver goes over the side. Yup, we are in different leagues for sure but I have empathy.
I wail when a screwdriver goes over the side.
My favorite flat blade that I’d owned for 40 years went over the side last year. A bad moment.
So here is the interesting thing I see in all this. There is a sailboat that can sail a fast race. Yet the sailboat cant be sailed to the next race. Anyone else think there is something wrong here? I mean it should have been cheaper to hire a crew to sail it casually to its next race. Its not like the seas are so littered with debris to sink any ship afloat.
Whats the addage? The fool and their money are easily parted? Have a mega yacht with sails, yet have it carried to the next race instead of sailing it? So now he gets his money back n a insurance claim
Was the yacht, My Song, bought with drug money?
@Willy
Presumably they thought sending it as deck cargo would be safer than sailing the yacht between races.
Also I believe that such racing vessels use smaller rigs and sails for delivery trips which on a yacht of that size would be quite a logistics exercise as they would still need the rig to be shipped separately.
@Rick
Would that be the Gulf of Lyon, of the south of France, not the Gulf of Lion?
Presumably the yacht was only part of the cargo and the ship was calling at various ports.
Jean-Pierre, good question. Google maps show the gulf as the Gulf of Lion between the Balearic and Ligurian Seas. I have seen it on charts as the Gulf de Lyons, which is not a direct translation. From Wikipedia:
The current name of the gulf appeared at least during the 13th century (in medieval Latin sinus Leonis, mare Leonis) and could come from comparison with a lion: it would simply suggest that this part of the sea is as dangerous as a lion because it has very violent, surprising winds that threaten boats (sailors and fishermen know these dangers very well[1]). This comparison with a lion is suggested by various converging sources: Deroy and Mulon’s dictionary of French place names,[2] Mistral’s comprehensive Occitan dictionary,[3] Diderot and D’Alembert’s famous French encyclopedia[4] and several texts in Latin since the 13th century.[5][6]
These sources, especially Deroy and Mulon, Diderot and D’Alembert, reject the hypothesis according to which the name would be related to the city of Lyon, since it is too far from the gulf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Lion#/media/File:Gulf_of_Lion_map.png