senator-holland
Well-known member
tonight i saw this ad, and wanted to share this with you all
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/list...nits=Feet&access=Public&listing_id=26744&url=
There are yachts that go faster. But none steals from isle to isle so silently or smoothly as that dream of steam, Delphine
Monaco's Harbor is an emerald dance floor across which glide only the most chic and muscular yachts. Here you might spy Paul Allen's 414-foot Octopus with its own ten-man submarine or Larry Ellison's 452-foot, 48,000hp Rising Sun, which cruises at 28 knots. But wait! What's that vaporous dowager doing over there, emitting a white plume and a "toot-toot"?
"I really love to blow the whistle," says Ineke Bruynooghe (Ee-neh-ka Broo-neh-ka), a spiky-haired blond who is the guardian spirit of the world's largest active steam yacht. "I blow it every time we leave the harbor, and everyone says, 'There goes the Delphine.'"
Keep your diesel-driven bruiser, Larry. The 257-foot Delphine boasts a power plant more elegant and discreet, the height of steam technology when it was built in 1921: two reciprocating engines generating 1,500hp each.
You can charter the Delphine (www.ssdelphine.com) for $60,000 to $90,000 a day, depending on season--about the same as you'd pay for a modern 205-foot Feadship. But it becomes clear from the moment your foot touches the deck that the Delphine is another creature altogether.
The reason is vibration: She has none.
"A modern diesel engine does 3000rpm. We do 80," says Bruynooghe proudly. "No vibrations--it's more like a heartbeat." And almost no noise: Once under way, all you hear are the waves against the hull. You're in a time machine, doing 11 knots.
It's a little strange that Delphine--American by birth--should have wound up here in Monaco, owned by a Flemish jeans tycoon and his daughter. Equally strange that a vessel so immaculate and vital could ten years ago have been all but derelict, abandoned in Marseille by a big-talking French operator who lacked the money for a refurbishing. The ship's chief engineer at that time made the following despairing notation in the logbook: "Of all the large American-built steam yachts built between 1893 and 1930, the Delphine is the only one left in her original condition with her original steam engines still in service. It would be a terrible loss to the United States if a piece of history such as this were to be lost or destroyed."
Around the time that this manifesto was being written, Jacques Bruynooghe was passing near the port of Marseille on his way to catch the ferry to Tunisia. Bruynooghe owns JB Fashion, which makes jeans at a factory near Monastir, Tunisia for such brands as Levi's and Diesel. He always took the ferry because he's terrified to fly. Every trip his route to the harbor took him past Delphine, languishing at anchor. Bruynooghe, a minor-league yachtsmen, could see past the rust-streaked hull, the grimy yellow smokestack and rotting deck to appreciate the classic lines and good breeding. Clearly this boat had been something once.
Then, in 1997 Bruynooghe was leafing through a copy of Boat International magazine when he came across an ad for a once-grand steam yacht. It was Delphine. He bought Delphine for a few million dollars, not a lot more than the scrap value of the boat's 1,700 tons of steel. "We like old things in my family--anything with a bit of history," says daughter Ineke.
The ship's American origins revealed themselves once Ineke, then a 24-year-old art history student, started digging. The Delphine was the last in a series of steam yachts built by brothers John and , founders of Dodge Motor Co. In addition to making their own cars, the brothers built chassis for other makers. In 1903 they received 10% of Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ) in return for building 650 chassis with engines, transmissions and axles for Ford's original Model A. This stock, originally valued at $20,000, they sold back to Ford in 1919 for $25 million, some of which went to pay for what would be the largest steam yacht afloat at the time.
The Delphine (named for Horace's daughter, an amateur pianist and speedboat racer) was launched in 1921 before a cheering crowd of a thousand at the boatyard of Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Mich. Delphine was designed by Henry John Gielow of New York, who had built previous much-loved yachts for the Dodge brothers; Horace's sister once wrote a teary farewell poem to another of the family's yachts, the Gielow-designed Nokomis, which was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy.
Horace Dodge designed the Delphine's engines. The interior was very much of its time, with walnut paneling, Corinthian columns and coffered ceilings. The music room featured a $60,000 Aeolian pipe organ. The bill for the yacht's construction came to $2 million, or $24 million in today's money.
Neither Horace nor John ever saw the finished yacht. Both brothers got sick in New York during a trip to the National Automobile Show in 1920 and died that same year. Horace's widow, Anna, inherited the Delphine and raised and refurbished the boat after it burned and sank in New York harbor in 1926. For the most part, the Delphine stayed moored at a pier outside the Dodge mansion on Lake St. Clair outside Detroit.
In 1942 the Navy snatched the yacht. Admiral Edward King, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet, made the Delphine his floating headquarters, painting the hull camouflage green. He added a forward gun and deleted the pipe organ. The Navy paid Anna nothing for the boat and rechristened it the U.S.S. Dauntless. Admiral King used the Dauntless as a yacht whose wartime duty was mostly limited to the Potomac River. Except for one glorious footnote: No one can say for sure, but it has long been believed that the Dauntless served as a secret meeting place for Roosevelt, Churchill and Russian foreign minister Molotov prior to their public parlay at Yalta in 1945.
All of this came out during Ineke Bruynooghe's two years of historical research. Her aim was to restore the Delphine to its Dodge-era grandeur as faithfully as possible while complying with modern safety regulations. She also assumed charter clients would want more by way of shipboard recreation than just a pipe organ.
Once the Bruynooghes had dusted off Delphine, they had their possession towed to Brugge, Belgium, where they basically built their own shipyard to refit it. Almost every part had to be refabricated, either from original documents or heavily researched guesswork. "You know where you're starting a project like this, but you never know where you're going to stop," says Ineke, who claims that her father ultimately spent 40 million euros (now $60 million) on the restoration. Six years later Monaco's Princess Stephanie rechristened the boat, and Delphine started life anew.
The Delphine gets about 15 charters a year, skewed heavily to corporate customers who appreciate how well the period interiors serve as settings for special events. Private-charter customers are rarer--mostly Saudis and Russians drawn to a bygone style of opulence. On Sept. 6 the Delphine's charter client will be family: Alexander Dodge, Horace's great-grandson, a designer for theater and opera productions. Ineke Bruynooghe had consulted Alexander's father, David Dodge, during her research. Alexander says of the ship, "I always heard stories about it when I was growing up--no one knew what had become of it. My father remembers the boat with great melancholy and sadness."
The occasion for the fall charter is Alexander's marriage to one Charles Stewart. Although same-sex marriage isn't recognized in either Monaco or France, Alexander says the couple and 150 guests will "sail into international waters about an hour out, have some kind of ceremony that we make up and sail back."
History moves on.
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/list...nits=Feet&access=Public&listing_id=26744&url=
There are yachts that go faster. But none steals from isle to isle so silently or smoothly as that dream of steam, Delphine
Monaco's Harbor is an emerald dance floor across which glide only the most chic and muscular yachts. Here you might spy Paul Allen's 414-foot Octopus with its own ten-man submarine or Larry Ellison's 452-foot, 48,000hp Rising Sun, which cruises at 28 knots. But wait! What's that vaporous dowager doing over there, emitting a white plume and a "toot-toot"?
"I really love to blow the whistle," says Ineke Bruynooghe (Ee-neh-ka Broo-neh-ka), a spiky-haired blond who is the guardian spirit of the world's largest active steam yacht. "I blow it every time we leave the harbor, and everyone says, 'There goes the Delphine.'"
Keep your diesel-driven bruiser, Larry. The 257-foot Delphine boasts a power plant more elegant and discreet, the height of steam technology when it was built in 1921: two reciprocating engines generating 1,500hp each.
You can charter the Delphine (www.ssdelphine.com) for $60,000 to $90,000 a day, depending on season--about the same as you'd pay for a modern 205-foot Feadship. But it becomes clear from the moment your foot touches the deck that the Delphine is another creature altogether.
The reason is vibration: She has none.
"A modern diesel engine does 3000rpm. We do 80," says Bruynooghe proudly. "No vibrations--it's more like a heartbeat." And almost no noise: Once under way, all you hear are the waves against the hull. You're in a time machine, doing 11 knots.
It's a little strange that Delphine--American by birth--should have wound up here in Monaco, owned by a Flemish jeans tycoon and his daughter. Equally strange that a vessel so immaculate and vital could ten years ago have been all but derelict, abandoned in Marseille by a big-talking French operator who lacked the money for a refurbishing. The ship's chief engineer at that time made the following despairing notation in the logbook: "Of all the large American-built steam yachts built between 1893 and 1930, the Delphine is the only one left in her original condition with her original steam engines still in service. It would be a terrible loss to the United States if a piece of history such as this were to be lost or destroyed."
Around the time that this manifesto was being written, Jacques Bruynooghe was passing near the port of Marseille on his way to catch the ferry to Tunisia. Bruynooghe owns JB Fashion, which makes jeans at a factory near Monastir, Tunisia for such brands as Levi's and Diesel. He always took the ferry because he's terrified to fly. Every trip his route to the harbor took him past Delphine, languishing at anchor. Bruynooghe, a minor-league yachtsmen, could see past the rust-streaked hull, the grimy yellow smokestack and rotting deck to appreciate the classic lines and good breeding. Clearly this boat had been something once.
Then, in 1997 Bruynooghe was leafing through a copy of Boat International magazine when he came across an ad for a once-grand steam yacht. It was Delphine. He bought Delphine for a few million dollars, not a lot more than the scrap value of the boat's 1,700 tons of steel. "We like old things in my family--anything with a bit of history," says daughter Ineke.
The ship's American origins revealed themselves once Ineke, then a 24-year-old art history student, started digging. The Delphine was the last in a series of steam yachts built by brothers John and , founders of Dodge Motor Co. In addition to making their own cars, the brothers built chassis for other makers. In 1903 they received 10% of Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ) in return for building 650 chassis with engines, transmissions and axles for Ford's original Model A. This stock, originally valued at $20,000, they sold back to Ford in 1919 for $25 million, some of which went to pay for what would be the largest steam yacht afloat at the time.
The Delphine (named for Horace's daughter, an amateur pianist and speedboat racer) was launched in 1921 before a cheering crowd of a thousand at the boatyard of Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Mich. Delphine was designed by Henry John Gielow of New York, who had built previous much-loved yachts for the Dodge brothers; Horace's sister once wrote a teary farewell poem to another of the family's yachts, the Gielow-designed Nokomis, which was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy.
Horace Dodge designed the Delphine's engines. The interior was very much of its time, with walnut paneling, Corinthian columns and coffered ceilings. The music room featured a $60,000 Aeolian pipe organ. The bill for the yacht's construction came to $2 million, or $24 million in today's money.
Neither Horace nor John ever saw the finished yacht. Both brothers got sick in New York during a trip to the National Automobile Show in 1920 and died that same year. Horace's widow, Anna, inherited the Delphine and raised and refurbished the boat after it burned and sank in New York harbor in 1926. For the most part, the Delphine stayed moored at a pier outside the Dodge mansion on Lake St. Clair outside Detroit.
In 1942 the Navy snatched the yacht. Admiral Edward King, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet, made the Delphine his floating headquarters, painting the hull camouflage green. He added a forward gun and deleted the pipe organ. The Navy paid Anna nothing for the boat and rechristened it the U.S.S. Dauntless. Admiral King used the Dauntless as a yacht whose wartime duty was mostly limited to the Potomac River. Except for one glorious footnote: No one can say for sure, but it has long been believed that the Dauntless served as a secret meeting place for Roosevelt, Churchill and Russian foreign minister Molotov prior to their public parlay at Yalta in 1945.
All of this came out during Ineke Bruynooghe's two years of historical research. Her aim was to restore the Delphine to its Dodge-era grandeur as faithfully as possible while complying with modern safety regulations. She also assumed charter clients would want more by way of shipboard recreation than just a pipe organ.
Once the Bruynooghes had dusted off Delphine, they had their possession towed to Brugge, Belgium, where they basically built their own shipyard to refit it. Almost every part had to be refabricated, either from original documents or heavily researched guesswork. "You know where you're starting a project like this, but you never know where you're going to stop," says Ineke, who claims that her father ultimately spent 40 million euros (now $60 million) on the restoration. Six years later Monaco's Princess Stephanie rechristened the boat, and Delphine started life anew.
The Delphine gets about 15 charters a year, skewed heavily to corporate customers who appreciate how well the period interiors serve as settings for special events. Private-charter customers are rarer--mostly Saudis and Russians drawn to a bygone style of opulence. On Sept. 6 the Delphine's charter client will be family: Alexander Dodge, Horace's great-grandson, a designer for theater and opera productions. Ineke Bruynooghe had consulted Alexander's father, David Dodge, during her research. Alexander says of the ship, "I always heard stories about it when I was growing up--no one knew what had become of it. My father remembers the boat with great melancholy and sadness."
The occasion for the fall charter is Alexander's marriage to one Charles Stewart. Although same-sex marriage isn't recognized in either Monaco or France, Alexander says the couple and 150 guests will "sail into international waters about an hour out, have some kind of ceremony that we make up and sail back."
History moves on.
