Bling me sunshine

Beneteau has come over all stylish and sophisticated with its new First 53 – and the result is rather beguiling, as Sam Jefferson discovers

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A few years back, in a rather different life, I worked for a multimillionaire who, having sold his company, had little else to do than travel the globe buying up property, renovating it then, dissatisfied with the results, renovate it again. Being inordinately wealthy, he also wisely opted to buy a yacht as a means of dispersing that wealth. So far, so good. Yet what happened next baffled me – he bought a Bavaria 36. Nothing wrong with that boat by the way – it’s just that if I was a multimillionaire, I wouldn’t buy that boat. You see, on some level, I must be vain and narcissistic. When I arrive in an anchorage, I want people to say: “What a beautiful yacht,” or words to that effect. So there you go – on some level, I am clearly a repressed, flash bastard. It makes me worry; given more money, am I, at heart, the sort of person who would drive a yellow Porsche? Anyway, the result on a limited budget is that I have a boat with accommodation that you virtually have to crawl into and a car that only functions properly when it feels like it. Credit to my multimillionaire friend for seeing beyond that to the practicalities of a roomy cockpit and ample headroom – although I don’t think he owns a yacht anymore.