savarona yacht

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Owner's interview: On board 28m sailing yacht Savarona with owner Werner Wunderli

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Werner Wunderli talks us through his sailing résumé from learning to sail in Switzerland to his latest 28.5 metre CNB sailing yacht Savarona .

I was born in Switzerland, and I started sailing at the age of 15 on Lake Zürich with a Finn dinghy and Flying Dutchman. I sailed on the 5.5 Metre IC, an Olympic-class boat until 1968 and won several European championships. I then organized the first series for the 5.5 Metre IC and ran these regattas from 1970 to 1980. When business got to be too much, I stopped these activities but always rented boats in the Mediterranean.

About 10 years ago I bought a used 58ft Beneteau Oceanis to see if bluewater sailing was my passion. Then, of course, you want bigger, so I bought a new Oceanis 62 – but unfortunately, I had problems with this boat and ended up selling it. The day before it was to go in the water, we had a storm with 60-knot wind and the mast fell onto two other boats in the shipyard. I took the advice of a yacht broker friend of mine at that point and found a used boat with an aluminum hull. My plan is to split the time between charter and personal use, about 20 weeks of each.

Savarona is a 93ft yacht built in 2001 by CNB. The boat had a refit at La Ciotat Shipyards in southern France. Because we will charter, we had to follow very tight guidelines of Bureau Veritas, and we had delays due to the pandemic. In the end, the refit took 16 months. The biggest change we made is to add a carbon-fiber convertible roof for shade that I designed with an electrical opening over the cockpit.

For cruising I like the Amalfi Coast, Corsica and Sicily, and when I am in the Caribbean, I really like the BVIs and the northern region of the Caribbean for its agreeable temperatures. Because of its location, its airport and good infrastructure, Antigua will be a good departure point for charters I think. I did an Antigua Race on a Swan 47 40 years ago with three champion sailors and we finished third out of 200 boats. Coming from the middle of Europe, I hadn’t experienced 25ft waves. The boat was always underwater, and we were on the same level as the dolphins. To look behind and see these high waves was amazing, I keep replaying this experience like a film in my head. My skin peeled three times under the hot sun and I was so tanned my family didn’t recognize me.

I think I may be a bit too old for this kind of racing now, but when I am on the boat I am always correcting the sails – and when I see another boat coming round, I always want to be the faster one. I will always be a racer; it is in my genes. If I did not have a family, I would sail away, see the world and never return. When the boat makes the passage to Antigua from France, I will be on board for six to seven days until the Canary Islands; every minute I am waiting to go out on this boat.

Savarona is currently listed for sale with Bernard Gallay Yacht Brokerage , asking €2,500,000.

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A rich and dramatic history: mv savarona.

APRIL 21, 2021

When launched in 1931, MV Savarona was the largest luxury yacht in the world at length of 446’ (136m). Named for an African swan living in the Indian Ocean, the ship was designed by Gibbs & Cox in 1931 for American heiress Emily Roebling Cadwallader, grand-daughter of John A. Roebling, engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge. The ship was built by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, Germany. Equipped with Sperry gyro-stabilizers, she was described in 1949 by Jane’s Fighting Ships as “probably the most sumptuously fitted yacht afloat.” Her interiors contain 330 tons of polished marble. Her Hammam, a Turkish bath, contains 72 of these tons. Besides her Turkish bath, she also includes a swimming pool, and a 282-foot gold-trimmed staircase.

In 1938, she was purchased by the Turkish government as a state yacht. The first president of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was her first patron, but he unfortunately fell ill and died less than a year after boarding her for the first time. Savarona’s situation changed again when she came under the Turkish Naval Authorities. During World War II, the ship remained idle in Bosporus, Turkey before being used as a training vessel. In 1979, she was gutted and left to rot, but that would not be her final end. In 1989, she was contracted to 49-years of service to a Turkish business man, Kahraman Sadikoglu, who refurbished her over the course of 3 years at a cost of 45 million dollars. One of her major mechanical changes included replacing her original steam turbines with twin caterpillar diesel engines. Due to a scandal concerning alleged illegal activities onboard the ship, the charter was revoked. As of 2015, the Turkish government is back at her helm using her to welcome heads of state and escort the Turkish president.

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