My job is to report mankind’s doings. So I am now reporting them. So what you did this week, I don’t know. So what I did this week was spend one day in Monaco.
One day. Not exactly how Princess Grace Kelly did it when she ran the place.
And why? To learn what is the true meaning of poverty. It’s owning a yacht that’s smaller than 400 feet.
To own a floating apartment house means you’re so rich that if you don’t have a sleep-in banker, your wallet’s considered carry-on.
Larry Ellison of Oracle has $41 billion dollars, give or take a few drachma. His boat, with a crew of 48, was called The Rising Sun. He should’ve named it Our Lady of the Dow Jones. When its prescription portholes got wet he sold it to David Geffen for $200 million. Bow to stern we’re talking 453 feet.
Geffen lives in Beverly Hills, Malibu and a 54 million buck Fifth Avenue triplex of 12,000 square feet. He has two boats. One for hot water, the other for cold. He’ll get a third just for luke. On them he schleps guests like Oprah.
If you’re on the bus right now to grab leftover stale Twinkies at Safeway and you don’t know these things, there exists Feadship. In the Netherlands. Hans Brinker’s old saga of the kid who stuck his finger in a dike? Shove it. This operation, circa 1849, is the Royal Dutch Shipyards.
So I’m on a deck — fore, aft, who cares, I only know I’m outside shivering in the wind — with Henk S. de Vries III. He’s spilling a nice little story about some nice little dinghy Arab royals are getting: “Four years to build. Costs a billion dollars. It’ll have spas, saunas, Jacuzzis, gym, hot tubs, pools, helipads, conference rooms, screening rooms, tech rooms, sundecks, 30 guest rooms, lounging areas, berths for 100 security. It’s 600 feet and must anchor offshore because of course it’s too big to dock.”
Yeah, well, of course.
Probably also has a football stadium, but this he didn’t mention.
Henk is Feadship’s CEO, maybe the world’s premier shipbuilder. Another gent was his rep Tim Hamilton, an American from Fort Lauderdale. Understand, a Dutchman makes them . . . a Yank sells them.
I’m there because friends invited me to investigate a boat. They decided they needed one. Like besides Noah anyone needs a boat, right?
This seaworthy craft was in Monaco. I’d thought, if it goes on water, sail the thing to US. Why should US go there? Park it in our 79th Street basin. We grab a cab, which will end up costing almost as much as the ship itself and this way we don’t have to knock ourselves out.
But, no. On a G-4 six New Yorkers left 10 p.m. for Monaco’s waterfront. One was on an iPad, another worked Skype, a third on a computer, a fourth on an iPhone, a fifth played video games. Me, I was hustling the stewardess for turkey and cheese on brown bread. I have my priorities. If the world ever grinds to an end, first comes a sandwich.
After six-ish hours with a 40-minute snooze, we land. It’s morning. Hotel, nap, shower, Starbucks, clothes change later, I’d be up for yacht shopping. But, no. Cars sped from our runway to their dock. No hotel, shower, nap, Starbucks, clothes change. I mean, bargaining for some raft named “Go-Go” when your teeth are wearing an angora sweater? Please.
They said: “A boat’s good to just kick back. You leave the stress of modern life behind.” Yeah, plus a half-inch of millions of dollars. They organized a tour. Served lunch. Set sail. Powered through the waves. Their idea was to choose to cruise. But Go-Go flew a foreign flag. As we lay in the bay the French police putt-putted alongside.
Uniformed commandants bobbed around the hull. Chugged right of us. Left. In front. In back. Never floated away. Surrounded us. An hour later they boarded. Inspected the galley, checked was caviar aboard, examined the engine, counted the stored wine. An ambassador from France once told me: “Madame, it is not that the French don’t like the Americans. The French don’t like the French.”
France and its back lawn — Monte Carlo and Monaco — are so broke that they make Greece look profitable. What their police found or saw or what they got, who knows? Eventually, their po-po left our Go-Go.
Then, heigh-ho-heigh-to the hotel we did go. Our group never got to play in that famous European piggy-ground, where rich Americans migrate to stash tax-free loot. Where untold wealth means never reporting it to the IRS.
With 30,000 residents — mostly expats — it’s smaller than J.Lo’s closet. The royal palace looks like a wedding cake. The fabled gambling casino once held the world’s ritziest glitziest but is now shabby. We saw nothing. Shopped no place. Visited nowhere. Called no friends. It was sleep. Get up. Board the plane.
With storms over the Atlantic, our aircraft ran short of fuel. It was an emergency landing in Gander, Newfoundland, for petrol and de-icing. Eleven hours coming home. Longer than we spent in Monaco.
You’ve read the Brits dug up the 15th-century’s King Richard III from under a rockpile? You ever hear that he cried: “My kingdom for a boat?”