Review: The Spirit 54 Yachting World True Spirit of Bond

When Spirit Yachts received a call requesting one of his yachts to star in the new Bond movie, he was shaken but not stirred. How to get a 54-footer to the Bahamas and then to Venice for filming was all in a day's (or maybe several month's) work...

One of the things I really enjoy about this job is its unpredictability. Whenever the phone rings you never know who is on the other end and a Monday morning in January produced one of the more unusual calls...

‘Hello, my name is Richard Carless and I’d like to borrow one of your yachts.’
‘Really? We prefer to sell them rather than lend them out but do go on.....’
‘I am sorry. Let me explain. I work for the production company that is shooting the new James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’ and we would like to borrow one of your beautiful yachts to feature in the movie.’
‘That sounds fine but, and some of our owners are a bit funny about this, if you want to blow it up then I am afraid you’ll have to buy it!’
‘No, nothing like that. We just need it for a few days in Nassau in the Bahamas at the beginning of March and then for a few days in Venice at the beginning of June.’
Ah, nothing too complicated then.

Our brief at that stage was that there were to be two days filming in Lyford Cay, Nassau with our hero and his latest conquest on board, some general chat-chat shots and then James heaves her into the water (the rascal!) and.... ‘It’s a wrap, luvvies.’ Apparently the Bahamas is doubling as the Mediterranean for this sequence due to the water being warmer and bluer in March. Then it’s over to Venice for the next part. Some helicopter shots of the yacht arriving in the lagoon and then mast down, a motor up the Grand Canal..... not something you get asked to do everyday, some more helicopter shots of our Hero plus Bond Girl sailing off into the sunset. After the initial euphoria and the bad impersonations of Sean Connery had subsided, we started to work on the complexities of shipping a 54’ yacht across the Atlantic for two days filming and then back across to Venice.

Logistical nightmare

Our previous experiences of dealing with shipping companies have shown us that the shipping industry is .. well.. it’s not an exact science. Ships, even in the 21st century, get delayed, lost , cancelled and change route to take account of weather, politics or, it would seem, a better offer. We eventually got a firm date when we could take the yacht down to Tilbury to load aboard a ship bound for Miami. The 54’ was thus prepared with all the equipment she would need for her starring role, mast removed, carefully loaded and dispatched.

The return journey was proving more of a problem. You would think that if we can ship a yacht from Tilbury to Miami then to get her to Venice would be a simple case of back to Miami and over to Venice. Oh, no. Like the old joke about the motorist who, when he asked the old local how to get to London was told, ‘ Well, I wouldn’t start from here.’

To get to Venice we have to sail the yacht to Tortola in the BVI’s and load her onto a ship to get across the Atlantic. We then have a choice of destinations. Palma ...a mere 1500 miles short of Venice. La Spezia...200 miles as the crow flies but 1500 miles as the yacht sails. At the last minute we get the option of Split in Croatia- excellent! As I said... shipping is not an exact science.

After she had set off for Tilbury we heard no more of her until our ‘Away Team’ (Will Newman and Gideon Kritzinger) phoned to say that the ship had docked in Miami and all the papers were with the relevant authorities. One of the constants in this world is that Customs clearances and Customs officers move at their own speed which varies from slow to very slow. It doesn’t matter where you are... it takes as long it takes, but eventually the yacht was released and made swift passage to Nassau.

1st Day’s Filming

On the first day the film crew did not endear themselves by requesting an early shoot on the far side of the island in order to catch the sun rising with the Spirit 54 in the foreground. This entailed leaving the dock at 4.00am, motoring round the island through shallows and reefs, all in the pitch dark and arriving one minute before the chosen start time of 7.00 am. The Film crew eventually turned up at 2.30pm... the sun having long since departed along with any shred of patience from the aforementioned Spirit crew - the glamour of the film industry.

My business partner Sean McMillan had flown over at the start of filming to be there to offer assistance should it be required but actually spent the time hanging around whilst the film crew set up acres of equipment. Hanging around appears to be the main occupation of anyone involved with making a film. The only people who appeared to be busy were the army of security people who spent the entire time walking around looking mean and menacing, rummaging in the bushes looking for Paparazzi. The reason being that the second part of the shoot was a ‘Closed Set’... James Bond and his latest conquest were cementing their relationship on the 54’, in the time honoured style... a very tasty target for certain magazines! The Bond Girl, Vespa, preserved her modesty but Bond, however, eschewed such niceties in the true spirit of the British Secret Service!

Filming over, the yacht set off for Exuma Cay with the wind blowing 30 knots on the nose! The next land fall was Long Island, Bahamas then island hopping to the Turks and Caicos. After that a long passage to Puerto Rico and on to the British Virgin Islands, her destination for loading on ship in Tortola Harbour and then across to the Adriatic. A fault in the auto-pilot meant that Will and Gideon had to hand steer to windward one and a half hours ‘on’ and one and a half hours ‘off’ for four days. No mean feat in itself!

Bond Girl Double

Arriving at Split in Croatia, she was again offloaded and prepared for the final leg up to Venice. At this point Will was joined by a change of crew and they enjoyed an all too brief cruise up the Croatian coast on their way to the Venice Lagoon.

I then flew out to Venice with Wiss, my wife, who had been asked to act as a Bond Girl double and do the sailing shots as Eva Green was not a sailor. We arrived the day before the 54 and were taken to see the locations where we would be shooting. Narrow canals teeming with Venetian traffic, very expensive hotels as backdrops, waters crowded with commercial traffic, helicopters hovering three feet off the water and fifty feet away. Then the biggest challenge... taking the 54 into the Grand Canal (impossible- it’s closed by two bridges) to moor her next to the Rialto Bridge!

Arrangements had been made to base the yacht at the Isola Certosa where the boatyard, Vento di Venezia, is run by Alberto Sonino. I had expected to be greeted by a typically Italian boat yard owner (...if there is such a thing?) plump, big moustache, flip flops and rolled up shirt sleeves. I was pleasantly taken aback to be greeted by an early thirties, very cool, English speaking Alberto, World Champion Hobie Cat sailor, Olympic Sailor etc etc. He was unfailingly helpful, as were his team and without him I hate to think what could have happened.

The Spirit 54’ arrived at the yard on Saturday 27th May at eight o’clock in the morning having motored all night across a windless Adriatic from Croatia. Some breakfast for the crew and then Wiss, complete with dark wig, Bond Girl costume and Versace sunglasses (‘Can I keep them, please?’ ... ‘fraid not- continuity, Luvvie.’) and I were off with the James Bond double to start filming the yacht arriving in Venice off St. Marks Square. All the Venetians and Italians we met were delightful... with the exception of the Gondoliers who are unfailingly bad tempered and grumpy. ("They are born that way!" said Alberto Sonino).

I am not sure how Italians can be so organised- to preserve Venice as a gem, enjoy a very agreeable lifestyle, be superb designers of beautiful cars, clothes and all manner of other ‘must have’ items- yet be pretty hopeless at the simple stuff! We had an Italian Marine ‘Co-ordinator’ - something of an oxymoron. There was little co-ordination, just a huge amount of excited chatter on the radios. We eventually moved to another channel and having got the yacht on the desired course with the sails set, Will and I dived below as the helicopter swung into view. Flying the machine was a superb pilot who filmed the last nine Bonds (his previous engagement was as a Huey pilot in Vietnam...). He has thousands of hours in his log book and is, apparently, the best in the business. The Producer told me later that he had seen his Insurance Application form and in the box that said ‘Have you ever crashed a helicopter?’, he had written ‘Plenty.’

His instructions from the Marco Polo International Airport were not to descend below 300 feet. This must have been measured from the sea bed because as he flew sideways towards us and alongside he was no more than three feet off the water followed by a dramatic swooping climb! Wiss had to repeat this a dozen times before they had the required shot. We returned triumphant to the yard when the producer said that we would have to do it all again tomorrow!

We then took the yacht over to the Hotel Cipriani, one of the best and most beautiful hotels in Venice- if not the world. We moored stern to outside and awaited the film crews arrival. Within an hour the entire quayside was covered with sinuous power cables, lights, monitors, cameras and lots and lots of people with ear-piece radios frantically organising everything. Will was hired as a Bond ‘stand in’ to set up the shots and spent the rest of the day (when he wasn’t being Bond) texting everybody he knew to tell them he was Bond.

One of the scenes has Bond sitting on the bow of the yacht typing on a laptop (to say what he was typing would give the game away..), suffice to say when he’s finished he throws the laptop into the water. The two rehearsals were done with a rubber fake laptop. The next five takes were done with brand new, top of the range, Sony laptops! About £1500 a pop! The reason, I was told, was that if the laptop spun in the air and the audience could see it was not showing what our Mr.Bond had typed, their belief would be gone. The laptops were retrieved by a diver, wiped with a towel and by the time the shot was in the can there was a bizarre washing line with laptops dripping in the sun!

The following day we were filming off St Marks Square again with Wiss fully wigged and Versace’d. The wind gave us a very broad reach which, as we approached the Square, turned into a run- very busy with traffic and ferries everywhere. There were a few close calls and some interesting sailing with the wind gusting over the ancient roof tops at anything from 5 knots up to 20. At one point we had the lee rail well under and the Bond Double, who had been told to sit and type on his laptop, was gamely hanging on by one hand and typing with the other as we sliced through the melee. A real Trouper!!

At last the day came to take the Spirit into the Grand Canal. The mast was removed at Vento di Venezia, laid in supports on the deck and we motored over to San Marco to collect a police escort and enter the Grand Canal. We moored alongside a barge with a crane and an hour after the mast came out - we put it back in!

And there we were.

The Spirit 54 is the first sailing vessel in 350 years to be in the Grand Canal in Venice, mast up, sails on and ready to go.

Ruckus at the Rialto

The next day we motored her backwards down to the Rialto Bridge where we tied one of the RIBs to another small jetty and set about preparing for the days shoot. As discreet locations go this was not high on the list. With the paparazzi all around us and thousands of tourists lining both sides of the canal and standing four deep on the Rialto Bridge, Eva Green - the new Bond Girl, remarked that there were more people here than at the Cannes Film Festival. Positions were duly taken, the Police stopped the traffic and we went for the first rehearsal. All went well, the traffic stopped.........

‘And ...ROLLING...ACTION!’ came over the radio. We motored slowly out and up the Canal with Daniel Craig at the wheel.

‘CUT!!!!’

When the Police heard ‘Cut!’ they thought that meant let the traffic go, so as Daniel gave me the wheel we both looked back towards the bridge. He said something I never thought I’d hear an International Film Star say and then I said much the same...! You know the bit in the cowboy films when the Indians come over the hill, whooping and hollering, all dust and hooves flying... well that was what it was like. A solid mass of vaporetto’s, water taxi’s, gondola’s, barges and assorted rowing boats, all in a hurry and all heading straight for us. How we got back to our berth without mishap is testament to the superb boat handling of the Venetians and a fair pinch of luck. A crowded start line at Cowes will never seem quite so scary again.

Next time instead of shouting ‘CUT!’ the Producer whispered into the radio, ‘Not rolling’ and we scampered back for the next take before anyone knew!

All in all the filming went well. It was an enjoyable time although hard work and certainly no holiday. During filming it was a 6.30am start and a 7.00pm finish.
Back to the UK

When it was finally over we again removed the mast to get under the bridge again, returned to Alberto’s yard and prepared to motor the 60 miles to Slovenia to meet the truck taking the yacht back to the UK. We had to ship via Slovenia because... well.. lets just leave it at ‘Co-ordination’.

So.... 2,000 miles of sailing, two transatlantic crossings by ship, 1,500 miles on trucks, 5 ‘mast in - mast out’s’, a dozen airfares or so, for , we guess, about three or four minutes in ‘Casino Royale’, the latest Bond movie. Was it worth it.... you must be the judge of that. We hope you enjoy it.

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