The Prince and I—Defining Vintage
Senior Editor Shane Scott and Yacht Designer Bill Prince take a walk down memory lane at Ocean Reef’s Annual Vintage Weekend
Senior Editor Shane Scott and Yacht Designer Bill Prince take a walk down memory lane at Ocean Reef’s Annual Vintage Weekend.
Vintage Weekend at the Ocean Reef Club came and went like any other (as far as I know, this is the first one I’ve attended and by the sound of it there have been some anomalies as to how these events have carried out), in a predictably sunny and cheerful fashion, filled with beautiful yachts, cars and planes from yesteryear, delicious food and their owners reunited for a few days of indulgences (i.e. a man in his mid 70s dressed as the starlet of an 1800’s burlesque show—more on this later). But from what I can tell, Vintage Weekend is slowly changing, the same way a fingernail might grow—look away for a while and when you look back things have taken a new shape.
After eating more helpings of mahi than I can count and gawking at the loops and spins of fearless, flying stunt pilots, I was lucky enough to walk the docks with Bill Prince. He was the first to bring my attention the slow but steady changes that prove the title “vintage” is only relative.
“This is the first time we’ve had two over 40-foot fiberglass boats,” he said, looking down the waterway where boats dating back to the early 60’s were docked alongside. “There was no such thing as a classic fiberglass boat 30 years ago. We’ll probably see even more soon.”
Prince and I walked on and off a few boats—a couple of Huckins, a Trumpy and the big boy that had everyone lined up for their chance to tour, a 1970, 132-foot Feadship called Cetacea. I had tried to get on the Feadship earlier, quite literally just walking up to the crew with a smile and a nod when I realized there was a cue of about fifteen people waiting to get aboard. Rather than be shunned forever as a “Cutter,” I waited for another go around. And I’m glad I did, because walking through a classic boat with a modern-day yacht designer serves for quite the revelation.
While I listened to a crew give a speech for the 30th time that day about how many times Cetacea had been around the world and cautioning tourers as they bumped their noggins against one of several bulkheads, Prince was dipping his head between just about every crevasse he could find as he analyzed the old vessel.
“Now, this is attention to craftsmanship,” Prince said as we walked through the forward dining room. “They don’t make boats of this size like this anymore—you’d never see a forward dining room in a boat this size, today.”
“Why do you think that is?” I asked.
He went on to explain how at the time this Feadship was built, it was likely one of the largest privately owned vessels in existence. You had a company building a few hundred models of something to this caliber, but now it’s more like a few thousand. And with an increase in production and an increase in consumers, the things that gather more attraction aren’t based on craftsmanship, but on what offers an attractive first glance. The dining hall where we stood would easily, almost always be a forward berth today, Prince noted.
But like Prince also noted, what counts as vintage shifts with the ever-slipping sands of time. I pondered this note as I made my way to the Vintage Weekend’s western costume-themed dinner. I had read the word “costume” on the brochure before I left my hotel room. Dressed in a pinstriped, buttoned-down shirt and blue slacks, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I headed out the door. Was I western appropriate? I shook it off—no, these guys are seasoned professionals, surely this meant a maybe a flannel or two and some bandannas, there was no need to worry. When I walked into the town hall my eyes met with a crimson red lounge dress laced over the hairy legs of the aforementioned fellow. Was he really wearing red or were my eyes bleeding? I couldn’t be sure. Seeking the quickest solution to my debacle, I immediately made my way over to the waiter holding a tray of red wine. Drink in hand, I took a seat in the corner and watched as several Vintage goers arrived dressed as horses, some in furry fabric, others with blown-up three-dimensional plastic horse bodies surrounding them.
A couple of drinks later it was time to call it quits. As I headed back to my room, I walked through the rows of classic cars parked nearby. Observing the shiny metal frames of the past glowing under the moonlit sky, I wondered what these old wheels had been through and who they raced against. And it came to me that the story and subsequent nostalgia behind the vessels is perhaps more relevant, in some ways, than the vessels themselves.
As a guest on New York Yacht Club Commodore Chris Culver’s Cetacea had told me from the cockpit earlier that day as a sipped on a glass of rum, “you can feel the history as you walk around this boat.”
“And that’s why we maintain them,” Culver added. “We [owners] have the same passion, whether its boats, cars or planes. We just want to maintain something from the past for everyone to enjoy.”
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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/blogs/vintage-weekend-2022-at-the-ocean-reef-club
