http://www.boatinternational.com | June 2017the boat ran aground. “I had just asked Tim
what all these buoys were when we hit bottom,”
Recanati says. “Fortunately it was only sand.”
The incident did not dent Recanati’s
confidence – or the propeller – and he bid
farewell to Vivid as Forderer set sail for
Newfoundland, where he would come aboard
for a peaceful crossing from St John. It’s
something that Forderer, who when he began
had only a “six pack” licence and now has a
MCA Masters 3000GT unlimited licence,
remembers well.
Before my New York meeting with
Recanati, and before Vivid left for Belize,
I met Captain Forderer. We chatted in the
boat’s deckhouse over coffee. He told me about
a time around six years ago when he shared
with Recanati his charity initiatives and the
speeches that he gives to encourage youngsters
to follow their passion. “I wanted him to know
how grateful I was for this experience and,
more than that, that I had paid it forward to
others around the world.” He remembers the
owner listening thoughtfully, smoking a cigar,
and replying that his trips on board had been
among the best moments of his life.
“I was all for it,” Recanati says about the
donations. “It’s definitely one of the highlights
to have gone to these villages and seen thesomething wrong with the gauge,” Recanati
says, “then he realised there was nothing wrong
with it.” Recanati, who had a chance to share the
experience with one of his sons, nevertheless
cherishes the memory.
It was also with one of his sons that he took
a skipper’s course. The experience rekindled his
childhood fondness for sailing. He
had loved outings with his father, who
occasionally took a break from the
shipping business to sail on a friend’s
boat. They sailed for hours and then
would go into town for lunch, the son
trying his hand at spearfishing from
the breakwater in the port of Haifa.
But it wasn’t until that course that
the thought of owning a sailing yacht
entered Recanati’s mind. He looked
at many sailing yachts before Vivid.
What he liked about this boat, which
was bigger than what he’d wanted at
the time, was how solid and well built
she seemed.
“I am very particular and I look at small
details. I saw the craftsmanship was of very
high quality and I liked the deckhouse,” he
says. “Looking back now, 12 years later, that
deckhouse was the best thing because it allows
going to unlimited places, cold or hot, and
enjoying them.”
He knows that well as Vivid has sailed from
Indonesia and the Marquesas to the iceberg-
laden waters around Greenland, the Svalbard
archipelago and Antarctica. She’s done more
miles than many so-called explorer vessels and
without the benefit of special certification for
extreme cold.excitement of those kids as they took the little
things we brought them. It is so touching.” He
talks about the water filters too, how they can
help prevent the spread of infectious disease.
“It’s a privilege to be able to do this.”
Forderer is the third captain that Vivid
has had. By the time he set sail for Greenland
11 years ago, the boat had already had a brush
with a hurricane and made a transatlantic
crossing from Tenerife, under a different
captain’s command. There was very little
wind and Vivid was running on fumes when
they finally reached St Barths, the skipper
having mistakenly filled only one of the boat’s
two diesel tanks. “He kept thinking there wasClockwise from
top: Raja Ampat;
showing photographs
to Fijian children;
Vivid sailing in the
Philippines; with
family, crew and
locals in Fiji0123456789107
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