Boat International – April 2018

http://www.boatinternational.com | April 2018

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES

On board

with

LANG

WA L K E R

From a humble dinghy

to a series of superyacht

sloops and a private island

hideaway, the Australian

property developer talks

Sophia Wilson through

the Kokomo dynasty

“MY FIRST KOKOMO WAS A SMALL

DINGHY, a VJ [Vaucluse Junior], back when

I was kid. I used to race and that’s what got

me hooked,” says straight-talking Lang Walker.

Since his childhood exploits the name Kokomo

has stuck, but the boats have changed

dramatically, including three Ed Dubois-

designed sailing superyachts. It is in his oice,

with swing music playing softly in the

background, that Walker, who is now in his early

seventies, is telling me about his lifelong love

afair with sailing and the sea.

However, rather than a superyacht, his latest

Kokomo is actually an island in Fiji’s Great

Astrolabe Reef, which Walker has transformed

into a luxurious barefoot resort, with 21

beachfront villas and six luxury residences. His

“oice” is an expansive white table on the shaded

terrace of his residence, with uninterrupted

views across a palm tree strewn beach to a

glistening reef beyond. “It’s a beautiful spot here,”

he says. “In a way that is how it started because I

thought ‘I wouldn’t mind having a house on this

beach’. In the end, we got the house and

everything else that went with it.”

It might seem strange for Walker to take on

such an ambitious project at this stage, but for

those who followed the evolution of his three

OWNERS’ CLUB

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