GO I NG
LARGE
A sequence of serendipitous events led Rob Holmes to buying
his first boat, a 60ft classic motoryacht that he now calls home
Words and pictures Rob HolmesI
was brought up by the sea in Eastbourne
and remember falling in love with boats
when I fi rst saw an Optimist sailing dinghy
at Bewl Valley reservoir. As well as sailing
and windsurfi ng in Eastbourne, my family
kept a 27ft yacht in Brighton Marina and
I used to drive my parents crazy asking to
take out the tender with its 2hp engine.
One day, after the yacht was knocked fl at
rounding Beachy Head, my Mum put her foot down and the
Jaguar 27 was traded in for a 60ft canal boat! No chance of
being blown over in that.
As well as living on the south coast, all our summer holidays
were spent in Salcombe, South Devon, sailing Lasers from South
Sands beach and trying to get my grandpa’s Seagull engine
started. It was these early years in Salcombe that really put the
salt water in my veins.
In 1993 I moved to South Devon and helped my Dad open
a restaurant, nightclub and houseboat business – that was my
Dad’s idea of retirement. Sadly he died in 1995 of cancer, aged
51, but his legacy of watersports lives on in me and my kids.
Determined to make the most of my time on this earth (I’m
now 49) and ensure that my four children enjoy the same idyllic
childhood I did, I sold my baby sleep products business, The Gro
Company, in 2013 and since then have been public speaking,
mentoring, writing children’s books and in the last six months
attending RYA Day and Coastal Skipper classes with a view to
one day buying a boat of my own.THE STARS ALIGN
Despite being brought up sailing, I have lusted after a Fleming 55
motoryacht for years. Unfortunately, I didn’t sell the business
for enough money to buy even a second-hand one! I am also
very attracted to classic motoryachts with blue hulls and white
superstructures, and have collected photos of these boats for
decades. But despite having a life-long obsession with owning
a boat in Salcombe one day, I wasn’t actively looking to buy one.
However, in June last year I went to lunch with a friend calledPhil Howling who runs Network Yacht Brokers in Dartmouth.
We hardly talked about boats, in fact, we didn’t even end up
eating, but I did buy him an orange juice. Turned out to be the
most expensive orange juice I ever bought, because when I got
home I thought I’d take a look at his website, just out of curiosity
to see what kind of boats he sold. The third photo I saw was a
beautiful classic motoryacht called Auriga. She was designed
by De Vries naval architects (now part of Feadship) and built
in 1969 at the Cammenga yard in Holland. It was love at fi rst
sight. She was exactly the kind of elegant, blue-hulled
gentleman’s yacht that I’d been lusting after for 20 years.
I fl ew up to Glasgow the next day, took a four-hour taxi
journey to Ardfern Marina on the west coast to take a look at her
in the fl esh. It turned out she had been commissioned by two
Italians called the Ferrari brothers, but not the car family, whoOWNER’S TALE