day,” says Giles, who was so
taken by the big blue that he went
on to study nautical engineering
at university. It was on Queen Bee,
strapped to a rope and with a special
child-sized rig, that the brothers learnt
to windsurf. As an adult, Nick went on to
buy a place in Biarritz with his Canadian
semi-professional windsurfer wife (she’s since hung up her
board and now works at Bremont), while Giles has upped the
a nte w it h t he s ca r y-s ou nd i n g Ma ko Sl i n gshot , or what he ca l ls
“surfing without waves”— a special edition Bremont Slingshot
can be found at their Mayfair boutique. “They go about 30
knots and it’s a bit of a smack when you fall off,” says Giles.
“It’s quite a buzz.”
Yachting is a firm favourite with watch CEOs, particularly
those whose offices overlook one of Switzerland’s numerous
beautiful lakes. Echoing its position in the industry, Patek
Philippe leads the charge: patriarch Philippe Stern was crowned
“Roi du Lac” (King of Lake Geneva) multiple times for his
record-holding wins in the Bol d’Or Mirabaud, a 123km inland
lake regatta that runs from Geneva to Le Bouveret and back.
After his first win in 1977, during a terrible thunderstorm, he
took home the top gong six more times with his catamaran
Altaïr—and a Nautilus on his wrist, naturally.
Karl-Friedrich Scheufele of Chopard keeps two boats: an
open sailboat and a classic wooden Riva Super Aquarama from
1967 that “needs a lot of attention, patience and time”—right
up Scheufele’s street. “I was never the type to get someone
else to do all the work, I jump on the boat and just take off,”
he explains. “I like to take care of the boat myself, come back
and clean it. If I don’t have time to do that, it’s not the rightattitude.” The best outings on the Riva, he says, are right after
the office shuts, winding down in the middle of the lake with
the setting sun, a glass of wine and a dip in the water. “It’s
a huge privilege in Geneva.” And if time isn’t ticking, the
sailboat is pushed out. “It’s both relaxing and challenging—
you’re using only natural energy to pull you along.”
Peter Harrison, European CEO of Richard Mille and a
diehard sailor, keeps a Tofinou 9.5 on Lake Geneva, one of four
boats that he owns. “That sounds greedy, but it’s not,” he says
apologetically. “They each perform different tasks and enable
you to sail on different waves so it’s important.” A second 7m
Tofinou is docked at the Isle of Wight, while a J/70 is based at
the Monaco Yacht Club. Most headline grabbing is his ultra-
high performance, 16-tonne, carbon-fibre Maxi 72 monohull
Sorcha, which competes in regattas around the world.
Harrison agrees with his business counterparts that sailing
COURTESY OF ENGLISH FAMILY ARCHIVE (TRIO ON is a form of escape—mental and physical. “You’ve got to focus
BOAT); COURTESY OF BREMONT (NICK
AND GILES ENGLISH); RENAUD CORLOUER (MAX 72, HARRISON)“But when I see
the sea, my mood
changes. It’s both
EXHILARATING
and relaxing”
Nick and
Giles EnglishNick and
Giles English
The brothers who
co-founded Bremont began
ocean sailing at a young age
with their father Euan on
board Queen Bee.
Below: the Bremont S2000Peter Harrison
The European CEO of Richard Mille
owns four boats, including the ultra-high
performance, 16-tonne, carbon-fibre
Maxi 72 monohull Sorcha (right), which
races in regattas around the world.
Below right: the RM 11-03 Carbon TPTAUTUMN 2019 VANITY FAIR ON TIME 73