Art on water

On board S/Y Bushido

If a boat can be called a work of art then surely ones designed by William Fife qualify him as the Degas of yacht construction. Fife was a Scot, but unlike fellow Scots such as Blair and Brown, he handed down beauty, not misery, modern maritime Parthenons rather than debt and anarchy. No one has ever got near him as far as art on water is concerned. Cambria, Altair, Mariquita, Moonbeam, Fintra, Viola, Nan of Fife, Mikado, Jap, I could go on. My son sailed on Mariquita as a deckhand while she raced in classic contests, and has been hooked on beauty ever since. The visual aspects of a sailing boat are like those of a woman. Proportions are all. A beautiful figure cannot make up for a very ugly face, and vice versa. Boats are feminine, and a sheerline, a counter or even the way a deck house slopes make the difference between extraordinary beauty and rather dreary artlessness.