The Heartbreak of a $40 Million Yacht
G. Bruce Knecht considers his new book, “Grand Ambition” (Simon & Schuster, $27), to be a water-based companion to Tracy Kidder’s “House.” Like that classic work of nonfiction, “Grand Ambition” focuses on all the aspects of building, and all the people involved, only instead of a house the subject is a $40 million yacht called Lady Linda.
“With a yacht, the backgrounds are so much more disparate,” said Mr. Knecht, from the billionaire owner to the pipe fitters to the onboard staff. “You’re not just talking about the top 1 percent, but the top, top 1 percent. At the same time, I also write about an illegal immigrant from Honduras working for 10 bucks an hour.”
Doug Von Allmen, the private equity investor who commissioned Lady Linda, had the outsize desire to create the best American-built yacht in history and the terrible timing to begin a year before the 2008 financial crisis. In sympathetic prose, Mr. Knecht chronicles the yacht’s complex nuts-and-bolts construction, as well as the larger financial and interpersonal dramas that threatened its completion.
Mr. Knecht, a New York-based author who sails in his spare time, spoke to a reporter about the ostentatious world of yacht design and why even billionaires feel the pinch.
G. Bruce Knecht considers his new book, “Grand Ambition” (Simon & Schuster, $27), to be a water-based companion to Tracy Kidder’s “House.” Like that classic work of nonfiction, “Grand Ambition” focuses on all the aspects of building, and all the people involved, only instead of a house the subject is a $40 million yacht called Lady Linda.
“With a yacht, the backgrounds are so much more disparate,” said Mr. Knecht, from the billionaire owner to the pipe fitters to the onboard staff. “You’re not just talking about the top 1 percent, but the top, top 1 percent. At the same time, I also write about an illegal immigrant from Honduras working for 10 bucks an hour.”
Doug Von Allmen, the private equity investor who commissioned Lady Linda, had the outsize desire to create the best American-built yacht in history and the terrible timing to begin a year before the 2008 financial crisis. In sympathetic prose, Mr. Knecht chronicles the yacht’s complex nuts-and-bolts construction, as well as the larger financial and interpersonal dramas that threatened its completion.
Mr. Knecht, a New York-based author who sails in his spare time, spoke to a reporter about the ostentatious world of yacht design and why even billionaires feel the pinch. Complete article
