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Admit it: At some point
in your childhood, probably after reading Treasure Island or seeing Peter
Pan, you thought it would be really cool to be a pirate. You imagined
yourself sailing the high seas, searching for buried treasure on adventure
after adventure, and perhaps best of all, playing with swords (with no
meddling parents around to claim they were dangerous).
Whether or not Arnie
Gemino dreamt of such things in his youth, he’s given a lot of thought
to the matter more recently. The chairman of marine and aviation service
company Tradepower International, Gemino acquired a 265-foot, 2,000-ton
Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker about two years ago at auction and spearheaded
a 60-week conversion that transformed her into a dazzling, pirate-themed
adventure-seeker. The name? Bart Roberts, after Bartholemew Roberts,
one of the “Gentlemen of Fortune,” as some famous pirates
were called. Roberts earned renown for being handsome and well-groomed,
always wearing elegant clothes and a jeweled cross, even during battle.
But he also earned notoriety for assembling a pirate fleet so formidable
that naval squadrons sent to seize him were said to turn back upon seeing
his flotilla.
Gemino’s Bart
Roberts does reflect some of this aggressive imagery. Picture a massive
black hull with “Bart Roberts” painted in gothic lettering,
a crossed swords design on her funnel, a cannon in the saloon, and guest
staterooms named for other fierce plunderers. (As for Roberts, a.k.a.
Black Bart, his name graces the master stateroom.) But the minute you
step onboard, instead of feeling as if you’ll have to walk the plank,
you’re overcome with awed—even giddy—delight. For Gemino
and the team he tapped to turn the 1963 Canadian Vickers-built vessel
into a Lloyd’s- and SOLAS-approved expedition charter yacht have
incorporated the pirate theme in a much more stylish—and, in some
respects, tongue-in-cheek—way.
Settling on the theme
was easy. Gemino has long had an interest in pirates, and he wanted to
get as far away as possible from what he saw as the typical yacht look.
To use his words, in the 20 years he’s been involved with yachts,
“I’ve seen enough sculpted carpets and glossy tables.”
Gemino’s first
step was finding a place to do the refit. He considered New Orleans, but
his project manager and naval architect, Lennart Edström, suggested
heading to Victoria, British Columbia, where they could assemble subcontractors
to assist a team of their own making—essentially they’d be
their own yard. In fact, they hired some of the very same crew who’d
worked aboard the vessel when she was known as Narwhal. They found
a ferry terminal that was no longer in operation and began the 60-week
project.
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