WHAT HAPPENS ON THE BOAT STAYS ON THE BOAT
3/1/2007 3:32:12 PM by Wave Editorial Staff
Wave’s editors and foreign correspondents often find themselves in some pretty sticky situations while out at sea in search of that next great story idea. Here are a few we thought might be worth a mention.
WILD GIRLS
What happens on the boat usually stays on the boat, unless a camera crew from a Girls Gone Wild knock-off crew happens to be cruising by. Such was the case for some college girls down in Cancun for Spring Break ‘06. “It’ll be something fun to watch when I’m 80,” said one of the unsuspecting participants, who wished to remain nameless. “The photography wasn’t that great, so the only person who’ll recognize me unless I point myself out is the plastic surgeon who did my boob job.” In an even more bizarre turn of events, the boat the girls were on was named Scandal.
PARTY BOAT
Wild parties with exotic people aboard luxurious yachts are the stuff of urban legend. All the fabulous glitz and glamour was on hand when music producer Swizz Beatz hosted a bling-spattered party for hip-hop master Irv Gotti aboard the 150-foot Utopia III.
“We got about $5 billion worth of people onboard!” Swizzy shouted out while acting as deejay. The guest list included such notables as Russian Heiress Anna Anisimova, Wendy Williams, New York Met Cliff Floyd, rappers Ja Rule and Fat Joe, and Gotti’s latest protege, Vanessa (call her “V”) Carlton.
The Georges Vesselle champagne flowed freely, and when it started raining around midnight, the party moved indoors with countless shots of Patron and funny-smelling cigarettes keeping the crowd busy. One attendee passed out in a deck chair, while others rolled down the gangplank many hours later and got into their Maybachs, Mercedeses and Range Rovers.
FROM POOR TO MILLIONS
Not only did what happened on the boat in this case not stay on the boat, but the three Mexicans who spent nine months drifting across the Pacific Ocean in a shabby fishing boat eating raw fish and sea birds have sold their story for $3.8 million.
The three men say that they were initially too poor to buy a more substantial boat or good fishing tackle. For several months, the trio was considered lost at sea after their 26-foot fiberglass boat ran into trouble in the Pacific off of Mexico. They drifted for 4,300 nautical miles until they were finally picked up many months later by a Taiwan trawler off of the isolated Marshall Islands in the South Pacific. Their story was sold to Atlanta-based Ezekiel 22.
TO TAME FAME
Jason Priestley of Beverly Hills, 90210 is used to making the news, but normally in a good way. However, back in 2002, during the Fountain Miami Super Boat Grand Prix in Miami Beach, his guardian angel decided to go on vacation. In front of a packed crowd, Priestley barely avoided serious injury after his powerboat collided with another race boat. A rogue wave was reported to have caused Priestley to bump the other boat at the first turn in the Superboat Unlimited Class. His throttleman, Dan Campbell, was not as lucky as the actor and received several broken ribs from the impact.
“It wasn’t scary at all,” Priestley said at the time. “We hit pretty good. It was pretty solid contact. When it became clear we were going to make contact, my job was to avoid flipping over. Boats at that speed…anything stupid can make the incident a lot worse.”
SEA LOVE
Recently, 50 Chinese millionaires boarded a self-titled “Love Boat” in Shanghai to find themselves a wife. The process started with each gentleman selecting three potential “targets” from a book of choices for the trip. Then, nature took its course at sea. The “Love Boat” required the men who signed up for the cruise to be worth 2 million yuan or about $300,000, with the average attendee worth around $3 million.
While most of the millionaires were male and the women were required to be stunning and well-educated, there were some exceptions. “I’m already a member, and have found a ‘target’,” said Miss Lu, who owns a manufacturing business and arrived early in a white BMW. “But here I have one more chance to look at the field.”