Moon Sand: Meet captain Lorian
Captains of Feadships on display at the big boat shows face a busy time as they welcome many invited guests onboard. During the Monaco event we caught up with Lorian Smith, skipper of Moon Sand and asked him for an update from the bridge!
Moon Sand was launched in in May… How have the first few months been?
Our two-week shakedown cruise to the Baltics and Scandinavia was an awesome experience. Moon Sand is lovely to drive: we came out of Norway with a three-metre running sea and she handled like a dream, doing 19 knots down the waves in complete stability. Her designer Tanno Weeda is an absolute genius! After returning to the Feadship yard in Makkum for a few warranty issues we spent two weeks sailing to Venice, which was a fantastic place. The rest of the summer saw us cruising in some delightful spots. The owners particularly loved Croatia, as did our engineer who comes from there! It is really nice to round the season off with the Monaco show and all the crew are really excited to be here.
It was good of the owners to allow Feadship to showcase their yacht here…
Yes! They’ve spent the time on board and love looking at all the other boats and the stands. The crew also enjoy meeting up with everyone and seeing the new technologies - the chef has his eyes on some great new gear! This is a celebration and we’re here to exhibit Feadship quality. We’d done 8,500 miles prior to the show and the owners kindly gave us a full week to get ready, from scrubbing the teak to polishing the stainless steel. We also had to get the world’s most expensive piano on the sun deck – the 600,000th edition of the Steinway and a special design by Frank Pollaro, who also created much of the furniture on Moon Sand.
What’s it like to skipper a Feadship?
Moon Sand is my first Feadship and she’s been a revelation. A new boat is usually a real pain for the first year, giving her captain lots of stress, but that has certainly not been the case here. We had only a handful of warranty points and I’m sure that no other yacht at this show had so few issues to deal with post-launch. It makes our job easier that every aspect of the exterior and interior has been so carefully thought through and superbly built. The metal working and faring, the painting, the deck…. It is all absolutely perfect. Of course we pushed for that during the build but at Feadship they seem to make it look easy. You compare other boats of this size and wonder how they can make such unrivalled quality for this price. Ultimately, however, the key factor for a captain is his or her crew. They do all the hard work and on Moon Sand we have a magnificent group of people to whom I am very grateful.
