Last knockings

On our last morning, just as we were leaving, we had a leaving present from a local cat, in the form of a not-quite dead mouse brought onto the back patio. We opted to leave it alone.

We were a little early for our ferry, but as luck would have it the tide was out at Ryde and we were able to spend a happy hour wandering on the near empty sands.

An uneventful crossing on the large new ferry, Victoria of Wight, to be greeted on arrival by the flashy looking yacht snapped above. There was a name on the back 'Ngoni', but I failed to make it out at the time. Back home, I failed to trace it using Bing, Google or Bard - and I was reduced to phoning up Gun Wharf Quay, where it was tied up, to find out what it was. A rather amused gent. at the other end explained that it was the super yacht Ngoni, in a league of its own. Nothing so common as member of a class, not even a prestigious class like the J-class cutters of old, toys for the very rich. Grocers and monarchs and people like that. The sort of thing noticed a few years ago at reference 2.

Armed with the name, I now track it down, to find that it is roughly twice the length of 'Shamrock III' of reference 2, although you would not think it from the pictures. Price on application, but I would guess of the order of 10m euros. Perhaps a bit much for Associate Justice Clarence of reference 5. With the publicity shots of the yacht being much more concerned to show off the interior than to show you some yachting, racing maybe, challenging conditions even. So really a small and very exclusive mobile hotel, decorated with sails, albeit rather large ones. See reference 4.

I think the lady back right is art rather than flesh and blood, but hard to be sure.

Inscribed on the stern for the Royal Thames Yacht Club, what looks from its website (reference 7) like a rather swanky club with its headquarters in Knightsbridge. It looks from Street View as if they had their site redeveloped and then moved back into some fraction of the space which they originally had - with the two pot plants flanking what is now their entrance. Embassy of Kuwait next building along to the right, so perhaps the club is not particular about place of residence. And if one was to buy the boat, would membership come with it?

Back with the journey home and concerned with possible hold-ups at the A3/M25 junction, we opted for the country route from Godalming. But not before we finally made No.37, as reported at reference 6, and had had a good second look at Wellingtonia No.35 just before we got to the southern entrance of the Hindhead tunnel, that fine payday for a consortium of civil engineers. Possibly donors to the Conservative Party.

As it turned out, a picturesque but very slow route home on which I passed up on several scorable Wellingtonia. We must go back over the route to get some of them. 

Part of slow was getting stuck behind a learner bus driver, an activity which had been contracted out by the bus company concerned. Privatisation is not just for the public sector! Another part was getting slightly lost, possibly by taking a wrong turn out of Shalford. I blame the navigator.

References

Reference 1: https://www.wightlink.co.uk/facilities/ferries/victoria-of-wight.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-bout-of-top-down-thinking.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngoni_people. A people who started out from roughly the same part of southern Africa as the better known Zulus, who defeated and then scattered them in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Reference 4: https://www.fraseryachts.com/en/yacht/ngoni/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/trolley-579.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/no37.html.

Reference 7: https://royalthames.com/.