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Kismet Review!

Discussion in 'Lurssen Yacht' started by brunick, Nov 28, 2007.

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  1. brunick

    brunick Senior Member

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    hey Carl - i've to say that review is amazing - it's realy like being aboard that nice "little" ship.

    i think you should do more reviews on such big yachts.
    by the way, is it true that "Kismet" is for charter? You've got any knowledge about that?

    jannick
  2. airship

    airship Senior Member

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    I especially like the way that Lürssen managed to integrate the side-wheels of their innovative paddle-wheel motor yacht (or am I the only one here that sees any resemblance)... :D

    The idea of the inside / outside bar is nice. Of course, if I owned the Kismet, I'd have had flooring more adapted for heavy-drinking sessions and their results...?! But also being an extremely reclusive billionaire superyacht-owner, I think it could be even more fun to have the whole inside / outside bar area "secured" from the rest of the yacht. And have a separate passerelle coming upto this deck from the quay. That way, whenever Kismet was in port and I felt like I needed the company of ordinary folk and still remain incognito, I could just have that gangway lowered and ask the barman to hang out a sign "BAR IS OPEN"...?!

    OK, so I'll admit it. I'd also have a padded-cell aboard to go to whenever any of my ideas really did belong in the cuckoo's nest...
  3. blazeboss

    blazeboss New Member

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    holy cow!!

    Hey Carl,I realize you have been alot of fine yachts but it was good to see this one blew your doors off!! When I saw the review appear it was very exciting! Now I know when my ship comes in which yacht I will charter.
  4. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    Thanks Jannick. Much appreciated. With regards to chartering Kismet… I don’t know. My math falls apart when the numbers get that high.

    Recently, a couple of people have asked about my role in the reviews. Just to clarify, I work as the managing editor. What this means is, editorial falls prey to my pen. Chuck & I physically do the reviews together, i.e. time onboard, walk-thrus, sea trials, taking pics, notes, etc. Chuck covers the nature of the build, materials, theme, the ambiance, etc. I focus more on the technical details, the lead into the story and closing statements. On most reviews, I re-write or add about 20% to Chuck's editorial. Once or twice, I have done a complete re-write. Although Chuck's name is on the story, the writing is often a combination of both of us. I don't care about the credit. Actually, I prefer not to have the liability.

    I think most of us know YF’s reviews are a bit bigger than most. I believe the yachts we cover deserve this. A novel could be written on most of these builds… but the time to do this isn’t a luxury we have. Chuck puts about 20 hours into each piece. I have around the same number of hours into a review, but for different reasons. My time is spent choosing, cropping, labeling and uploading images, in the proper sequence. Then, tweaking text and getting it to flow with the images. And finally, there’s some coding to be done.

    Some reviews simply fall together. Others are a struggle. It has a lot to do with believing in the build, the cooperation of the builder and the story the boat is telling you. Yes, every boat has a story. Ask any seller AFTER he sells the boat! ;)
  5. airship

    airship Senior Member

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    Whilst whole-heartedly agreeing with the above statement, may I suggest that it might not be entirely unsuitable / unimaginable should future in-depth reviews also comprise a very small section (say, 10% of the total article) towards the end, devoted to "what might have been done better (and will be)" for the next build...?! This might involve obviously "off the record" comments from the crew members with some expreience of operating the new yacht, the new owners and even the builders involved. What I'd like to see sometimes are a few photos of the glaringly-obvious faults. Whether or not they consist of a 0.5mm gap in the interior finishes of the cupboards, mooring lines which have to be lead to the tops of the capstans because the fairleads are too high or that navigation at night is perturbed by the lights shining out from the owner's observation deck, 1 deck above the bridge...?! :)
  6. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    Actually, this is going to be your job on the next review! We are in the editorial stages of an Albrecht engineered boat. ;)
  7. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    On this I could write books, but my experience is that with one-off yachts, we are dealing with "one-off people" who love to make their own mistakes...:)
  8. Kevin

    Kevin YF Moderator

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    When Kismet shows up for sale and we hear that the owner is placing an order for his next Lurssen, then we'll know he/she figured out what could be done better. ;)
  9. airship

    airship Senior Member

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    The only Albrecht I know would have Jimi Hendrix even being piped through the food lift...?!

    It suddenly hit me that yacht designers / builders / conceptors are missing out on a whole market segment: that is, coming up with modern yachts that somewhat hitherto-forgotten folk heroes might have built had they still been alive today...?! Never underestimate the strength of fans with money to burn.

    Personally, I like Gordon Lightfoot. Who's still alive today even if he can't quite reach those high notes anymore. What would a modrn-day superyacht like the M/Y Edmund Fitzgerald look like today...?!
  10. Francois

    Francois New Member

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    Wow thank you for this awesome review.Lots of thoughts must have gone into building this beautiful yacht.The finish is exquisite , those gold taps says it all.It one of the best shower area I have ever seen,very well planed.Awesome.This must be the ultimate galley :cool:

    Francois
  11. brunick

    brunick Senior Member

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    ok, i will thank you for creating us the nice stories around and the preparation of the reviews ;)

    and i thank chuck for the interior descriptions :)

    i some sort of "yacht-website" - i'll not paste that link here - there's some sort of "charter-fee" - lets just say - you'll get a nice roamer for it ...
  12. kalmeran

    kalmeran Senior Member

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    I am as curious as you are, because her styling and - above all - her layout is to me one of the best ever ! High on my "favourite yacht"- list !!!
    Thanks for the review, Carl !
  13. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    I want to share something about our reviews…

    About 3 months before I started reading HTML for Dummies, with a far-fetched idea (at the time) of using the Internet for something other than porn, I was walking the docks of the 2002 Ft. Laud. Boat Show with one of my oldest friends. This is a gent who could buy any boat at Bahia Mar, with money leftover for another one, twice the size.

    At the time, he had a Burger and was ready to step up. There was just one thing stopping him… the resistance he ran into while trying to view certain boats. I will say this because it needs to be said… builders who run interference with models whose beauty is only exceeded by their stupidity… deserve to have no customers. Nowhere is this scenario more prevalent than with the Italian production boats. It’s so bad… I have all but stopped trying to get information about their boats while attending the shows. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you saw a YF review on the same?

    Returning to subject… getting onboard the really big boats is akin to getting a test drive in a Bugatti Veyron. Unless your mug is gracing the cover at newsstands, you better stick to driving that Honda, or Hatteras. Whichever fits? And here in the lies the basis for the original concept behind YachtForums, to actually get onboard the boat… without having to be a market maker for Merrill Lynch!

    In our reviews, the sequence of images actually follows our footsteps. If any of you read the editorial (you don’t actually read this stuff, do you?), we try to convey the feel and the texture too. Darn hard to put into words, but until computers can emit scents; it’s about the best way to smell the salt in the air.
  14. brunick

    brunick Senior Member

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    *lalala*

    i'd say this is something i shouldn't talk about as a german ;) (regards to last soccer wc)
  15. el_CAPeeTAN06

    el_CAPeeTAN06 New Member

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    WOW....and..OMG...Lemme just say, that is the most beautiful thing i have ever seen on water
  16. coismov

    coismov Member

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    I have noticed that there is far too little truly critical media coverage of most yachts. I'm sure there are various reasons for this, one being the politics of gaining access to these yachts. As has been mentioned, not just anyone can gain access to these massive vessels, and often times media access is not granted without certain stipulations (ie. the cover story). But since access to these yachts can be so regulated, as opposed to say access to production yachts, it is almost to be expected that granting access to these yachts will produce the expectation of positive media coverage in return. Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like a writer could quickly find himself "blacklisted" after he or she wrote an overly critical review.

    As inevitable as this kind of media may be however, I believe that more critical media coverage would not only push the industry forward, but also possibly weed out some of the lesser quality builders and designers :D.

    I wonder if there is any way to objectively critique custom yachts, from design to build quality, while still maintaining the level of respect that (most of) these companies have earned?
  17. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    We've been doing this on a subliminal level all along. There are some boats we don't cover. The reasons are valid... and varied. I won't expand on this. But in some cases, the quality is questionable. In others, integrity comes into question. And in extreme cases, the downright arrogant, unpleasant attitude of a builder isn’t worth the aggravation.

    In a sense, you answered your own question. The respect these builders have earned is because they are producing products that boggle the mind on multiple levels. The entire industry is producing yachts, both custom and production, that is light years ahead of the early 90's. In some respects, there are certain things that remain constant, such as the suppliers and components used to bring about the end result.

    We have to keep in mind, these boats are partially the sum of their parts. The remainder is the builder's engineering and attention to detail their workforce exhibits. The multitude of variables and decisions in a build is absolutely daunting... and that's just one day in the life of a builder. You, me & Dupree would be hard pressed to do a better job... and it might come out looking like a Chinese Junk. :D

    Boats keep getting better because we continue to build on the past. But... every boat has flaws. Some are just better concealed than others! By and large, the flaws we see are minor and hardly worthy of mention. I'd like to think the reviews we do at YF are more like "Features". Simply a way to go onboard and get a feel for some of these magnificent builds.
  18. Arniev

    Arniev Senior Member

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    These custom-designed yachts are built according to the specific, personal specifications of the owners. Which means the design and specs will reflect all their own tastes, quirks and eccentricities. A "healthy" discussion on "what was done right" and/or "what was done wrong" would be nice, although this idea will not bode well with the yacht owners/builders.
    Maybe we should instead follow other threads started in this Forum on how we can design and build our own yachts.

    Great review, Carl!

    :)
  19. catmando

    catmando Senior Member

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    X2. Awesome engine room as well.
  20. KCook

    KCook Senior Member

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    Shoot, the crew's lounge would hold my last boat!

    ski lake Kelly