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Bridgeport Shipyard Building Giant Yacht: 281-FOOT CAKEWALK(Hartford Courant, The (CT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mar. 30--BRIDGEPORT -- In a cavernous building on the edge of Bridgeport Harbor, workers are raising a vessel that will mark a pinnacle in U.S. pleasure boats. The 281-foot Cakewalk, scheduled for completion next year, will be the largest yacht made in the United States in decades and, with a volume of 2,950 tons, probably the largest ever, according to super-yacht experts and Derecktor Shipyards Connecticut, the company building the seagoing palace. Mostly shrouded behind scaffolding, the six-deck vessel dominates the main construction building at Derecktor's 23-acre yard. The Cakewalk is about 40 feet longer than the largest American-made yacht launched in the past several decades and larger overall than a massive cruiser built for financier J.P. Morgan in 1930. Besides its historic importance, the Cakewalk also is a primary engine for the survival of Derecktor's Bridgeport operation, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court last year, according to attorneys for the American businessman who commissioned the yacht. Bill Zinser, a Westbrook native who will captain the yacht, said that the owner, who wants to remain anonymous, has steadily traded up. This is the fifth Cakewalk; the fourth was a 205-footer. A self-made multimillionaire, the owner has a deep, lifelong admiration for everything about a well-built boat, Zinser said. "He doesn't do it because he wants to show off," Zinser said. "He just loves a beautiful piece of machinery." On a recent visit, sparks sprayed from welders' torches and workers walked in and out of the massive steel hull -- 19 feet short of a football field -- carrying pipes and other fittings for the luxurious interior. The Cakewalk's features, according to a Derecktor news release, will include: -- The owner's stateroom, above the main deck, with master suite and bath, a gymnasium, spa and recreation salon with theater. -- Guest staterooms with picture windows, spacious baths with separate spa tubs and showers. -- A sun deck with bar, observation chairs, dining/game tables, a whirlpool spa and sun beds for up to 10 guests. -- Three tender boats -- 33-, 35- and 37-feet-long -- for shore excursions, fishing, sightseeing. These three boats alone will cost about $2.5 million, Zinser said. -- 97,000-gallon fuel capacity, with a cruising range of about 5,000 nautical miles at 15 knots. The fourth Cakewalk was built by Feadship of Holland, a major player in the megayacht industry. European shipyards dominate the field, and that was a major motivation for building the new Cakewalk in the United States, Zinser said. Derecktor's Connecticut shipyard had the technical capability to do the work, and the company's Florida yard had done a great job on a major refit of a previous Cakewalk, Zinser said. But beyond those factors, the owner and the team managing the yacht project had a point to make about American craftsmanship. "We just wanted to do it here to prove to the elite northern Europeans that we could do it here," Zinser said. "The U.S. takes a hammering worldwide over the [poor] quality of its products -- and it's not true, and we're proving it's not true. ... We thought we could do it here, and we are." With other facilities in Dania, Fla., and Mamaroneck, N.Y., Derecktor established the Bridgeport shipyard in 2001. Workers at the yard on the city harbor's eastern shore build commercial vessels, such as ferries and tugboats, and refit and repair other large vessels. Cakewalk, however, is the facility's first yacht of historic proportions. The project is vital to Derecktor and its workforce, according to bankruptcy court documents. Last year, Derecktor Connecticut filed for Chapter 11 protection. A key adversary in the pending case is Gemini II, a company that used Derecktor's Bridgeport yard to build a 145-foot, $27 million catamaran. The company contended that Derecktor was not housing the unfinished catamaran in the main construction facility but, rather, in a substandard facility, according to bankruptcy court filings. The main construction building, at that time and since, housed Cakewalk. Seeking to protect the project, known as "Cakewalk V" in court filings, the yacht owner's attorneys contended that the main building did not have room for Cakewalk and the catamaran -- and that the 281-foot yacht was, by far, the more important project. Bankruptcy papers filed in 2008 listed the yacht's total price at $82 million, but Zinser said that the cost has climbed considerably. He said that he could not give a precise figure, but it's not uncommon for projects of this scope to exceed $100 million. In any case, Cakewalk "dwarfs the Gemini II vessel in terms of revenue, cash flow and work at the Debtor's shipyard," according to a document that the Cakewalk owner's attorneys filed with the bankruptcy court in August 2008. Furthermore, the Cakewalk owner had learned that $12 million of the $52 million he had already paid Derecktor had been used for general overhead and construction of the catamaran, according to the court filing. "Therefore, as of the date of this limited objection, Cakewalk V likely is the largest creditor in this case with an approximately $12 million claim against the Debtor," the attorneys wrote. Also, Cakewalk's owner plans to charter the yacht for $1 million a week, and would lose "substantial revenue" if work is delayed, according to court documents. Derecktor spokeswoman Kathy Kennedy said that she would not comment for this story because The Courant refused to allow a company representative to review the story before publication. Zinser said that he expects the vessel to be completed in the spring of 2010. Cakewalk would not be the longest private yacht ever built in the United States. The Corsair, built in Bath, Maine, for financier J.P. Morgan and launched in 1930, was 343 feet long. But with a volume of 2,142 gross tons, that yacht was much narrower than Cakewalk. In the decades since, as European shipyards turned out yachts that could double as cruise ships, nothing approaching the size of the latest Cakewalk has been built in this country, writers for yachting publications said. Although U.S. yacht builders routinely turn out vessels more than 100 feet long, most of the truly gargantuan private cruisers -- those approaching 300 feet and over -- have been built in Holland and Germany. "It's certainly a step up" for the U.S. yacht-building industry, Dudley Dawson, who covers the super-yacht market for Yachting magazine, said of the latest Cakewalk. "A quantum step." To see more of The Hartford Courant, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.courant.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, The Hartford Courant, Conn. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |