When I set out to cover super yacht Maid Marian II, I supposed that her management company, Amancruises, would offer me a cold beverage, walk me through the various decks and staterooms, then provide me with a CD full of information and photos and send me on my merry way. Having seen the 110-ft classic beauty from short distances during the Phuket Invitational Superyacht Rendezvous the past two years, I was looking forward to the inspection--and the opportunity to set foot on this piece of maritime history. Thirty minutes would have easily satisfied me; I’m sure I would have left glowing with delight.
Amancruises directer Bill O’Leary had a different idea entirely. “Here’s what you do, Mate,” he said. “Why don’t you and your wife find another couple and take her out for the weekend? You’ve got to experience her if you’re going to write a decent story.”
Life occasionally presents us with moments in which we are struck dumb, completely paralysed by good fortune. These are not opportunities to pass by lightly.
Once my mind registered that I was, in fact, quite awake, I managed to comprehend that here was one such moment. Two months later, I boarded the “grande dame” of Amancruises’ fleet with my wife, my parents, and my sister and brother in law for a two-day cruise of Phang Nga Bay.
In order to understand Maid Marian II, one first must understand something about Amancruises. Simply put, the company offers the most extensive range of luxury cruising options in Thailand, if not all of Asia. An arm of the celebrated Amanpuri Resort, Amancruises provides guests with once-in-a-lifetime experiences rather than simple cruising and accommodation. Everything one would expect from an Aman resort in terms of service and comfort must be available to guests on boats managed by Amancruises; otherwise the company does not invite them to join the fleet. Currently, they manage 22 charter craft, not including their dive boats.
My family and I were welcomed aboard in the morning, just as the April sun was beginning to heat up in the east, above Phang Nga Province. We cast off from the pier at Yacht Haven and set sail for the geological sculpture garden of the bay, with its hundreds of islets and emerald green coves. Our hostess promptly offered us cold towels, beverages, and a walkie-talkie.
“If you need anything . . . ,” she said.
Over the ensuing 32 hours aboard, we only needed to use the contraption once, for water. In every other instance of need, she or one of the other six crew members would anticipate the lack before it had to be voiced. It was as if they all had ESP.
People come to Phuket to slow down, to escape the noise of cities and responsibilities. Leaving the island itself behind is an exponential step in the direction of serenity. No more traffic lights or beach vendors, and you know that the sunscreen you smell is your own. All of the tedious job-related nuisances seem as far off the grid as a mobile phone with a dead battery.
Maid Marian II arrived in Phuket in 1993, though whether or not her intention was to slow down is unclear. She had caught the eye of Aman Resorts CEO Adrian Zecha while in Florida, where she had fallen into early retirement due to the ill health of her owner and benefactor, Ruth Nash Bliss. Originally launched in 1931 by the New York Ship Co., her life began as the quintessential Great Gatsby-era expression of opulence and leisure. In the heart of the Great Depression, while half of Wall Street was hopping on boxcars hoping for any kind of work at all, Mrs. Ruth Bliss was blissfully sailing her Maid Marian II up and down the east coast of America. Perhaps it was this pluck, this flaunting of luxury in an era of naught, that drew Zecha to her; or maybe it was her clean lines, rounded “fantail” stern, and teak decks. Most likely, it was the manner in which she exuded class: she’s understated as old money, with nothing garish to tacky up her image. She’s not the kind of lady to wear bright pink lipstick to a funeral.
During the course of Amancruises’ first love affair with Maid Marian II, she distinguished herself as something of a Phuket fixture, oft seen at anchor off Pansea Beach and the Amanpuri. Guests came to think of her as a regular part of their view. She also served as back-up boat for the movies “Cut Throat Island” and “The Phantom” and provided a platform for guests to explore the islands from Myanmar to Malaysia.
Beloved as she had become, by the mid-90s, her age was beginning to show. Like many a wooden boat, she was in need of some serious tender loving care, but the Asian economic crisis of 1997 forced Zecha to sell her.
Since then, she spent nearly five years on her own, then returned to Amancruises’ fleet with her current owner, Thai-based heritage company Ship Classic Thailand in 2002. In order to restore her to both Aman quality standards and her former elegance, she underwent an extensive refit, one which updated her engines, generators, and galley, replaced the teak on the decks, installed state-of-the-art navigational systems, and made numerous other improvements. She is now fully modernized on the inside while remaining as classic as Chris Craft outside. All renovations took place on Phuket, at Koh Sirey’s Ratinachi Shipyard.
As we cruised the islands at the civilised speed of six knots per hour, our heartbeats slowed, and time expanded. When one spends a weekend running errands and attending to menial tasks, the hours fly by so quickly that it’s almost impossible to finish everything. When you spend two days on Maid Marian II, however, you begin to slow to nature’s rhythms: the sun’s flight, the moon’s ascendance, the tides and waves. From our perches on the top deck and stern lounges, we could savor ever minute, every passing stalactite, every flying fish breaching the emerald surface below. We also explored from Maid Marian’s tender, zipping into beaches, into the lagoon of Koh Hong, and over the reef at Koh Khai Nai, where we snorkelled with sharks and clownfish.
Prior to our cruise on Maid Marian II, my wife had come to think of yachting as something between sadism and masochism, and I had been finding it increasingly difficult to argue her point. But from walkie-talkie service to chilled white wine at lunch, from the elegant pacing of five course meals to air-conditioned staterooms and jasmine garlands at turn-down, the bruises, sweat, crooked necks, sleepless nights, and sea-sick mornings of cruises past vanished like the wings of fruit bats high overhead. There are plenty of ways to see Phang Nga Bay and Andaman coastline; the proper way to fully experience this rarified beauty is on the most classic vessel available: Maid Marian II.
Maid Marian II is available for day charters of up to thirty guests; overnights of six or fewer. Please contact Amancruises or visit the yacht’s website at http://www.maidmariancruise.com for more information.
“We’re Not In New York Anymore. . .”
by Chris White
It’s hard to imagine the degree of wealth that one Mr. Baldridge of Atlantic City, New Jersey commanded in the early years of America’s Great Depression. Not only did he commence building his motor steamer, “Cleopatra,” in 1929, the year of Black Tuesday, when the stock market crashed, he proceeded with her launch in 1931, then displayed the opulence to commission an even larger vessel. In 1933, “Cleopatra” sold to Mrs. Ruth Nash Bliss, another New Yorker upon whom Wall Street’s woes had had no apparent effect.
Mrs. Nash Bliss renamed her yacht “Maid Marian II” (her brother had the first). Except for a stint in the US Coast Guard during the second World War, Maid Marian II spent the next forty years cruising the Hudson River and the Great Lakes. Nash Bliss later retired to Florida, where she lived aboard the yacht until ill health forced her to move ashore.
Maid Marian II is as classic as Chris Craft, though considerably longer than the average vessel of that make. She’s a 110-foot fantail motor yacht, with a rounded stern and wooden hull, painted white with naked teak decks and rails. She’s reminiscent of the steamer my great-grandfather used to ride from New York to Cape Cod on summer weekends, the type of yacht where men enjoyed cigars, cognac, a few hands of poker and the swinging tunes of a brass band as sunset gave way to night and morning broke not upon the cold steel of downtown but on the idyllic shores of escape.
It was this style, and class, and Maid Marian’s history, that drew the attention of Adrian Zecha, CEO of Amanresorts, when the boat came on the market in the 1990s. With three Indonesian-based investors, he purchased her and brought her to Singapore, from whence Amancruises delivered her to the fêted Amanpuri Resort. In this first affair with Amancruises, she served as back-up boat for the movies “Cut Throat Island” and “The Phantom” and provided a platform for to explore the islands from Myanmar to Malaysia. She became part of the fabric of the Aman’s Phuket experience, but her age was beginning to show. Like many a wooden boat, she was in need of some serious tender loving care, but the Asian economic crisis of 1997 forced Zecha to sell her. While she had thrived throughout the American depression, she took the fall of the Thai Baht pretty hard.
In 2002, though, a Thai-based heritage company called “Ship Classic Thailand” arrived on the scene and purchased her with the hopes that Amancruises would resume management. Amancruises director Bill O’Leary was keen to do so, but only if she got the face-lift and make-over that she needed. He was promptly handed a check for nearly US$300,000. Rather than refitting for the Hudson River, he would build for the tropics, and take advantage of some of the region’s local resources.
O’Leary came to Phuket over 17 years ago, a young captain delivering the sailing vessel “Stormvogel” from Australia. His plan was to return to the Whitsundays, but he sailed into Pansea Bay on the same day that Adrian Zecha opened the Amanpuri. Serendipity, synchronicity, or just plain dumb luck kindled a relationship that has seen Amancruises grow from an idea and a wayward captain to the finest fleet of resort-managed boats in Southeast Asia, if not the world. Bill currently oversees an armada of 22 vessels, all fully armed for leisure. He calls Maid Marian their “grande dame.”
By the time of Maid Marian’s refit, O’Leary was an old hand at building boats in Phuket through his association with Phuket Water Taxi. He took Maid Marian to Ratinachai Shipyard on Phuket’s Koh Sirey (famed for its Sea Gypsy village) where he served as project manager and overseer of all works. The team of Thai builders put in new gensets, a new watermaker, a new chilled water aircon system, a top deck access hatch, six topdeck sunlounges and a shade awning, and new crew quarters up forward. They also built new teak decks, interior decks of a gorgeous local hardwood called takien tong, and removed all varnish from exterior teak. The new furniture is rattan; all the fabric is Jim Thompson Thai silk or charcoal tweed sunbrella. In addition, they overhauled the engines, put in an all-European-imported galley, and purchased a Hypalon twin 85 hp Yamaha centre console tender, two sea kayaks, dive gear, game fishing equipment, new GPS, depth sounder, ssb radia, radar and navigational systems. She may look like the Great Gatsby’s weekend retreat, but she’s hardwired for the 21st century.
Over the years, O’Leary has applied for and attained Thai citizenship. Many of his captains and crew members have been with Amancruises for over ten years, some from the very beginning. Maid Marian’s Captain Lor has been sailing yachts for Amancruises for 16 years. A Phuket native, he drove longtail boats as a boy. Imagine graduating from steering a shuddering engine with a steel tiller to taking the wheel of a 110-ft cruising vessel. It’s almost as astounding as the notion of building superyachts during the Great Depression.
My family and I recently cruised Phang Nga Bay aboard Maid Marian for two days and one night. We feasted on giant fried prawns, sea bass, pasta with freerange chicken marinara sauce, mixed Thai seafood salad, and lemongrass soup, among other dishes. We explored the caves, or hongs, at Koh Roi and Koh Hong, visited a communty of locals who gather birds’ nests from crevices in the limestone, and snorkelled with sharks at a reef off Koh Khai Nai. But we spent most of our time on the aft and top decks, splayed out on the cushions. One of our favourite things about Maid Marian is that she is both comfortable and casual. The teak is like satin against your bare feet. There is no white shag carpeting to fret about, no glass tables to worry about breaking.
Above and beyond the comfort, beauty, and style of Maid Marian is the service, which is, to quote O’Leary, “almost telepathic,” though an absolute purist might consider the walkie talkie our hostess gave us cheating. Maid Marian is based at Phuket’s Yacht Haven is is available for charter through Amancruises. She can accommodate 30 for day cruises and 6 for overnights. She is operated by a crew of seven, all Thai. There is no more relaxed and indulgent way of experiencing Thailand’s Andaman coastline. For more information, please visit her website at http://www.maidmariancruise.com.
Cushions And Satin Teak:
Cruising On Maid Marian II
by Chris White
Maid Marian II was not the type of boat I pictured in my first dreams of Phuket. I had envisioned traditional sailing vessels, similar to Chinese Junks. Then again, I hadn’t expected world-class shopping malls or Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the supermarket freezer. That a Gatsby-era luxury motor yacht might cruise these waters never would have dawned on me.
Phuket, I discovered, is in many ways more modern than my native New England. I’ve seen far more fast, sleek, expensive white boats here than I ever did on Cape Cod. The local marine industry is hoping for a boom to coincide with the property explosion--the millionaires dumping fortunes on Thai-style villas will most certainly need an Italian-style motor boat to keep up with the Joneses, and to provide easy access to the hundreds of nearby islands. Maid Marian II, approaching her 75th year of operation, resides in a class somewhere between my naive dreams of primitive paradise and today’s reality of fancy yachts that more resemble Ferraris than sailing, or steam, ships.
A sailor since birth, I’ve never fully understood beach vacations that fail to include boats. It’s nice to sit in the sun, yes, and the water is undeniably lovely in the Andaman. But there must be something more. How can one truly experience any island without seeing it from the water? The common ways of getting out on the water to explore around Phuket include long-tailed boats, speed boats, chartered sailing vessels, and the aforementioned Ferrari charters. Then there’s Maid Marian II.
I first laid eyes on Maid Marian at the 2003 Phuket Invitational Superyacht Rendezvous. A perennial participant in the island’s--and possibly Asia’s--most exclusive yachting event, the 110-ft. wooden motor yacht shimmered in the afternoon sun, gleaming white, exuding class--old money. She had recently undergone a refit to the tune of roughly a quarter of a million US dollars, and this was her coming out party. I never expected that I would ever get the opportunity to actually go for a cruise on her.
Maid Marian launched in 1929, not in Thai waters, but in New York’s Hudson River, where she was christened “Cleopatra.” Until the 1990s, she spent her days cruising the Hudson, the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic coast of the US. She's a 110-foot fantail motor yacht, with a rounded stern and wooden hull, painted white with naked teak decks and rails; reminiscent of the steamer my great-grandfather used to ride from New York to Cape Cod on summer weekends, the type of yacht where men enjoyed the swinging tunes of a brass band, cigars, and cognac as sunset gave way to night and morning broke not upon the cold steel of downtown but on idyllic shores.
In the 1990s, hotel mogul Adrian Zecha caught sight of Maid Marian II and decided that she belonged in the fleet of boats he was amassing with Amancruises, based at Phuket’s Amanpuri Resort. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Zecha sold her but remained hopeful that Amancruises would one day have the opportunity to manage her again. The Thai-based heritage company, Ship Classic Thailand, made this possible in 2002. After purchasing the yacht, the group proceeded with a thorough refit to bring her up to Aman standards. Bill O’Leary, director of Amancruises, oversaw the entire operation. Along with dozens of other improvements, he replaced engines and cooling systems, renovated the galley, and sanded all varnish and paint off the teak. Walking on the deck is now like walking on satin. One would miss half the joy of Maid Marian II by wearing deck shoes.
Amancruises offers charters on Maid Marian for up to 30 guests on day trips; an intimate 6 passengers for overnights. In April, I had the good fortune to cruise for two days and one night on her with my wife, my parents, my sister and her husband. For some, like perhaps my great-grandfather, this level of luxury may be common place. For us, it was an event of a lifetime.
Not only did we have the vessel to ourselves, we may as well have had the entirety of Phang Nga Bay. After steaming out from the Yacht Haven, we saw fewer boats--aside from the humble longtail--than we did crew members, of which there were but seven.
The most difficult decision I faced in our two days at sea was in choosing our stateroom. The forward cabin is clearly the master chamber, as spacious as most hotel rooms, with Jim Thompson silk and fine white cotton covering the king-sized bed, a writing desk in an alcove, and a full bathroom complete with a tub. The aft cabin is smaller, but the bed lies in the curve of the stern--it would probably be the more comfortable choice during inclement weather conditions. The decision was complicated by my parents’ presence: I wanted to give them the best, but this trip was also something of a honeymoon for my wife and me, having had our wedding ceremony just the night before. After much hemming and hawing, we chose the forward cabin, though I’m sure we never would have noticed the difference.
If forced to guess, I would estimate that of our 24 waking hours aboard Maid Marian, we spent 17-18 of them on the aft deck, though my father logged serious time on the top deck lounges. We cruised north first, into Phang Nga Bay National Park and James Bond country, then turned south towards the massive island of Koh Yao Noy. We feasted on giant fried prawns, sea bass, pasta with free range chicken marinara sauce, mixed Thai seafood salad, and lemongrass soup. We explored the caves, or hongs, at Koh Roi and Koh Hong, visited a community of locals who gather birds' nests from crevices in the limestone, and snorkelled with sharks at a reef off Koh Khai Nai. But we spent most of our time splayed out on the deck cushions, watching the scenery unfold at a placid clip of about 5 knots/hour.
It’s hard to pinpoint the most enjoyable aspect or moment of such a cruise, and I’m not even going to bother. However, the service, at the level one would expect from any Aman experience, bears noting. If there is any other organization in Thailand that has instilled the balance of attentiveness and respect for personal space and privacy to this degree, I have never encountered it. The staff are like djinnis, materializing from thin air when required, vanishing on the muffled sounds of bare feet padding the teak floors when not.
Based at Phuket's Yacht Haven, Maid Marian II is available for charter through Amancruises. For more information, please visit her web site at http://www.maidmariancruise.com.
