Oligarchysterical:Pandora Mather-Lees, an Oxford-educated art historian and conservationist, started giving lessons after a billionaire asked for help to restore a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting damaged not by sea spray, but by breakfast cereal. "His kids had thrown their cornflakes at it over breakfast on his yacht because they thought it was scary," Mather-Lees said. "And the crew had made the damage worse by wiping them off the painting."
The crew "just thought it was some painting, they had no idea it was worth many millions," Mather-Lees told the Observer at a superyacht conference in London last week. [...]
There are superyachts with "better collections than some national museums," Mather-Lees said, describing one yacht with more than 800 pieces of art that are worth more than double the vessel itself. "Obviously they [the owners] want to show off their art collection when guests come on board ... It acts as an icebreaker, and says volumes about their taste," she told an audience of more than 100 people at the Superyacht Investor conference in the Landmark Hotel. "But yachts are not art galleries and when something goes wrong it's obviously very unfortunate and a big burden on the crew and the owners become very unhappy."
Funny side note: due to Huygens sympathy, two guillotines on the deck of a superyacht will eventually synchronize!
It does indeed say volumes about their taste. Just maybe not the volumes Mather-Lees is thinking of.
At the risk of using the same joke within 30 minutes: "Oligarchysterical" is my new house DJ names. I'll be on a tour of all the hot Moscow clubs in March.
If they wanted an icebreaker, why didn't they buy one instead of a yacht?
And that was worth it, because it led me to this Derek Meddings-esque wonder:
https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/russia-announces-plans-for-space-age-icebreakers
Guaranteed stuck within two weeks, probably with a bomb on board, necessitating Thunderbird 4.
They need inspiration from the bonkers "what of the future?" sections in Leslie Ashwell Wood's books, specifically this ocean-going hovercraft:
The art will be just fine in the cargo holds.
What I learned from this article is that there are still people walking this earth named Pandora. That made my heart glow for a while. Then a sadness fell as I realized how many douche bros Ms. Mather-Lees had to endure delivering the same tired pathetic pick up line.