The sunset is best admired from the 15 metre flybridge deck of the 28 metre Monte Fino superyacht Triple Net, says owner Anthony Fernicola.
We’ve just completed a long refit on my latest yacht, Triple Net, a 28 metre Monte Fino, and to celebrate I took my family and friends for a cruise over to West Palm Beach. I had a big batch of Italian Sunday sauce cooking overnight with sausage and beef ribs and served it over rigatoni – it was a feast! Food is important to me. I used to be in the restaurant business in New York. I still love being a host, especially to people who have never been on the water; it’s the place where you take your dreams to a higher level.
My boating life started in 1985 when I built a house with a beautiful dock on Barnegat Bay in New Jersey and bought my first boat, an 8 metre Formula. Every weekend we would pile people on board and take the 60 mile trip to Atlantic City for some fun. My next boat was a 1968, 15 metre Hatteras that I enjoyed for three years before I sold it to fund the opening of The Northside Café in Brooklyn. You never want to go into the restaurant business if you want to have fun, that’s for sure; seven days, three shifts daily, it’s all-consuming.
After 12 years I’d had enough. I came to Fort Lauderdale, found a terrific broker in Jimmy McConville and I’ve been with him since 2007 when he found me my first real yacht, the 34 metre Westport Andiamo. I made the money to buy boats from real estate in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, back in the day when it was still an ethnic neighborhood and the old Italian ladies wore black long after their husbands died.
If I had to pick one of my favorite yachting memories, it would probably be the time we spent in Italy when I picked up my 30 metre Benetti in Viareggio. For six weeks we cruised the Italian coast. The taxi driver took us to a restaurant in the Ischian mountains. The chef invited us into the kitchen where my sister made pizza, a mandolin player serenaded us throughout the meal, but the best part was when, after we had finished eating, the chefs brought out pots, pans and spatulas. We formed a conga line and banged our pots and sang all around the restaurant. We were all cuckoo happy!
This year, we will charter Triple Net in Florida and the Bahamas and head up to Newport for the summer. In the past, it seemed like there was never enough flybridge space for my taste. Now I have a 15 metre flybridge, with 4.5 metre under cover for the bar and grill, a Jacuzzi and a sunbed. My favourite time of the day is when, after swimming, I head up there with a coffee and watch the changing colours on the water at sunset. When I was a kid, we used to spend every summer day on the beach. My family had two beautiful homes in Ashbury Park, right on the boardwalk. I would sit in the sand with my eggplant parmesan sandwich and watch the boats go by, wondering what I’d have to do to have a boat like that. Look at me now.