My life in boats: Why this owner is selling his beloved 45m yacht after 22 years

After 22 years travelling the world on his custom 44.8-metre Delta, California businessman John Sobrato tells Kate Lardy it’s time to step back.

I was 16 years old when I bought a 4-metre runabout with an old engine you had to wrap a starter cord around; it didn’t even have a recoil. We’d go down to our local lake to water ski and the damn thing wouldn’t start, so we’d turn around and go home. After about six months, I was able to afford a used Mercury with a recoil.

My wife and I started boating in 1979 when I purchased a 12.8-metre Posillipo. When we moved it to the San Francisco Bay area, I got into salmon fishing. We could get out through the Golden Gate to where salmon were running in about an hour and a half. I kept that boat for 18 years, even when I had a larger one built by Posillipo that I kept on the East Coast. I replaced that with a Nordlund 66 I built, and then we decided we needed a bigger boat with a much larger crew, and we built Gran Finale as my fourth and final boat. It’s called that for a reason.

I wanted to be my own project manager and be convenient to the yard, so we ended up at Delta. I had four hulls tank-tested and chose the design of Ed Hageman and Delta’s Jay Miner. It’s both fast and seaworthy. On the main deck, we have a wall with five glass pieces by Dale Chihuly that can be removed; we thought we would take them down during crossings. Well, we’ve never had to take them down on all our ocean crossings. That’s how well this boat rides.

I also hired Dutch sound specialist Willem van Cappellen to design floating floors — a first for Delta at the time. All the engines and generators are soft-mounted and at 12 knots you can’t even hear the engines.

I’m a real-estate developer, I like to build things, but when I have something that works, I keep it for a long time. Sixty years later I’m living in the same home my wife and I designed when we were 25, and I’ve had Gran Finale for 22 years, spending at least 12 days on board every five to six weeks. The boat’s been everywhere you can imagine. It has crossed the Pacific and Atlantic three times back and forth on its own bottom.

In Europe I loved Montenegro’s calm Bay of Kotor for waterskiing and Croatia for the quaint villages where you’re the only boat in town. In the Pacific, Fiji stands out. I love to snorkel and dive; the water is crystal clear and the reefs have not been bleached out. 

I also love to fish. I’ve caught a lot of marlin and dorado in Costa Rica and Mexico from Gran Finale’s fishing cockpit. About six years ago we were dragging some lures off Catalina and I caught a 130-pound [59kg] white marlin, which was very unusual for the area, especially from a 45-metre yacht!

We always have nine or 10 people with us on trips. But lately there have been fewer opportunities to get all our friends together, and getting on and off the tender is difficult for my wife. We’re both 85 and it’s time to sell — Gran Finale featured at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The last 22 years have been amazing. You pay more for a Delta, but you get a boat that lasts.

First published in the November 2024 issue of BOAT International US Edition. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.