Tag: boat

Emelina the luxury motor yacht

Luxury yacht Emilina moored on the Thames London
Luxury yacht Emilina moored on the Thames London

When I was in London the other day I took a picture of a large motor yacht or Gin Palace as they are sometimes called. Emelina was moored the seaward side of Tower bridge, when I got home I decided to do some investigating to see if I could find out a bit more. It turned out to be very easy possibly because of the unusual name, and the fact that it was a big yacht.

Emelina is 51 m (167 foot) long and was created by Codecasa boat builders in 2008, it can sleep up to 12 passengers, thats about 3 times the number of people I can comfortably sleep in my house. As well as the 12 passengers there is apparently accommodation for a crew of 10. The twin Catterpillar engines produce and impressive 9788hp and can help the yacht reach speeds of 17.5 kts. I guess this is probably not possible when full oaded with fuel (8o,000 litres) and water (20,000 litres). The fuel can possible allow for a range of 4,000 nm.

A few other facts about the yacht are : it has a Jacuzzi Spa but no helicopter landing pad, the interior was designed by Studio Dellarole and the hull is made of aluminium.

Google also also popped up a link to a site that allows you to see the location of lots of boats including Emelina you can see her current location at the Marine Traffic website (click on the “Show live map button”). When I looked on Sunday she was in Dagenham but now she is moored in Amsterdam.

I did a panorama photo from the riverside which is now on Google maps.

Beans seal trip

Seals on Blakeney point

We saved our seal trip till the end of the week, just as the weather turned. We wrapped up well and all wore water proofs, as it was pissing down with rain. We were all ready for the trip down at Morston Quay at 09:20 ready for the 09:30 boat trip.

There were some clearings in the clouds but they were not heading our way, the weather was coming from the NW and it looked grey, from that direction. We got under way and listened to the safety talk, the two crew were ones Helen and I had done a trip with  before.

Norfolk sail boat

Every so often a wave would break over the bow of the boat and get us a little wet. There were plenty of birds on the move across the marshes and flying low to the water. The boat headed past the old lifeboat station on the point, then out towards the end of the point itself.

The seals all congregate at the end of the point, there were about 60 lazing around on the sand bank and every so often we could see some floating in the water with their heads visible. After a few loops around the boat sped up and headed back to the quay. In all the trip lasted just short of an hour, which given the weather conditions was long enough.

We headed back to the hut for a well earned coffee and biscuits.