In Monaco, someone’s always got a bigger boat. This is especially true on Grand Prix weekend. Some 200 vessels turned up for Formula One’s (F1) most famous street race this year, blaring their horns at the end of the 78 laps in honour of Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli’s flawless drive to victory. The biggest yacht in Port Hercule was the 122-metre-long Kismet, available for charter for £2.6 million a week. That’s not including a trackside mooring (£130,000), or a tip for the crew (normally 10% of the charter fee).
However, I discovered a way of doing the Monaco Grand Prix in similar style, with a much bigger boat, and an even louder horn. It boasts staff, service and facilities that I doubt any billionaire’s berth could surpass. Welcome aboard the Silver Ray.
Kimi Antonelli celebrated his fifth consecutive Grand Prix win with a dip in Monaco’s harbour.
(Image credit: Sam Bagnall/Getty Images)
The Silver Ray is the newest cruise ship by Silversea, a pioneer of the all-inclusive cruise and one of the undisputed industry leaders in what’s becoming a luxury arms race. At 244 metres, it dwarfs Kismet. You can peer down your nose at the Lürssen-built bateau from your 11th floor rooftop pool, which is far more accommodating. It doesn’t have a big H on the bow deck like its navy-hulled neighbour, but Monaco’s heliport is five minutes by tender. And while I hear you complain that you can’t compare a private yacht to a bloody great ship, it’s a rather sleek-looking thing as cruisers go. Painted in elegant white and silver, there’s no Disneyfied gaudiness about this vessel. It hides its 55,000-tonne girth well, and its interior spaces are all handsomely designed.
Silversea keeps passenger numbers down. There are a maximum of 728 guests and a very VIP 1.3:1 ratio of guests to crew. With many guests off on shore activities each day, and others preferring to relax in their cabins, I often found I had an entire deck to myself. Never did I struggle to find a free sunbed.
During the Grand Prix, the writer could see down to Tabac corner and across to the Swimming Pool section and the pits.
(Image credit: Silversea)
My trip to the Grand Prix started ten days earlier, in Civitavecchia near Rome. Having checked into my very smart suite, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and a vast terrace from which to watch the world drift by, I witnessed the arrival of a USA Secret Service motorcade and the decanting of Donald Trump Jr and his new bride. They were also heading to the Monaco Grand Prix. Not on the Silver Ray, you’ll be relieved to hear. They stepped onto the piddling 76-metre yacht Boardwalk V which belongs to the American ambassador to Italy. I imagine the UK’s man in Rome makes do with a canoe. The Boardwalk V has two helicopter pads but, again, I feel it was outclassed by my monumental transport. At this point I want to say the race was on, but while I tracked the Boardwalk V on MarineTraffic, the Silver Ray and I would take a more circuitous and leisurely route; F1 may be measured in thousandths of a second, but why not take your time getting there?
We headed south to Salerno, where I visited the ancient ruins of Pompeii; cruised back along the Amalfi coast and up to Livorno, in Tuscany, where I went truffling with three adorable lagotto romagnolo dogs, and toured medieval Lucca. From there we sailed north to Portofino, and then back through the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas to Porto Santo Stefano, where I tried hitting some golf balls at Italy’s only PGA course, Argentario. Then we set course west to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica and birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. I explored all these places, and at sea I would stand on my port-facing terrace with the powerful binoculars that came with the room and imagine I was on the bridge; like Oscar-nominee Barkhad Abdi, I was the captain now. When I wasn’t writing on my terrace, or pretending to be a pirate, I would read by the pool under a cloudless sky. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was eating and drinking like a king. There are eight restaurants on board covering everything from fine dining to casual, Italian, French and Japanese. Three of the restaurants involve a small additional cost, and I never felt the need because the all-inclusive ones and house wines were so good.
There was also entertainment and talks, including from Top Gear’s first Stig, racing driver Perry McCarthy, who’s proven far more successful on the after-dinner circuit than he did on the F1 circuit, he won’t mind me saying.
Due north to Monaco we sailed for our two-day penultimate destination, and here’s where a cruise ship really comes into its own. It affords a spectacular view of the Principality. We anchored just outside Port Hercule, and there’s an advantage to this; unlike those staying in the cramped, overpriced berths within the harbour walls we weren’t kept awake by dreadful Dutch electronic dance music (EDM), nor were we awoken by the wail of racing engines first thing in the morning.
What you can’t quite do, even with my big binoculars and the ship’s 11th floor elevation, is see the cars going around. Silversea has thought of that, so they’ll sell you access to one of the best views money can buy. Silversea took a large top floor apartment in Le Beau Rivage, just beyond Turn 1 and with overhead views of the cars as they screamed towards Casino Square. You could also see down to Tabac corner and across to the Swimming Pool section and the pits. This life-affirming vista inspired a young American lady with whom I was sharing a bit of balcony to seize the moment by sprinkling ashes over the track. I’m afraid that some of her father went in my drink. Still, waste not want not.
Isack Hadjar of Red Bull on track.
(Image credit: Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Image)
The price of this once-in-a-lifetime experience, minus the cremation, is from £8,000 for the whole 11-day itinerary, including all food and drink, and even the staff tip. That’s exceptional value, given the service exceeded the levels I’ve experienced in any five-star hotel, and that a tiny cabin on a nice, but modest yacht for Grand Prix weekend will run you about £28,000, with none of the Silver Ray’s facilities. The Beau Rivage terrace, with food and drink for Saturday and Sunday is priced at £3,967 per person.
From Monaco, we sailed day and night to Barcelona, where we disembarked. It felt liberating to have visited so many places without having to pack and unpack each time, or battle traffic and crowded airports, or really make any plans beyond which activities to tick. It’s like a hotel where the view changes every day, and which arrives directly into one of the hardest-to-access events in the world. For F1 fans, it’s a floating Paddock pass.
