$40 million mega-yacht floats into Erie Basin Marina on a sea of speculation
Waterfront abuzz with gossip, questions
Gawkers gathered next to the super sleek and stylish yacht docked at the Erie Basin Marina, where the 147- foot vessel made all the others look like toy boats by comparison.
The letters on its side spell “Gran Finale” and since the $40 million mega- yacht anchored in Buffalo last week, the waterfront has been abuzz with enough juicy gossip to satisfy a Saturday night cocktail party.
Where did it come from? Where is it going? Who owns it? “When it came, of course, everyone runs to it to see what the hell it is,” said Mike Wolasz, operations director at the marina.
“We heard it was part of the Trump organization, but that’s strictly hearsay,” Wolasz said. “People start rumors and stuff.”
It’s not every day a yacht like the Gran Finale will slip in and out of area waterways, but three or four times a year one of its caliber will use Buffalo as a port of call, Wolasz said.
Usually, he said, it’s the well-to-do passing through while spending their summer on the yacht traveling the Great Lakes.
“We had Henry Ford’s granddaughter here last year,” Wolasz recalled. “It was bigger.”
As for the rubberneckers, it’s a brief summer diversion and glimpse into a world of wealth they’ll never know and only see on TV.
“I saw them making these on the Discovery Channel,” said John Klinko, who stopped riding his bike to stare at the Gran Finale. “It’s huge. It’s ridiculous.”
“Whose is it?” Klinko asked.
“I can’t tell you that,” said Ted Sputh, captain of the Gran Finale.
Sputh, decked in white, stepped off the yacht to talk with a reporter.
“He’s very, very private,” Sputh said of the owner, “but it doesn’t take much to figure out he’s a billionaire.”
Anyone we’d know?
“We always hear the Trumps or Madonna, but none of that’s true,” Sputh said. “You wouldn’t know him anyway. He’s just your common, ordinary billionaire.”
The pleasure cruiser, Sputh offered, was launched in December 2001, and carries a price tag of $40 million.
Its spacious interior includes an owner’s suite on the main deck.
Four luxurious rooms are below deck for family and guests.
There’s a skylounge, according to a Web site for the super-yacht society, with a curved, theater couch for entertaining.
He can’t invite anyone aboard, Sputh explained, but it’s exquisite — from the handcrafted furnishings to the plasma flat screens in the pilothouse.
“Everything,” Sputh said, “is first class.”
A full-time crew of seven keeps the yacht shipshape, and they’ve taken the Gran Finale around the world from Australia to the Galapagos Islands to Tahiti.
The owner and friends may spend a couple weeks on the yacht, fly out at one of the stops, then meet up again with the yacht at the next port.
The yacht was scheduled to leave Buffalo on Tuesday, headed to Michigan.
