IWe Almost Bought a Yacht (for Pretend)

WE SPENT LAST Sunday afternoon at the Cannes Yacht Show trying our best to look like a family who might actually be in the market for a $5 millon boat since that's the only way they let you on the big ones. Oh sure, they had lots of 'small' 10-15 meter boats that anyone can tour, but I wanted to see inside the big ones -- the ones that were only giving tours 'by appointment only'.

After being rejected by three or four yachts (they literally told us we could not go on board to look around) we finally found a 29 meter beauty made by Marquis Yachts (based in Wisconsin!) that allowed the whole family on board. After filling out a brief questionaire that tried to gauge my interest in buying a new boat (I checked 'very interested') we boarded and met our sales representative, a very nice man from Switzerland named Mark. From that moment on I was in full bull***t mode -- asking questions about the captain's bridge, water displacement stats, fabrication materials, and (my favorite) financing options. Throughout the tour I took special interest in the details of both the interior and exterior of the vessle.

The kids weren't paying attention because they were exploring the 5 cabins, 4 bedrooms, and watching the 52-inch flatscreen television in the living room (it's not called a living room is it?) But Kerri heard most of my conversation with Mark and was doing all she could to suppress her the horror and embarrassment. When I asked about details of their 10-year lease program she had to leave the room.

But it was so worth it. I think they would have let us board even if I didn't pretend to be really interested -- and there were several super yachts that seemed willing to let a family poke around. But it was so much more fun to pretend like I was really interested. I'm sure Mark was on to me from the very beginning, but I give him high marks for playing along. He gave me the full Serious Buyer tour and, if nothing else, that was kind of fun.

By the way, total cost for this particular yacht: $5.5-$6 million. I thought about asking if they had anything in the $10-$20 thousand range, but decided against it.
CJS

Update: can't find the cord for my camera at the moment. Our photos are coming. Meanwhile you can see the yacht we toured above. Image from Marquis Yachts.