Prada's 12 metre

James Boyd has a crawl over Nyala, the 12m of Ernesto Bertelli

If you are the head of the Italian fashion house Prada and have a taste for the beautiful things in life, in particular yachts, then it is highly probable that you will be at the America's Cup Jubilee. One man who has made his presence felt here in a major way has been Patrizio Bertelli whose passion for gorgeous yachts is staggering.

Prada is one of the best resourced campaigns for the next America's Cup and currently owns not only the two Luna Rossa ACCs boats from the last Cup but the two New York Yacht Club Young America boats as well. In addition to this Bertelli owns the 23m S&S designed Sangermani built Ulisse, as well as a new boat of this name which is from the same German Frers/Bill Green built combination that created the all-black Stealthfor fellow Italian Gianni Agnelli. Bertelli also owns a small Herreshoff-designed NYYC30 called Linnet.

One of his most prized possessions though is the vintage 12m Nyala, the name apparently being an African word for a gazelle. This light green hulled 12m is currently in Cowes Yacht Haven and during the day has been competing in the 'Classic' 12m division with Star and Soling multiple Olympic medallist Torben Grael calling the shots on board. At the Jubilee regatta they continued to hover around the top of the leader board in their division of the 12s.

Built in 1938 Nyala was the first 12m to be designed by Olin Stephens and is composite boat made of pine over steel frames. She was originally commissioned by Frederick T Bedford the then president of the Standard Oil Corporation as a wedding present for his daughter! She was owned for about 30 year by Gerald W Ford during which time she was wrecked during a hurricane. Patrizio Bertelli bought her in 1995 and has had her completely rebuilt to her original state by Cantiere dell'Argentario in Italy. This process took more than one year and involved trying to match all the original materials.