Portico
Type of Boat: Sea Ranger 53’, trawler yacht
Refit/ Work completed – Comprehensive internal and external refit
The 16 metre sturdy semi-displacement vessel built in 1992
Portico was nearly 20 years old, sound and tidy but in need of updating and customisation. So, to Cornwall she came where Mylor Yacht Harbour’s Marine Team worked end to end and inside and out.
When Roger and Dinah Graffy bought a motor yacht there was only one place they considered for her refurbishment – even though it involved a 4000 mile round trip.
She was hoisted from the water at Mylor on 10 September 2010 and for the next eight months she tested all of the skills in the boatyard.
The couple own Mylor Yacht Harbour. So, having built a talented team of craftspeople and technicians they knew and respected hugely, it would have been a bit perverse to take their acquisition anywhere else.
Roger spent five years looking for a suitable boat before he found Portico just south of Genoa, Italy, in 2010. She’s a Sea Ranger 53’, a ‘trawler yacht’: a sturdy semi-displacement vessel with a similar profile to a fishing boat, which tends to attract a following flock of confused seagulls expecting a free lunch as she approaches port.
That might surprise some who know him better helming a Sunbeam racing in the Carrick Roads. He said: “I’m very keen on sailing, but I wanted a boat that could be like a tortoise: my home on my back, big enough to have all my toys on it, like kayaks and dive equipment, and with enough space to get the kids and their mates out.”