I'm not sure how I found myself on Saturday morning on the other side of London, watching TV presenter Sarah Beeney lower herself into the bath on board the 39m motor yacht Kathleen Anne, while her husband brandished a tape measure and grilled me on the fixtures and fittings.
Before such an image crystallises in your mind's eye perhaps I should explain...
Kathleen Anne is one of our babies, designed by Bannenberg & Rowell here in London. She was meticulously built by that most exacting of shipyards Royal Feadship de Vries, and we waved her off on a brisk Dutch morning about 18 months ago, off to a sunnier life with her Owners keen to try her out. The last time we saw her was in the pages of Architectural Digest, looking serene. Job done.
But a call from TV production company Renegade alerted us to her rare presence at St Katherine's Dock in London. As part of the new series of Beeny's Restoration Nightmare, the show which follows Sarah and husband Graham Swift as they restore a preposterously large stately home in Yorkshire, Renegade tracked down both Kathleen Anne and her bleary eyed interior designers in order to shed some light on creating bijoux bathrooms in preposterously difficult spaces.
Well, Sarah has a reputation for dispensing sage advice to hapless DIY property developers so I was not about to turn the tables, but I did show them round and we had a good chat. They were charming. Although I felt Shrek-like on the edge of the widest of lenses and struggled to sound very expert-like, Kathleen Anne shone through. I hope she makes the cut.
Full marks to Renegade for getting boat, Owner, designers, film crew and TV hosts in the same place at the same time, all within about 3 days. Very impressive.
As a bookend to an unusual Saturday, that evening we found ourselves back in the City at London's Guildhall. The occasion: The World Superyacht Awards 2011, where we picked up a Judge's Commendation for our 85m Pacific, built by Lurssen and just completed.
Hmm, thank you judges, really, but I'm afraid the highlight of the day will always be Beeney in the bath...
