Yacht of the week: Malahne

The modern motor yacht has a personality problem. For all the engineering brilliance, eye-watering budgets and legions of designers deployed to create them, most are - how do I put this politely – rather void of character. That is, of course, when compared to Malahne.

This 50-metre floating art-deco palace first entered the world in 1937 – a time when the term superyacht was yet to be invented – and her story is one marked by a curious combination of war, Woolworths and, er, Hollywood. Allow me to explain.

Commissioned and built by businessman William Lawrence Stephenson, who ran operations for American retail juggernaut FW Woolworth in Britain, Malahne, spent the first few years of her life in sunny climes, cruising the Mediterranean and transporting Stephenson back and forth to New York.

While Stephenson was a savvy businessman, he was also a gregarious character knew how to spend his hard-earned money. He initially discovered his penchant for yachts after buying a Big Class yacht called White Heather II, which had been converted to a J Class in 1930. This led him into yacht racing, where he commissioned his own J Class yacht in 1933 called Velsheda to enter the America’s Cup, ahead of dipping his toe (pun intended) into the motor yacht world in the late 1930s, when he commissioned Malahne, from Camper & Nicholsons. The name comes from the last few letters of his daughters’ names, Velma, Sheila and Daphne.

Stephenson didn’t own Malahne for long. As soon as WWII broke out, he offered her to the Admiralty, who quickly snapped her up for Channel patrol duties, where she saw action in the evacuation at Dunkirk and later took part in torpedo target practice in Scotland.

Against all odds, Malahne survived the war and after 1945, she bounced between owners until being picked up by three-time Academy Award winner Sam Spiegel in 1960, who had very different plans for her. Serving as his floating production office and home while filming 1962 blockbuster Lawrence of Arabia in Jordan, Spiegel went on to own Malahne for 23 years. During that time, she hosted the great and the good of the entertainment industry. The likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Kirk Douglas, Jack Nicholson and Frank Sinatra, not to mention royals like King Hussein of Jordan.

By 1965, she became a cover star in her own right when she graced the front of Life magazine, promoting a feature on ‘Riviera yachting.’ But, like all good parties, they ultimately end, and Malahne’s condition started to decline alongside her owner’s grip on Hollywood.

Malahne was given a new superstructure in 1983 and renamed Adel XII

But it was the 1980s that marked the fabled yacht’s nadir. Falling into the hands of Saudi Sheikh Adel Al Mojil, she gained a ghastly new bow, stern and superstructure, and was re-christened Adel XII. “I watched the 1983 refit with tears in my eyes,” Edmiston founder and chairman, Nicholas Edmiston told Boat International in 2016. “I kept hoping that owner would sell it while it was still afloat.”

Thankfully, Malahne’s guardian has always kept a close eye on her, and in 2009, Edmiston developed proposals to restore the yacht to her former glory.

After she was sold in 2012 for €550,000, there was only one shipyard with the pedigree to faithfully restore Malahne, and the mammoth 30-month task fell to Cornish specialists Pendennis, under the guidance of Edmiston, with a new, passionate owner who bravely saw the costly project through. The first job was the “structural exorcism,” as Boat International called it at the time, which saw the Sheik’s superstructure removed.

As per the owners wishes, it was more about painstakingly restoring and revitalising Malahne rather than creating an exact replica - what would be called a ‘restomod’ in the car world. In practice, that meant reducing the size of the two-story engine room and re-modeling the crew accommodation and adding an all-new hull plate and modern safety features. Aluminium was used for the bridge bulwark and superstructure, and composite for the replacement funnel, which hides the communication domes.

Continuing the ‘made in Britain,’ theme throughout, London-based designer Guy Oliver was commissioned to oversee the interior re-fit, given his experience with the Connaught hotel, Claridge’s and the state rooms at Number 10 Downing Street. Oliver took on the six cabins and communal spaces But the devil lies in the detail. No less than 10 original 1930s Bakelite phones were installed, along with 122 custom overhead art-deco lights made from 1930s materials.

On the exterior, GL Watson & Co worked equally hard. Deck hardware was researched and redesigned, the original portholes were recast and even the paint was finished in an off-white, typical of the 1930s. Even when it came to the tender, they sourced an elegant 7.5m Custom Cockwells Varnished Mahogany High Speed vessel, in keeping with Malahne’s old-school sophistication.

Today, she’s still in Edmiston’s care, currently for charter in the Mediterranean with the brokerage firm. Meticulously cared for since her 2015 restoration, Malahne is one of only a handful of pre-war yachts, still faithful to their original design. If her future looks anything as colourful as her history, then Malahne surely has a few stories left to tell.

Additional research by Atila Boch

Builder

Camper & Nicholsons

Length

50m (164’1”)

Year

1937 / 2015

Guests

Cabins

Crew