SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Maine — A giant sailboat hasn’t been turning heads in Southwest Harbor this week — not exactly. It’s more like it’s raising those heads and chins and gazes as people look to the skies to locate the top of the largest single-masted sailing yacht in the world.
The M5 has been docked in Southwest Harbor since last week.
One Southwest Harbor resident said that the 89-meter mast can be seen over the trees at the town’s Causeway Club. That mast length is roughly the size of a football field. The boat itself is 78 meters long.
According to SuperYachtFan, “The superyacht is the brainchild of Irish-based, New Zealand-born yacht designer, Ron Holland, a respected name in the industry. The intricate composite construction of the hull and rig was closely monitored and supervised by High Modulus Europe Ltd, a renowned Hamble-based firm.”
Yachtsinternational.com says that M5’s giant mast holds a 36,000-square-foot sail.
According to MarineTraffic, she had last been in Providence, Rhode Island. She arrived in Southwest Harbor on July 16.
The yacht is currently owned by Rodney Ray Lewis, who founded Texas-based Lewis Energy Group. Lewis is a renowned pilot. He was a gauger in the late 1970s, purchased an oil well in 1982 for $13,000, and founded the company, which has operations in Texas, Mexico and Colombia. He purchased his first plane a year before the well — a hand-cranked Aeronca Chief. He’s also known as having what Forbes calls “one of the top vintage warbird collections in the country.”
There is often a plane resting on the back of the yacht. This is also the case in Southwest Harbor. Lewis’ father was a pilot in the Air Force.
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