fandango
fandango
Our beautiful Beneteau First 45F5
Slip aboard a yacht that fuses Grand-Prix performance with Italian super-car style. The First 45F5 sprang from a unique collaboration: America’s Cup designer Bruce Farr drew the slippery 14.2 m hull and powerful 104 m² sail plan, while Turin’s legendary design house Pininfarina—famed for Ferraris and Maseratis—sculpted the deck and interior. Long, flowing coach-roof lines, flush traveller and teak-clad cockpit deliver both race-course efficiency and head-turning aesthetics, while a deep 2.15 m keel and 3.8 t lead ballast keep her stiff and reassuring in a breeze.
Below deck, the Pininfarina influence shines. Honey-toned teak joinery sweeps into stainless accents, strategic curves guide the eye forward, and genuine Carrara-marble worktops add a touch of haute couture unheard-of in production yachts of the era. The three-cabin layout sleeps six in style: an owner’s suite forward with island double and ensuite head, plus two generous aft doubles sharing a second head with hot shower. Skylight hatches and opening ports flood the space with natural light and ventilation.
Life aboard is as practical as it is beautiful. An L-shaped galley offers a gimballed oven, top-loading fridge/freezer, twin sinks and 600 L of freshwater—perfect for week-long escapes. The oval dinette seats eight for lingering dinners; clever grab-points and ergonomic seat-backs—refined in Pininfarina’s own wind-tunnel labs—make every passage comfortable under sail. On deck, oversized Lewmar winches, wide side-decks and a sugar-scoop transom with swim ladder invite guests to join the action or dive straight into turquoise anchorages.
A 50 hp diesel and 200 L of fuel pair with solar-backed house batteries, chartplotter, AIS and autopilot for effortless cruising. Safety gear meets offshore standards, yet weight is kept low for Farr’s trademark light-air performance; she’ll log effortless 8-knot averages on coastal hops and stretch her legs to double-digit speeds when the breeze builds.
Chartering this First 45F5 means more than simply sailing a fast, comfortable yacht—it’s an immersion in Pininfarina’s timeless design heritage, where every sheet trim, companionway descent or sunset cocktail connects you to the same ethos that shaped icons like the Ferrari Testarossa. Fast, elegant and unmistakably Italian, she offers a charter experience that is equal parts regatta thoroughbred and floating boutique hotel.
our team
Robert Thomas - Chief Instructor and Captain
Growing up I always had a passion for the sea and the different ways you can explore and enjoy what is the majority of our planet.
Holidays in South Wales power boating and jet ski alongside water skiing, wake boarding and coastering brought me joy over those summer holidays. Alongside my father who was a keen windsurfer I grew up loving the sea.
After my first year of University in the summer holidays I attended a week sailing with my Father in the Baltic sailing a classic ketch sailing vessel visiting historic harbours and racing albeit with a beer around the island of Fyn alongside other beautiful classic ships. This kickstarted my interest in sailing and unlike other sailors who started in dinghies and worked their way up in boat size I started large and worked my way down.
Robert Thomas started life in hospitality before attending University in Bath achieving a degree in the Sciences. Then working in the brewing industry Robert honed his skills as a brewer working around the UK before starting his own company brewing beers and selling across the Uk.
A brief hiatus in 2018 saw him turn his future and career to the sailing industry. I qualified as a Yachtmaster in Cowes and started my journey in this industry. With posts in Greece and Croatia I was a captain on monohulls and catamarans up to 65ft in length offering everything from Flotilla to Party Charters up to luxury crewed charter, think below deck.
In 2022 after 4 years in the industry I felt I had enough experience to jump up into teaching. I completed my Cruising Instructor qualification and alongside my powerboat instructor qualification began teaching the RYA syllabus.
A brief spell teaching in British waters then led to a permanent position teaching in Turkey where my love of the country and everything it provides began.
Followed up with a second year teaching on a variety of boats in Turkey, Malta and Croatia as an instructor led me to achieving my Yachtmaster Instructor.
My dream was always to operate my own sailing school and put into place the many ways I had learnt to do things and also how not to.
Blue water sailing is a dream come into reality where I will provide clear structured training alongside personal unforgettable sailing holiday experiences.
Thomas Alexander – Principal
Growing up beneath the silhouette of Table Mountain, the Atlantic was my backyard. Summer afternoons meant skimming a surfboard across Muizenberg’s rollers or free-diving the kelp forests off Simon’s Town, always returning home with salt-matted hair and the smell of sun-baked neoprene. The sea didn’t just frame my childhood—it shaped my instincts for rhythm, balance, and quiet problem-solving long before I knew what an engineer was.
I first hoisted sail on Turkey’s Turquoise Coast, trimming canvas on a borrowed 45-footer as pine-scented breezes spilled down from the Taurus Mountains. Warm meltemi afternoons, glass-clear anchorages, and a cockpit turned impromptu classroom in celestial navigation lit the spark. A season later the Adriatic kept it burning—threading Croatia’s island mazes taught me that spreadsheets can wait, but a good wind shift never does.
Engineering—my formal trade—took me to Germany, where precision and process rule the day. Yet every CAD model I signed off seemed to echo with distant halyards. Weekends found me plotting Baltic passages or booking one-way tickets back to Marmaris for another stretch of night watches under Orion. Qualifications followed: RYA Day Skipper and the inevitable stack of logbook miles that felt more like chapters than numbers.
Friends began asking me to coach their first passages; colleagues wanted to understand trim and tides the same way they understood project timelines. The teacher in me surfaced, and the idea of a school—one that married engineering clarity with salt-spray adventure—took hold. The Sailing Dream is that idea afloat: a place where checklists meet curiosity, where safety drills are as crisp as a plotted bearing, and where every graduate leaves confident enough to tweak the rig yet humble enough to keep learning from the sea.
Cape Town gave me my sea legs, Germany honed my systems mind, and Turkey keeps my heart logged on the water. I look forward to sharing that full compass rose with you—one tack, one lesson, one perfect Aegean sunset at a time.
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