by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
It’s the only one of its kind and one of its stops will be here in Jacksonville. The SeaFair Fine Art Yacht will be docked along Jacksonville’s Northbank for five days next spring.
The SeaFair is stopping in Jacksonville while on its 2007-08 tour, and is part of the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville) Art Council’s gala.
The MOCA Art Council is a group of museum members whose purpose is to create, organize and produce fundraising events for the museum’s educational programs.
Linda Larkin Smith, president of MOCA Art Council, said the yacht will be in Jacksonville on March 19, 2008 and leaves on March 23. The MOCA Art Council will host a Gala Vernissage on the night of the 19th.
“We are bringing the art fair to the people,” said Smith.
But the yacht’s first trip to Jacksonville was supposed to be earlier this year.
“The yacht was actually supposed to be here this past March,” said Smith. “We were contacted by the Lesters (David and Lee Ann Lester, founders) in 2006 and they asked us to be a charity partner.
“But due to the shortage of shipbuilding supplies, the yacht wasn’t going to be completed in time.”
Smith said the MOCA Art Council was notified in June 2006 that the yacht was not going to be complete by March 2007 and it wouldn’t start its tour until later this year.
“They did a very good job communicating with us and told us as soon as they knew that the yacht wasn’t going to be complete in time,” said Smith.
The SeaFair made its maiden voyage at the end of September to kick off its 2007-08 tour. This year’s tour began in Boston, and this winter the yacht will be making its way around Florida’s peninsula before it heads back north to Hilton Head Island and ending up in Portsmouth, N.H.
The SeaFair will be docked for five days in each city. Each visit begins with a gala preview benefit Vernissage designated to raise funds for a specific charity.
The SeaFair Yacht is six stories tall and 228 feet long. There are 28 galleries on the yacht plus two restaurants, a cocktail reception area, a champagne/caviar lounge and a main deck bar.
Dealers from around the world in the fields of antiques, old master paintings, 17th-19th century decorative arts, 20th and 21st century modern and contemporary art, Asian art, tribal and oceanic, textile and antique and contemporary jewelry provide items for display on the tour. Smith said many of the dealers exhibit in major cities like New York, Palm Beach, Paris and London.
“It is quite striking,” Smith said of SeaFair. “We want people to have a wonderful evening on the yacht and help support the museum.”
Smith also said they are hoping to attract art collectors and art lovers from around Northeast Florida.
“We are drawing from Amelia Island to Gainesville,” she said. “Art lovers have the opportunity to go to a totally unusual venue.
“This is something that this area has not seen and it should attract collectors from all over.”
Even if someone has attended an event on the SeaFair in another city, there is a very good chance that the art on the yacht will not be the same in every city it visits.
“The gallery owners don’t sign up for the entire year. They switch out galleries,” said Smith.
According to the FineArt Yacht’s Web site, the yacht will host a rotating roster of 28 dealers and jewelers from the U.S. and Europe each month.
MOCA Art Council’s gala is by invitation only. Even though invitations have not gone out and the cost to attend has not been announced, the museum has been getting calls from people asking to be put on the invitation list. Smith said the yacht holds 600 passengers.
After the gala, the vessel will be open to the public, but only by invitation, said Smith. The public can log onto the Web site, www.expoships.com, and sign up for the SeaFair Society to receive an invitation.
Since the MOCA Art Council formed in 2002, the group has raised over $500,000 for the museum’s educational programs.