by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Jacksonville’s MOCA Art Council announced that the world’s first-ever fine art yacht will not be in Jacksonville March 19 for the council’s annual Gala.
Due to circumstances beyond the MOCA Art Council’s control, the SeaFair Fine Art Yacht will not be making any of its stops on what would have been its maiden voyage up and down the East Coast this year.
The MOCA Art Council received a phone call Friday afternoon from SeaFair representatives about the cancellation.
“They have canceled their trips because of technical difficulties due to a faulty paint job that is rusting through the ship’s walls,” said Kari Hagedorn of the MOCA Art Council. “They said they are going to have to (pressure) blast the current paint job and start over.”
The yacht was to be in Sarasota on Wednesday and Naples on Jan. 23 before coming to Jacksonville.
This wasn’t the first time the SeaFair Fine Art Yacht was to be in Jacksonville. The yacht’s first trip to Jacksonville was scheduled for March 2007, but the MOCA Art Council was notified by David and Lee Ann Lesters — the founders of the yacht — that due to the shortage of shipbuilding supplies, the yacht was not going to be completed in time. The second scheduled trip to Jacksonville was to be March 19-23 for the MOCA Art Council’s Gala Vernissage on the night of the 19th.
“They have been having a tough time,” said Hagedorn. “It’s just not coming together like they had hoped.
“It would have been a really exciting event for not only the museum, but for Jacksonville as well.”
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.
Aside from the yacht having physical problems, the yacht also had a list of charity partners including the MOCA Art Council.
“It is also bad for the charity partners, because we are left high and dry,” said Hagedorn. “The Council is no longer a charity partner of SeaFair because of their difficulties.”
But she added this doesn’t mean the MOCA Art Council isn’t looking for a different type of event to be held in place of the gala.
“This event is canceled, but we aren’t canceling our main event for the year,” she said. “What happened with SeaFair is totally beyond our control.”
There is not a new event to replace the Gala that is set in stone yet, she said.
“We are trying to discuss our options, because that (the gala) is our big fundraiser,” she said. “We don’t have anything in place yet, but we are going to move forward and plan another fundraiser.”
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.
Since the MOCA Art Council formed in 2002, the group has raised over $500,000 for the museum’s educational programs.