Jan and Martine, proud owners of the Garcia Exploration 45, Balthazar, which belonged to Jimmy Cornell, are not only accomplished sailors but also serious music lovers. During their stopover in Cherbourg, following a few months in Norway and before heading off for the Mediterranean, they had a piano installed by the shipwrights at the Garcia Yachts yard, permanently fitted in their boat’s saloon. Not just a simple portable keyboard, but a real electronic piano, with 7¼ octaves and 88 keys.
The instrument, although not small, was discreetly integrated under the full-sized chart table of the Garcia Exploration 45. At sea, it doesn’t interfere with the nav station, where you can easily access all the boat’s instruments. Once at anchor or in port, however, and the stainless-steel sliding system has been deployed, the keyboard allows Jan and his wife to perform works from the classical repertoires of which they are so fond: Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies, passages from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, or Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
Balthazar’s saloon, already very welcoming anyway, resonates on some days with uncommon sounds that are simply an invitation to step aboard. This isn’t surprising considering that Balthazar, the first in the Garcia Exploration 45 series, has already written, with Jimmy Cornell at the helm, some beautiful notes in the great score of sailing around the globe.
