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In business, the owner of Janice of Wyoming operates at
technology’s leading edge, often backing highly speculative ventures into
tomorrow’s world. Yet, as a yardstick for business decisions he stands by an
old-fashioned formula. Before closing any deal, he insists on eye-to-eye contact
with his potential partners.
Sifting through the hundreds of proposals that cross his desk,
most are filtered out at the first pass. Those that are worth further scrutiny,
have to pass the eyeball test. That does not mean he has to be in the same room
with them. He is quite happy to make the assessment via video conference, which
is why his boat – 130-foot (40-meter) Janice of Wyoming – bristles with
electronics and communications gear.
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"It is very important that I can still keep in touch and
maintain some semblance of business activity while I am on board," he said in an
interview in Auckland, New Zealand. "For me, that means an ability to video
conference.
 Photograph by Ivor Wilkins. (Click image to enlarge)
"My business relies heavily on people. If I am going to invest
in a company, I need to see the people involved, face-to-face, and study their
body language. The success or failure of these ventures is very much tied up in
the people behind them. I need to eyeball them; ninety-five percent of those I
see I don’t want to see a second time. It is the remaining five percent that may
have something worth pursuing."
Designed by Dubois Naval Architects, Janice of Wyoming
was built at Alloy Yachts in Auckland and launched earlier this year. In its
20-year history, the yard has produced 22 sailing yachts, half of which have
been Dubois designs.
The project arose spontaneously, when the owner caught sight of
Alloy’s Imagine, a 110-footer launched in 1993, the yard’s third project
with Dubois. Trusting the same eyeball judgments that help him make
multimillion-dollar investment decisions, he decided to abandon plans to buy a
motor yacht and instead build something like Imagine.
 The cockpit is well recessed into the deck, and the fixed
windscreen ties into the permanent soft top. Side curtains make alfresco dining
an all-weather option. Photograph by Martin Fine. (Click image to enlarge)
"I thought she was beautiful. She combined many attributes of a
motor yacht in a sailing yacht. I had a conversation with the captain, paid a
visit to Alloy and arranged a meeting with Ed Dubois, who subsequently started
to design a modern version of Imagine."
Over the course of a year, the design was stretched three
times, from her original 110 feet to 118 feet, then to 126 and finally to 130
feet.
"We wanted more expansive crew quarters, a large owner’s
stateroom with a separate dressing room and an engine room that was more akin to
what you would find in a motor yacht, including standing headroom."
Although the owner was interested in certain motor-yacht
attributes, he was clear on the aesthetics. He did not want a motor yacht with a
mast. He wanted a very low-profile, high-performance, sailing yacht.
"While we were adding more volume, we did not want to
compromise the sailing ability at all. She carries a tremendous amount of sail
for a yacht of her size. It was also very important for the yacht to look
good, and we wanted her to be very low and sleek on the water. It was quite
a design effort to achieve that."
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