La Dolce Vita

Confession time: I know next to nothing about boats and the sole extent of my Riva knowledge was that they were wooden, fast, beautiful and called Aquarama, which this clearly wasn’t. The only other thing I knew about it was that Triton was a Greek sea god, son of Poseidon, my classical education finally proving of some use to me.

She, and I am assured that is the correct mode of address, is called Tracy II, the original Tracy being the daughter of Hollywood superstar, British heart-throb and the Riva’s original owner Stewart Granger and his Oscar-nominated wife Jean Simmons. She was built in 1960 and by the time Ben bought her a few years ago, she was in a truly terrible state. A year-long restoration commenced during which at least two thirds of the original craft was retained; the results speak for themselves.

That boat is up there among the most beautiful things of any kind I have seen. To see how her sides constantly curve this way and that from stem to stern from single lengths of finest mahogany is to see craftsmanship to take your breath away. The attention to detail is astonishing – she is covered in hundreds of screw-heads where the brightwork has been fixed in place, and every single one has been tested and filed down to the precise individual length so that when screwed into the exact same depth as every other screw on the boat, the cross that located the screwdriver is perfectly upright. The interior appears as a homage to 1950s Americana, which is probably no coincidence as the Tritone was the first Riva to be sold in the US. It’s all chrome and Bakelite and utterly gorgeous.

It turns out that the Tritone is nothing less than the father of the famed Aquarama, the latter developed directly from the former. But with around 240 Tritones built, compared to over 750 Aquaramas, it is over three times more rare. But the Tritone’s real claim to fame in Riva-world is that it was the first of Carlo Riva’s boats fitted with two engines. Which made them go a bit.

But few quite so well as Ben’s. When he bought Tracy II, she had no engines, so Ben could choose anything that was period and used for such purposes at the time. The ‘standard’ Tritone engine was a 5.5-litre straight-six Chris-Craft MCL motor, producing around 175bhp, but Ben being Ben he’s fitted a pair of small block-based Thermo Electron 5.7-litre V8s, each producing a nominal 270 horsepower which Ben reckons is probably closer to 300bhp. So call it 600bhp all up. Should be enough for now.

We gingerly step aboard, keen not to mark her immaculate surfaces and upholstery. Ben fires up the V8s in turn, both fed in time-honoured style by the traditional four-barrel Holley carb. They settle to a low growl.

‘You can’t trust the dials, so at speed you have to sync them by ear,’ he says as he expertly manoeuvres her eight-metre length out of our parking space, using differential power between the engines to spin her on her axis. No bow thrusters here.

And we’re off to the sound of distant rumblings from the motors.

But the weather is not being kind. There’s a stiff breeze blowing across Como and while I’d not call the water exactly rough, it is decidedly choppy. The Tritone seats six in comfort, three in the front, three in the back and I elect to stand in front so I can see over the water-spattered screen.

We’re cruising at around 23 knots – you can’t tell for sure because while it has two rev-counters, two oil pressure gauges and two ammeters, there’s no speedometer – and two things strike me at once. First, the water I see in front of me appears not to be that passing under the boat. I was reminded at once of the first time I drove a McLaren MP4-12C back in 2011 and its eerie ability to apparently resurface the road as you drove along it. The Tritone does the same with water. I’d call it a Rolls-Royce ride were that not to imply some sense of float or wallow, of which there is none, so I’m sticking with my McLaren analogy. Even when we cross the wake of another, far larger boat, its composure remains serene.

Second, I’m not getting wet, despite standing full face into the wind, to one side of the boat in distinctly sub-optimal conditions. Whoever designed this boat all those years ago thought very hard about that. In a couple of hours on board, I got properly splashed just once which, in the 30-something degree heat, was rather refreshing.

‘Okay Andrew, your turn now.’

It’s strange. I can be utterly sanguine about driving some ultra-exotic, thousand horsepower, million quid hypercar and be grabbing it by the scruff from the off, but hand me the wheel of a 65-year-old Riva doing 30mph at best and I’d not be much more nervous if you asked me to juggle Fabergé eggs. This is not my usual environment.

But it’s easy. The platform is so stable and the engines are as responsive as you’d expect. I didn’t know what to expect from the steering, having not done much rudder work in the past, but it’s just instinctively, intuitively right. I don’t want it to flick from left to right, any more than my now distinctly apprehensive passengers, having seen that there’s now a rookie at the helm, but the steering response is slow, linear and absolutely faithful. It is every inch the thoroughbred it appears to be. And it is a joy.

Ben’s ‘bite to eat’ turned out to be lunch at Villa d’Este and I know now I have already made my most stylish arrival and the most stylish location I will ever make, an aesthetic marred only by my attire. I wonder if anyone else has tried to eat at Villa d’Este wearing a T-shirt, sandals and bright orange swimming shorts? If so, you’ll know you don’t get very far. I’ve been asked to leave a few establishments in my time, but none for the last 40 years or so, and never quite so politely. Happily I’d left a slightly less unsuitable change of clothes on the Tritone and probably more because they appreciated the effort made than me finally complying with the dress code, they let us in.

By the time we left, the wind and water had died down considerably and I was already looking hopefully at Ben before we’d left the mooring. Of course he knew exactly what I wanted. My cause was considerably enhanced by the ladies of the gathering pointing out that hair needed to be washed and whatever and could we get back as soon as possible so as not to be late for the evening’s festivities? Clearly they don’t know Ben as well as me: he never needs an excuse.

I’ve never heard a De Havilland Mosquito on full throttle flypast, but Ben assures me that’s what the Tritone sounds like when the V8s are finally uncorked. And I believe him: it’s thunder that never goes away. On the way out we’ve been doing around 2300rpm, but now there’s 5500rpm on the clock – all out in other words, a 600 horsepower bolt of beauty spearing its way across an Italian lake. I can barely believe it’s happening, even less that the ride has deteriorated barely at all. I ask Ben how fast, and the only reason I’m being opaque with the answer is that there’s a nominal speed limit on Como. But it’s born to it. This is one of those instances where beauty and power and speed come together in an impossibly glamorous setting to create a moment you know you’ll remember for the rest of your days.

And then the V8s cut. Ben points out we’re 300 metres from shore and I’m left goggling at the distance we’ve covered. We’ve got back in half the time it took to get there.

Minutes later Tracy II is out of the water and being cleaned prior to being returned to her place in the boat house. So I wander in and notice another Tritone under a cover next to where she will shortly be parked. This one’s name is Sophia.

Looking at me staring at yet another expression of Carlo Riva’s genius, Ben wanders over and goes ‘ah yes, that’s Sophia Loren’s.’ Says it all, really.