Early March 2021

Introduction

Pier One is the western-most pier in Old San Juan. The United States Coast Guard station is immediately to the west, at the end of La Puntilla, the point. The pier for the ferry boat service to Catano is just to the east.

Pier One is usually used for visiting naval vessels and, when they are able to visit, small cruise ships. The Al Mirqab, a super yacht, is moored there now.

The Al Mirqab

The Al Mirqab is one of the twenty largest private yachts ever built. It is 437 feet long with a beam of 63 feet and displaces about 9,500 tons. Built in 2008, the yacht belongs to Qatar’s former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al Thani.

Launched in 2008, the yacht was built in Germany, at the Peters Schiffbau Wewelsfleth shipyard, in Kiel. It was, during construction, mostly hidden from view and known only as Project May.

Tim Heywood was the ship’s architect; Andrew Winch Designs managed the interior design. The interior is spacious and opulent, as befits a yacht costing a third of a billion dollars. There are 10 guest suites capable of hosting 24 guests. Each suite has its own bath, living room, and double bedroom. The owners and special guests have two VIP suites for their use.

Guests can do more than look for whales. Al Mirqab has a cinema, indoor pool, outdoor jacuzzi, and various bars to keep people entertained. Guests can use the private helicopter for shore excursions. I suppose a helicopter pilot is one of the 60 crew members. Maybe he/she doubles as the cinema operator or a bartender. One has to cut corners somewhere.

I’ve seen mega yachts in port before, especially the stunning A and the huge Eclipse, both owned by Russian oligarchs. I’ve written about them – see my posts here and here and here.

The USCGC Stone

The Stone, a new ship of the Coast Guard, was in port for a few days during January, after having been delivered to the government on November 10, 2020. She left Pascagoula, Mississippi, on December 22, 2020 for a patrol into the South Atlantic. Her mission was to search for illegal fishing activities. The covid pandemic caused changes in the planned schedule. For example, the crew was not able to disembark in Montevideo, Uruguay because of covid fears.

But they were able to disembark in San Juan, and the alcohol supplies were the worse for it, at least at the kiosco in Plaza Darsena where I sometimes enjoy a cold one in the late afternoon. The crew seemed young, happy, and energetic. And they were a mixed group, both by gender and ethnicity. And they did seem glad to be ashore, at least for a couple of days. Good luck to them all.

FS LA COMBATTANTE P735

The new French naval patrol craft La Combattante was in port for a few days last November. She entered service in 2020. The French realized, after Hurricane Irma in 2017, that they did not have an adequate naval presence in the French Antilles to respond to such disasters. In response, they ordered new patrol craft in 2017. La Combattantte and her two sister ships make up the Patrollers Antilles Guyane (PAG) with responsibilities for patrolling in the French possessions in the Caribbean and Guyana. She was probably in port here after joint training exercises with the Coast Guard. Unfortunately, the crew was not able to disembark – I saw them doing physical training on deck, the poor sods.

HNLMS Zeeland (P841)

Sometime during the fall of 2018, the Royal Netherlands naval patrol craft Zeeland was in port. Like the French, the Dutch maintain a naval force in the Caribbean to support their possessions, including the ABC islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

The Zeeland was in the Caribbean during Hurricane Irma, and afterwards played an important role in providing relief to the residents of Saint Maarten and Saba.

I rather like the lines of this ship, and I think it is very sporting of the Dutch to keep their radar mast lit up like a Christmas tree. That must certainly give would-be smugglers and pirates pause.

Conclusion

All three of these warships are considerably smaller than Al Mirqab. The Stone is 418 feet long and displaces about 4500 tons; the Zeeland 336 feet and 4,130 tons; the La Combattante 132 feet and 750 tons. And I bet none of them have a pool, or even a jacuzzi.

Note and Sources

See the Wikipedia entries for each ship for more information.

The photos are mine.