Apostol Andrei

We first met Russian yacht Apostel Andrei at Barentsburg (Svalbard) in 2012. A surprise and a delight to come across Nikolai Litau and his robust ice breaker yacht again here in SPB. Such a contrast with Dutch-build yacht Mulligan – each of them happy ships and splendid vessels but stylistically irreconcilable.

We drank much too much vodka, as to be expected. Nikolai is shortly to depart for Archangels’k and Novya Zemlya and how we’d love to join him. For now though, a cheerful cockpit feast with gallons of vodka. Tomorrow night we will take on our pilot for the journey through the St Petersburg bridges and on up the Neva. We pick up the pilot at 2 am!