At 130 Feet, That's A Lot Of Yacht -- Montlake Neighbors Check Out New Arrival - And The Rumors Fly

Oh, what modern conveniences money can buy.

Things like a 130-foot yacht. A color-coordinated speedboat. A matching helicopter.

Yep, a helicopter that whirls up, up and away from the deck of the Attessa, moored at the Seattle Yacht Club.

"I imagine it's the new toy," said Sgt. Duane Hoekstra of the Seattle Harbor Patrol.

What money hasn't bought Montana industrialist Dennis Washington, among the Attessa's four owners, is invisibility.

Washington is the one to whom Burlington Northern quietly sold the railroad right of way in 1988 that the city needed to complete the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Then-Mayor Charles Royer fumed that Washington's offer to hand the land over to the city - provided he got prime moorage for a yacht he was having built - amounted to horse trading with a stolen horse. The city never gave in.

According to Coast Guard records, four partners, including Washington and Dorn Parkinson, took ownership of the Attessa this March. Until 1989, Parkinson was listed as the registered owner of the vessel, built in 1984 in Hong Kong.

The estimated value of the vessel is between $4 million and $6 million.

A man who identified himself as the boat's captain said the yacht's owner was in Europe and could not be reached for an interview. The captain declined further comment.

Montlake neighbors first saw the immense white yacht, which stretches almost 100 feet longer than its dock mates, a few weeks ago.

Patsy and Charles Davis, who eat on the outside deck of their Montlake home, noticed the vessel slowly mooring.

"We tore out to have a look at it," Patsy Davis said. "It's a beautiful yacht. It's spectacular. The stainless-steel rails on the back remind you of the casino, the Monte Carlo."

Rumors ripped through the classy neighborhood. Washington plowed millions into reconditioning the yacht and another million on the helicopter. It's all hearsay, Charles Davis says, but the rumors and the boat have enlivened Montlake.

"It's quite an ornament to the neighborhood," he said.

During early-morning takeoffs and late-afternoon landings last week, however, Attessa's helicopter noise sliced the area's serenity to bits, one neighbor groused.

A phone call to the Seattle Yacht Club - where even seaplane pilots are admonished not to take off or land - fixed that.

Otherwise, there's not too much more authorities can say to someone with a helicopter on board a yacht. It's not like Children's Hospital, said a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman. That facility has to have a permit for a helicopter.

Having enough money to take off from Attessa's deck has freed the yacht's owners from most of the rules that regulate flights from traditional helipads on land.

So far, there have been few accidents involving such aircraft over the water, local officials say. Because helicopters don't come cheap and because most seagoing vessels in this area aren't big enough to handle a chopper, they can count on one hand the number of yachts they've seen equipped with them.

Even the Coast Guard doesn't hold much sway with pleasure yachts like the Attessa. More and more are being carefully crafted to weigh in under the limit that triggers inspections, said John Dwyer, chief of the vessel-inspection branch.

A vessel that weighs more than 300 gross tons and goes out to sea must be inspected by the Coast Guard.

If such a vessel has a helicopter, it must have regulation decks where the aircraft lands and must meet stringent requirements for firefighting equipment and lighting of the helicopter landing area. When the chopper goes up, people cannot be in nearby quarters.

But because the Attessa weighs in at 293 gross tons, none of the regulations apply.