????關于海洋，有句古老的諺語是這么說的：海員一生中最快樂的兩天，分別是他買船和賣船的日子。對三位商界巨頭來說，這些日子似乎比普通海員更加快樂。

????2009年，硅谷首屈一指的風險投資家湯姆?珀金斯賣出了馬耳他獵鷹號（Maltese Falcon），這艘289英尺長的橫帆船充滿未來風格，仿若達斯?維達的指揮艦。據報售價為9,000萬美元，買家是歐洲對沖基金經理、億萬富豪艾琳娜?安布羅西亞多。

????去年6月，喬?維特多利亞——上世紀80年代他擔任汽車租賃公司Avis掌門人，并領導了對該公司的杠桿收購，籍此積攢了不菲身家——賣掉了米拉美人4號（Mirabella V），這艘單桅帆船長247英尺，桅桿高達292英尺，如此高度使其甚至無法從金門大橋下駛過，也無法通過巴拿馬運河。業內消息人士透露賣價為2,500萬美元，買家是德克薩斯油氣大亨、億萬富豪羅德?路易斯。

????最新一位甩賣游艇的大亨是68歲的億萬富豪吉姆?克拉克，他是網景、Shutterfly和WebMD的聯合創始人，近日將自己的兩艘帆船——雅典娜號（Athena）和哈奴曼號（Hanuman）同時掛牌出售。

????雅典娜號是一艘非常漂亮的295英尺長斜桁縱帆船，帆面積達到2.8萬平方英尺，上面還配備了大量炫酷數碼產品，足以讓任何喜愛這類玩具的科技迷心動，比如可用于監測與控制音樂、空調及特等艙房內采光情況的手持無線觸屏設備；通過導航屏還可以清楚看到自己正駛向哪一個充滿異域風情的私家旅游島。

????克拉克的諸多怪癖促使專業船員們將這艘海上巨獸稱為“吉姆世界”，他喜歡將游艇用作潛水平臺，為滿足患有減壓病的潛水愛好者的需求，船上甚至還配備了減壓室。克拉克開出的賣價為9,500萬美元，想必這還不包括他喜歡在船上穿著的South Beach牌白色西裝。

????有報道稱，當年克馬耳他獵鷹號和雅典娜號都在建造之時，珀金斯與克拉克曾就誰的游艇更長而展開競爭。珀金斯聲稱，他誤導了克拉克，獵鷹號的實際長度比克拉克了解的情況多出10英尺——獵鷹號籍此勝出。克拉克則堅稱，他的船更大，倒不是說吃水線更深，而是其裝飾著人像的33英尺船首斜桅伸出了前甲板。男孩們，玩夠了吧！?

??? 哈奴曼號長138英尺，目前停在羅得島州紐波特，它是湯米?索普維斯上世紀30年代建造的J級賽艇奮進2號（Endeavour II）復制品。開價“僅為”1800萬美元。

????The oldest adage on the sea is that the two happiest days in a sailor's life are the days he buys his boat and the day he sells it. For three business titans, the days seem to be getting happier.

????In 2009, Tom Perkins, the nonpareil venture capitalist of Silicon Valley, sold the Maltese Falcon, a 289-foot futuristic Darth Vader-esque square-rigger. Reported price: $90 million. The buyer: Elena Ambrosiadou, a European hedge-fund billionaire. Then, last June, Joe Vittoria -- who made a fortune as head of Avis Rent a Car when he led an LBO of the company in the 1980s -- unloaded Mirabella V, the 247-foot sloop with a 292-foot mast that's so tall the yacht can't fit under the Golden Gate Bridge or through the Panama Canal. Price, according to industry sources: $25 million. The buyer: Rod Lewis, a billionaire Texas oil-and-gas tycoon. Now comes the 68-year-old billionaire Jim Clark, the co-founder of Netscape, Shutterfly and WebMD. He just put his splendid sailboats, Athena and Hanuman, on the market on the same day.

????Athena is a glorious 295-foot gaff-rigged schooner, with 28,000 square feet of sail area. It has enough cool gadgetry to tickle any techy who likes toys: handheld wireless touch-screens that monitor and control such ship accoutrements as music, air conditioning, and the shades in the staterooms. You can also keep track on a navigation screen of what exclusive exotic island you're heading to. Clark, whose eccentricities led his professional crew to call their nautical universe "Jim World," used the boat a lot as a diving platform. Athena even has a decompression chamber for divers with the bends. Asking price: $95 million, which presumably doesn't include the South Beach white suits that Clark liked to wear aboard.

????As the story goes, Clark and Perkins were in a bit of a competition about whose boat under construction would be longer. Perkins said he misled Clark by 10 feet about how long the Falcon would be -- and that's why Perkins' is bigger. Clark maintains his is bigger, not at the waterline but because of a 33-foot figurehead-adorned bowsprit extending out from the foredeck. Boys, settle down!

????The sleek 138-foot Hanuman, currently in Newport, R.I., is a replica of the great J-class racer Endeavour II from the 1930s built by Tommy Sopwith. Asking price: a mere $18 million.