John Glover remembers seeing her and occasionally working on her in Malta in 1972. Whether he did take her through the canals isn’t known, but she was certainly based in the Mediterranean from about 1970 until 2000 when she came back to the UK through those canals.ĭuring those Mediterranean years, Caramba cruised extensively under various ownerships between the Greek Islands, Croatia, Turkey, Corsica, Sardinia and the French Riviera. Parker was described in Yachting Monthly the following month as “in the top three of industrious designers in Great Britain today” having “produced a large number of designs for new yachts which are now building, ranging as they do from a 30-footer to motor yachts of considerable tonnage.” JS White was well known for producing naval vessels and lifeboats as well as private motor yachts and, going back a couple of centuries to when the company was still located in Kent, had also built the whaler in which Captain Bligh was cast adrift.Ĭaramba was “robustly constructed” according to Motor Boat & Yachting, and “all fittings, including the top of the funnel, which project above the wheelhouse top, are readily portable as it is the owner’s intention to cruise through the French canals to the South of France.” That first owner was Frederick M Brown.

Brent Hagerman of Exclaim! called the album 'a pan-Caribbean jam from the early '60s that never had a chance to happen since the Cuban revolution largely cut off musical ties between Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean'.Following an extensive and intensive 15-month restoration, the result of which is simply stunning, the motor yacht Caramba is back in the Mediterranean where she has previously spent at least half of her life.ĭesigned by Fred Parker and built by J Samuel White on the Isle of Wight – with a steel hull, aluminium superstructure and twin Gardner 6LXB diesel engines – Caramba was originally launched in May 1962. Steve Hands of musicOMH wrote that the album 'possesses the grainy authenticism of goodtimey Ska, just before the euphoria of Jamaican independence subsided, full of tall tales, late-nite shebeens, rum, and rhumba'. The album mixes Jamaican ska, Afro-Cuban son, retro swing, salsa and Colombian cumbia. It was released in the US by independent label Cumbancha. ¡Ay Caramba! is the second studio album by English group Ska Cubano, released on 4 July 2005 by Casinosounds.

Ayy karamba