Pair "borrowed" boat for a midnight spin in the Cote d'Azur
Two men have been arrested after stealing a luxury motoryacht in Antibes over the weekend.
“We wanted to go for a ride,” they told the court in Grasse, France.
The unemployed men, identified only as 20-year-old Yanis and 24-year-old Maxime, spotted the unmanned yacht and decided to sleep on board because they had no money and needed somewhere to stay.
The next evening they manoeuvred the €1.5m yacht out of the harbour and spent the night anchored at sea. They were greeted by the port authorities when they returned in the morning, Nice Matin reports.
Yanis and Maxime scratched the yacht and caused damage to the propellers. When asked how they operated the yacht without any boating experience, they told authorities they figured it out by reading the manual.
“It’s a miracle the pair managed to manoeuvre the yacht back to Antibes port without any experience and encountering any real problems,” said defence lawyer Luc Girad.
The people staying on neighbouring yachts assumed the pair were friends of the owner and failed to raise the alarm.
Maxime was jailed for a year, due to a previous conviction, and Yanis received a six-month suspended sentence.
Photo of Antibes take by Thomas Leth-Olsen.
