This US man built the world’s biggest homemade yacht but was completely unable to find it for 10 days.
Clyde Stires opened up about his extraordinary experience in an interview with his nephew.
In it, he detailed how the Mexican cartel allegedly took his yacht and the crew onboard.
As if that wasn’t crazy enough, the story of what happened afterwards is even more jaw dropping.
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The story of a man and his self-made yacht
In his interview, Clyde opened up about how he came to build a yacht in his backyard.
He said: “I sold everything to put that money together to build the boat.
“I wasn’t a billionaire. I didn’t get an inheritance.”
With boat yards and dry docks proving too costly to hire out for the project, he opted to build it in his own.
“That’s not how I work, that’s why I don’t have anyone help me,” Clyde said.
“That’s why I work alone, so I don’t have to wait for someone to get off the toilet or finish picking their nose.”
It was an arduous process, but Clyde persevered and eventually got his boat out to water.
All in all, it took five years for the project to reach completion – much like this 249-foot yacht.
While it’s impressive enough that he built a 100-foot boat in such a short span of time, the next part of the story will really shock you.
How a Mexican cartel got involved
When he’s asked about the craziest thing that ever happened to his boat, it’s no wonder that Clyde goes straight to this story.
As he told it, he was sat in a restaurant when he got a phone call from his secretary.
He recounted: “She said ‘They’re stealing your boat’.
“I look on the security cameras and I saw them coming onboard, my crew were scared.
“They took the phones away from all my crew. All my crew were basically kidnapped – all five of them.”
When it came time to press charges against the cartel, he allegedly ran into some opposition with the Mexican government.
Clyde recalled: “The Minister of the Republic won’t look at me, and he’s saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
“He’s trying to talk me out of it.
“I said, ‘No, they stole my boat, they kidnapped my crew. I want to press charges’.”
Fortunately, the crew members were taken to shore and placed in a black SUV, which then dropped them off in the grocery store parking lot.
Before their kidnappers drove away, they threatened to kill the crew and their families if they spoke out.
The boat was missing for 10 days, during which time Clyde was desperately trying to retrieve it via the American consulate.
Once an appeal was shared online, they received a call from a boat user who said: “We’re anchored right next to it.”
It was near San Patricio that the boat was found.
The Mexican Navy were dispatched and headed 100 miles out to sea, where they surrounded the yacht.
Despite Clyde asking for the details, he allegedly couldn’t get any information out of them about what went down once the Navy boarded the vessel.
According to Clyde, everyone bar the cartel’s captain was released by the Navy.
The police department took the boat into custody, barring Clyde from getting it back for a while.
It took a long time to get his yacht back, by which time Clyde decided he wanted to leave Mexico as he didn’t feel safe there.
If you want to see this remarkable story for yourself, watch the interview over on Clyde’s channel.
The post The biggest self-made yacht went missing for 10 days appeared first on Supercar Blondie.
