The Piano Man Builds His Dream Boat

Billy Joel is about to take delivery of a screamingly fast, custom-built commuter yacht he's helping design that will take him the 28 miles from his home on Long Island's Oyster Bay to Manhattan in about half an hour. Fifty-seven feet long, with surface-piercing propellers beneath a voluptuous torpedo stern, the boat is expected to cruise at 40 knots and hit a top speed in excess of 50. It is a breathtaking, no-compromises vessel, the fruit of a lifetime's careful study of watercraft. It's on the water - saltwater - that Joel is really at home. He is the kind of boat nut who draws sheerlines on napkins because he can't help himself. The new boat is an atavism, really, a conscious throwback to the golden age of powerboating - the commuter-yacht era between the two World Wars.