Love life not plain sailing for flamboyant skipper

DRAMATICS on an operatic scale are commonplace in the life of George David, multi-millionaire skipper of Rambler 100.

Indeed Monday night’s theatrics off the West Cork coast were possibly enacted in less stormy waters than the divorce courts, the arena in which details of David’s personal life were revealed in 2008 when his second wife went after a greater share of his estimated €228m personal fortune.

Swedish socialite Marie Douglas-David, a distant relation of the Swedish financier Gustaf Douglas, who carries the title of count, married David in 2002 and was entitled to €30m should they divorce thanks to a pre-nuptial agreement. In 2006, David filed for divorce but his wife, 30 years his junior, was dissatisfied with her entitlement and, claiming it would not fund her extravagant lifestyle, pursued him for more.

Details of that lifestyle, and indeed of the lavish lifestyle of her ex-husband, were laid bare by lawyers in court proceedings.

According to lawyers for Douglas-David, her weekly expenses included €7,000 for cash and credit cards, €3,125 for clothes, €694 for hair and skin treatments, €1,040 for restaurants and entertainment, €5,500 for travel, €700 for limousine services, €1,500 for an assistant, €1,000 for horse care and €415 for flowers.

Her lawyers argued €37,000 should cover her weekly bills, including the upkeep of properties in Sweden, Manhattan and the Hamptons.

However, her claims were dwarfed by the figures outlined by lawyers as contributing to her ex-husband’s weekly expense bill of close to €140,000.

The biggest spend was €67,000 per week on yacht maintenance, followed by €47,000 on “wife’s residences” and €12,500 to charities.

Interestingly, the name of Wendy Touton, the only female member of the Rambler 100 crew when it capsized, cropped up in court proceedings at the time.

Lawyers for his ex-wife questioned David about his relationship with the divorced working mother from Manhattan. David told him that he had been involved with Touton in a sexual encounter two days before his deposition in December 2008. They had met at a flower show on Rhode Island.

It emerged in court that David had spent €7,000 on Manolo Blahnik shoes for Touton during a trip to London in 2007. He also did not deny buying La Perla lingerie from two continents, spending €9,000 on a Dennis Basso fur for his paramour and €1,000 for a couple of jars of La Mer beauty cream.

David later said he couldn’t remember how many Manolos he got for his money but that: “There was a nice pair of boots in there.”

David had first married childhood sweetheart Barbara Osborn in 1965 and they had three children. They divorced in 1997 and he married Douglas-David, a former Wall St analyst, in 2002.

They met when she was an asset manager at Lazard LLC. Two years later, it was claimed she was having an affair with a “strapping Swedish fencer”. David later had an affair with Touton, but only, he claimed, after his marriage broke down.

David, the Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar, is known as a fearless skier and accomplished chef with a penchant for souffles. When the New York Times reminded him that souffles were prone to fall, he replied, “I like the challenge.”