Dealers Go Sailing, Sale-ing on a Floating Art Gallery - Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

Click to learn more about this paintingWith a full head of hair, a toothsome smile, and the lack of a menacing eye patch, David Lester does not look at all like a villain out of a James Bond movie.

True, he does own a yacht, a $40 million pleasure craft that would beggar the Disco Volante, the superyacht used for evil by the one-eyed Emilio Largo in the 1965 Bond film “Thunderball.”

At three quarters the length of a football field and six stories in height, Mr. Lester’s yacht represents the summit of his ambition, not as a Napoleon of Crime, but as an impresario of art.

The boat, named SeaFair, resembles an enormous white porpoise. It will be moored at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan until Sunday. The city is its latest port of call after earlier stops in Greenwich, Conn., and Oyster Bay, on Long Island. Its last stop this year will be in Miami Beach on Nov. 30.

Inside the SeaFair there are carpets, tapestries, pre-Columbian figurines, rare porcelain bowls and diamond jewelry. There are also a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington circa 1795 and paintings by Winslow Homer, Jackson Pollock and Mary Cassatt. A first-edition copy of Ian Fleming’s “Dr. No” is also on display.

All of it is for sale to the great washed public, or at least that gilded segment who merit an invitation from Mr. Lester or the art dealers on Mr. Lester’s yacht.

Those invited, or their guests, can afford to pay more than $4,000 for that first-edition Ian Fleming or $3 million for that George Washington portrait.

“It’s a moving exhibition space for fine art and antiques, O.K.?” said Mr. Lester, 63. Along with his wife, Lee Ann, Mr. Lester has been a longtime organizer of art shows in Florida, where he lives, and around the world.

Mr. Lester’s art boat is “stylish and brilliant,” said Michael Goedhuis, a dealer in Asian art with offices in New York and London who is an exhibitor on the boat. “You can now bring the best art to the richest people, to put it very crudely.”

And the clientele appreciates the marketing flourish despite some initial reservations about Chelsea Piers, a sprawling redoubt of recreational sports and toddler birthday parties, and the boat itself.

“When I saw it from the pier, I thought, uh oh,” said Bob Wittekind, 73, referring to the yacht, to which he was invited. A retired chemical industry executive from Fairfield, Conn., he was accompanied by his wife and daughter.

“This might not be the quality of exhibit we might have expected,” he said. “It’s at Chelsea Piers and the boat looks like, um, like ...” Mr. Wittekind added, waving both hands. A cruise ship? “Right,” he said. “But when I started off on the lower deck, I was pleasantly surprised.”

Getting the right client up the gangplank is the biggest hurdle, dealers say. Peter Mitchell, a dealer of European paintings in London, recently sold a painting displayed on the ship to a Connecticut woman for more than $1 million by first lending it to her.

“Any gallery is artificial,” Mr. Mitchell said, gesturing around his exhibition space on the art boat. “Paintings were painted to go in homes. We can bring the picture to your home this afternoon, hang it and then you can have a look at it yourself.”

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