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Jeff Bezos' 127M sailing yacht has completed construction
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- implements 4y agoI believe it’s considered not the done thing to sleep in your super yacht in port - you’re expected to decamp to the nearest 5* hotel. Genuinely can’t understand the point of them to be honest, they seem to be nothing but wealth signalling to peers I’d hope (as a middle-class person) would have a lot more sense and a lot less social insecurity.
- dzhiurgis 4y agoNo hotel will be as luxurious as this yacht.
- Xeoncross 4y agoI would assume they provide some form of additional insurance should some mass event like war, nuclear fallout, international embezzlement, or covid transpire.
- colordrops 4y agoYou'd need to find a coterie of machine gun armed thugs to join you if it got to that point.
- scottLobster 4y agoDoesn't Peter Thiel already have private security at his luxury nuclear fallout shelter, with agreements that their immediate families get to join them in the bunker if/when the apocalypse happens?
- mywittyname 4y agoIn such an event, I'm sure there would be plenty of those available for hire. Of course, then you're stuck on a gigantic boat with a bunch of armed thugs...
- NhanH 4y agoIf there is such a disaster (to you or the world) that a yatch could be of use for shelter, you are no longer a billionaire and people on the yatch will throw you to the shark, figuratively and potentially literally.
- Xeoncross 4y agoI think you're assuming this is the end of the world. Much more likely to be a regional issue like war, litigation, fraud or outbreak has historically been.
- AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
- pastor_bob 4y agoLiterally one of the first things seized from Russian oligarchs though once they went to war with Ukraine. They're only as safe as where they're parked.
- freejazz 4y agoThose yachts aren't self-sufficient and they cost an incredible amount to keep running on a daily basis.
- scottLobster 4y agoI appreciate LazerPig's take on the subject (The whole video is a fun watch, but this is the yacht specific part): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRDPd0MiopM&t=375s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRDPd0MiopM&t=375s Essentially it's keeping up with the joneses. Turns out rich people are, on average, more lucky than they are original or skilled. They're generally subject to the same personality flaws as any person making 40k/year or less, but whereas the person making 40k/year has financial constraints on how much they can indulge their character flaws, the deca-millionaire or greater does not. Money is an accelerant, and if you're already deeply insecure (as most obsessive workaholics that become billionaires are) money will only make you more so.
- googlryas 4y agoBezos was also incredibly successful in another domain before starting Amazon - he was the youngest senior VP at DE Shaw. So maybe it wasn't just luck.
- thechao 4y agoWhen you're talking "self made billionaire" I think you're picking from a select enough group that "very lucky a few times" is still within reason.
- AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
- scottLobster 4y agoPlenty of hard-working Senior VPs at hedge funds never become billionaires. Hedge funds themselves tend to rely on a good deal of luck plus skilled marketing. If Bezos had been working at DE Shaw during an economic downturn, would he have had the same future? Was it "just" luck? Of course not. But I'd argue luck is the primary difference between being in the top 1% vs being in the top 0.001%
- geodel 4y ago
- googlryas 4y agoNot the done thing according to who exactly? Bezos sets the trends, he doesn't need to follow them. It's not like he's a dime a dozen dude with just a billion or two.
- meheleventyone 4y agoDoes he set the trends though? Trend setting elsewhere doesn't necessarily follow the richest person around.
- pastor_bob 4y agoYou're not going to get much privacy on a European beach. Lounging on a yacht is how you avoid having to sunbath next to millionaires.
- potamic 4y agoThe cynic in me observes that a boat allows you to get to international waters outside the reach any jurisdiction.
- barbazoo 4y agoFor what purpose?
- rightbyte 4y agoAvoid the jurisdiction? Raise a Haitian flag and you are good to go.
- mayama 4y agoExchanging bags of cash? Seriously though, there was an idea floated few years ago about a cruise ship floating at the coast of silicon valley in international waters without paying taxes for companies. It didn't take off though.
- MerelyMortal 4y agolegal reach It would be interesting to see someone with the wealth of Bezos create a new nation, whether it's on land or at sea. It would also be interesting if he could team up with Thiel and put some serious money behind seasteading.
- throw0101c 4y ago> […] a new nation, whether it's on land or at sea. Cue William Gibson: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoMy inner nitpicker can't resist mumbling something about: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson
- 4y ago
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago>they seem to be nothing but wealth signalling to peers I recommend to watch the Silicon Valley satire TV show. It really has such scenes where tech billionaires do insanely wasteful purchases just because one of their tech billionaire peers already has done something similar, just to maintain their status and ego among the SV elite. They also make fun of SV tech workers who feel they need to own a Tesla with Ludicrous Mode and the exclusive rims to show success. It's great satire, though it feels more like reality sometimes.
- Kinrany 4y agoYou seem to be treating fiction as if it was representative of the real world.
- bismuthcrystal 4y agoYes, because everyone knows the show bears no resemblance to the real world.
- bluedino 4y ago> they seem to be nothing but wealth signaling to peers I'd like to see a study where they took the net worth of boat owners and compared to them to purchase price, I wonder what the % would trend to.
- sokoloff 4y agoThis yacht is around 1/3 of 1% of his wealth. It’s the analog of a 10-millionaire buying a new Honda Civic.
- rosnd 4y ago>I believe it’s considered not the done thing to sleep in your super yacht in port - you’re expected to decamp to the nearest 5* hotel. Depends where. At popular yachting destinations like Sardinia or St Barth? No, you're expected to stay on board. In cities like Barcelona with actual ports, it might not be particularly comfortable to stay on board given the environment.
- bitwize 4y agoPeople who sleep aboard ship do so because they love sailing. My father bought a 30' sailboat from a man who used to live on it, sailing from place to place until he bought a bigger boat to serve as home. Sleeping ashore in a hotel conveys "oh, this old thing?" vibes about your yacht. You don't really care about ships or sailing, you just bought it on a whim, because you're rich enough to do that. And yes, they are wealth signalling. I remember a white paper put out by Oracle about "Java isn't going anywhere". It included a photo of Larry Ellison's America's Cup yacht. To technical folks the yacht photo is ridiculous. But technical folks don't get to make large scale technical decisions, those are made by business people. And the yacht photo reinforces the central message to business types: Java is backed by a successful company with a billionaire CEO, so you can count on it for your business.
- seydor 4y agoThat was expensive. But at least he will save some on gas
- dguest 4y agoI'm trying to understand how a sailing yacht has a pool on the aft deck. Do boats this size not heel much or is there some clever way to prevent all the water pouring out?
- teratron27 4y agoThey have stabilisers to stop them rolling side to side
- dguest 4y agoThat prevents the rolling, but do they use those to prevent the constant heeling that sailing cross-wind causes? I edited my comment since I guess "sloshing" was the wrong word for a constant incline.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Kon-Peki 4y agoMaybe it is drained to a holding tank down near the keel to add stability. And when at anchor, they pump it back into the pool.
- tfandango 4y agoI shouldn't mention this probably but I watch Below Deck on the Bravo channel which follows the crews of charter yachts. One of which is a sailboat with a hot tub. I think you are right, when it's sailing (which seems to be rather infrequently), the hot tub is drained somehow.
- deleted 4y ago
- makestuff 4y agoSo is this considered "green" because it is powered by sails? Or do the sails not really do much and it still needs massive engines to run?
- NegativeLatency 4y agoIt’s still going to have a lot of electrical systems, probably some diesel generators and a large diesel motor for propulsion. Also it’s just a bunch of resources tied up with nobody using them most of the time. Doesn’t seem very “green” to me. There are some people trying to do actually green stuff with sail power: https://www.sailcargo.inc/ https://www.sailcargo.inc/
- bruce511 4y agoyeah, but he moved $500 million from the billionare class to the "mostly working man" class (plus a few por millionares). Constructors, materials, supply chain etc etc. Plus jobs for some crew, port fees, mooring fees et al. So, ya know, it's better than him just putting it under the mattress :)
- bismuthcrystal 4y agoWe can only hope they don't wake from the illusion and spend this money right away by hiring each other and get occupied. God forbid they realize that money is actually their own time and effort, and this guy just tricked them into building something for him in exchange for the opportunity (money) of them working for themselves at another time. As inequality grows, it only becomes more evident. Workers can safely cut the billionaire middle man.
- dstick 4y agoHere’s a fun related story on how they wanted to get it out to open sea: https://nltimes.nl/2022/06/30/historic-rotterdam-bridge-wont-dismantled-jeff-bezos-superyacht-worth-eu430m https://nltimes.nl/2022/06/30/historic-rotterdam-bridge-wont...
- superbaconman 4y agoIt's be really cool to get a detailed look inside.
- inasio 4y agoAgree! I found it super interesting when inside photos of one of the seized Russian-owned super yachts came out [0]. This one had a whole hovercraft, a couple of Land Cruisers with appropriate landing vessels, etc. [0] https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/nord-megayacht-interiors-and-tender-garage.php https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/nord-megayacht-interior...
- jl6 4y agoThat’s about 1/1000 of his net worth, and about 1000x the median American net worth. So to Jeff it’s like spending $127 on a boat. I think a lot of us would do it too. Edit: oh wait, 127m is the length and the cost is estimated at $500m. Well that changes everything, he’s a monster.
- mmphosis 4y agoI misread the title also. It is 127Meters in length, no mention of the cost.
- marssaxman 4y agoThe boat is 127 meters long (sailboats are described primarily by length). Its cost has been reported (elsewhere) in the vicinity of US $500 million. One wonders how much the maintenance will cost.
- belval 4y agoIt's 127m as in meters, not 127M as in millions. I think the actual price was more around 300M.
- unmole 4y agoMillions is usually abbreviated to MM for this reason.
- jasone 4y agoNo, MM is an abject abuse of Roman numerals (which means 2,000), as near as I can tell thanks to a nomenclature distortion originally involving CPM (cost per thousand impressions). I can't get over how messed up MM=million is.
- gaadd33 4y ago"mm" is frequently used in finance and probably predates the existence of CPM
- blackfawn 4y agoSo millimeters, then? :) "M" is used quite frequently for million along with "K" for thousand. "MM" as million is used in conjunction with "M" for thousand, but that's a different notation set. "M" & "K" usage is generally much more popular than "MM" and "M", at least in any areas I've been.
- unmole 4y ago> So millimeters, then? :) The difference between mm and MM is rather easy to spot.
- geodel 4y agoThanks. I was confused on such a coincidence like 127mt costs 127 million and named Y721.
- bilsbie 4y ago
- javajosh 4y agoI admit it- this is a lovely yacht and what I wouldn't give to be at her helm for an hour sailing on the open sea. And the prospect for super-yacht races is too good to pass up! An extraordinary race across the Atlantic. Aboard each vessel, celebrity guests are entertained in splendor and it's all live streamed to the world. Alternatively, I'd like to see a billionaire fist-fight on the moon.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pupppet 4y agoAre these superyachts built with defence capabilities? If I were a billionaire I'd be building these to suit my life in some potential Waterworld future.
- nekoashide 4y agoI have heard that some are equipped with defenses like that but those were more for heads of state.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoI'm sure that the rules are different for important people. But in general, no armed foreign boat is allowed in any port in the world unless it is a military vessel with an agreement already in place. It's completely legal to summarily execute pirates in most of the world.
- rosnd 4y agoNo, that would be too limiting. Instead they'll just meet their armed PMSC escorts in international waters.
- jws 4y agoIn general, arming a boat is a huge nuisance if you are going to travel between countries. You might have a fantastic super yacht, but it’s like every country thinks they can make their own rules and tell you what you can and can’t do in their territory. Crazy.
- nkassis 4y agoVery reminiscent of James Clark building the largest sail boat with automation with the money he made from Netscape. See "The New New Thing" by Michael Lewis from some fun and comical account of that boat.
- agnosticmantis 4y agoWould the crew be permitted to use the bathroom or not though? /s
- jws 4y agoNo. They have to use the head.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoKeep in mind that boats in general aren't built in sufficient quantities to enable mass-production on the scale of automobiles. And this is a custom yacht on top of that. So, a stupendously high percentage of the purchase price went directly into the paychecks of the middle-class laborers that built it. Let's be honest - this is going to spend 98% of its time sitting in a harbor, with a full-time middle-class maintenance team making sure it is ready for the other 2% of the time. Enjoy it Jeff.
- bismuthcrystal 4y agoYes, at the end of the day the lucky laborers now hold a fresh piece of paper on their hands. While Mr. Bezos enjoys his real world tangible object, the laborers will discover that their work isn't done yet. Because their money is only worth if they themselves work for each other once again, otherwise it is just worthless paper.
- xerxesaa 4y agoThough somehow I still find it unsatisfying that these laborors rely on a single person's decision to buy a luxury item for these wages. I'm not anti-capitalism by any means, but despite the average person becoming better off, I find it deeply unsatisfying that we have very few mechanisms to control the insane broadening of the wealth gap. I don't want to rely on Jeff trickling down his wealth through purchases of yachts and random donations to Van Jones. I want us to collectively agree that there must be some ceiling to wealth for individuals. Not putting a ceiling on wealth is effectively not putting a ceiling on power - and we've already realized that power needs to have checks and balances.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoYeah sure, I agree in principal. And I agree that power needs checks and balances. But all I see are proposals that move the power into the hands of a fickle mob which in the long run is way worse (see the French Revolution as an example). And I don't have a Time Machine to go back and change the rules to prevent him from getting so rich in the first place. So here we are. He's got the cash. And it's great that he is spending at least a tiny amount of it on something that requires a continuous stream of spending or the asset becomes useless. Whether he uses it or not.
- thecrumb 4y agoWhat a waste of money. He'll probably use it 2-3 times a year and it'll sit somewhere unused the rest of the time. Also probably actually sails like a pig.
- seydor 4y agoHe s prepared for the next lockdown
- boeingUH60 4y agoThis boat looks so much like the one owned by Barry Diller…probably doing a dick measuring contest with his close friend https://pagesix.com/2021/07/07/jeff-bezos-spends-final-days-as-amazon-ceo-on-barry-dillers-yacht/amp/ https://pagesix.com/2021/07/07/jeff-bezos-spends-final-days-...
- colordrops 4y ago"dick measuring contest" is not typical fare for HN, but in this case it seems like the most appropriate description.
- motohagiography 4y agoI like how analogous it is to space travel. You're captain of a ship, a small scale version of the Enterprise, and you can use it as a staging platform for travelling around the world. While I would prefer a smaller craft, where something like a Swan 78 would be sufficient for any of my own conceivable needs, if I had a 127m yacht, I would probably equip it with some lab space for use based on research proposals, anywhere from ocenographic studies to astronomy and VLF signals research. Some acquaintences have spent time as a writer in residence or musician in residence in various places in the world where they spend time working on their next project, and I would probably use a craft like this to offer similar residencies, as I think offering extraordinary experiences to extraordinary people so that they can use them in their contributions to humanity is a very effective way to apply wealth. The thing is going to be empty most of the time anyway, and they're better when the owner isn't around the whole time where you feel like you have to entertain as well. While I have not done a yacht delivery, they typically take a few weeks all-in, with different crew for each leg. Moving this 127m thing around all the time will create a lot of opportunities to join it for a few days to several weeks on delivery legs, so you'd be able to offer a few different residencies each year, and this thing has enough space where you could really get some frission with multiple residencies going on. Maybe I need a superyacht.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PyComfy 4y agoFrom the same website: Iconic yachts: On board Steve Jobs's Feadship superyacht Venus https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/iconic-yachts-venus https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/... Jobs died before it was finished.