It's likely that Bezos' order was placed several years ago, since custom-made ships like this can take around five years to build. Oceanco, the Dutch yacht maker, has not commented on the project. They previously built the ft Black Pearl, the second largest sailing yacht in the world.
There's no official definition of a superyacht versus a regular yacht , but in the industry the term generally refers to a yacht that is over 74ft long.
Some dispute that definition, saying the term superyachts applies to ships over ft long. Some brokers have even taken to the term "gigayacht" to refer to ships longer than ft. Bezos' yacht, coming in at over ft, is almost as big as the Great Pyramid of Giza if the vessel was laid out vertically. It's just under half as long as the Eiffel Tower. Only a few jumbo superyachts like the Bezos vessel are completed each year, but high-profile projects are often done with such secrecy that builders are required to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Therefore it's unlikely that we'll ever know if Bezos copied the decorative flairs of Russian oligarch and fellow yachtsman Andrey Melnichenko, who lined a spiral staircase on one of his yachts with scalloped, silver-leaf walls.
The industry has been growing rapidly over the past 20 years. According to the US National Marine Manufacturers Association, boat sales reached a year high in , reflecting how people were turning to the water for safe, socially distanced activities during lockdowns.
The market for used yachts has also "just been nuts", he says. According to Tucker, there are 9, yachts over 65ft long that are currently on the seas - meaning those that have not sunk or that are being maintained on land. Fewer yachts were chartered in , Tucker says, which he attributes to pandemic travel restrictions preventing normal tourism activities. Sales dropped for a few weeks as lockdown orders hit the US last year, but then immediately skyrocketed.
In June "it was like someone flipped a switch" as orders started rapidly coming in, says Bob Denison, who's been a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, since About 65 of those he sold in were superyachts.
So far this year about 40 superyachts have been sold, meaning about 2. Demand has totally outstripped supply, says his colleague Ben Farnborough, who adds that it's getting much harder now to find used boats for them to sell. Farnborough hopes that the easing of coronavirus travel restrictions will soon make it possible to travel to Europe to source more second-hand yachts to sell in the US.
The vessels are often bought by corporations and are then rented out by the company's owner, making it difficult to say for certain which yachts are owned by whom. At famous ship-building ports, such as the one in the Netherlands where Oceanco is located, hobbyists will try to spot private airplane tail numbers in an effort to determine which billionaires have come to visit their future yacht.
Privacy is the whole point of owning a yacht, says Tucker, who calls it an "opaque industry". Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, fellow tech billionaires, are rumoured to have yachts.
And for a handful of very wealthy people, that thing is apparently yachts — not just regular yachts, but superyachts.
Superyachts are like regular yachts but bigger and therefore more expensive. Yachts are large, but superyachts are huge: Think feet or longer. If a yacht is a symbol of luxury and excess, a superyacht is a symbol of even more luxury and excess. Sales of these massive vessels are way up, Bloomberg reported last week , and the PPY price per yacht, a term I just made up also appears to be on the rise. In addition to your standard yacht amenities, like swimming pools and helipads, these boats often come equipped with submarines and missile defense systems.
Unlike real estate or blue-chip art , which can rapidly appreciate in value, superyachts tend to depreciate, and most owners lose money on resale. Even if you keep the boat docked for most of the year, you still have to pay to dock and maintain the superyacht, and you have to pay the salaries of its captain and crew. Because they can. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.
Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Spence saw how a group of young men who were children of superyacht owners often encourage this fascination with their way of life.
The women come on board the boats, go up to the top deck and ask for champagne. You downgrade from vintage Dom to Veuve Clicquot — from euros a bottle to 30 euros. The super-rich also use their yachts to control the level of access they grant to those outside their wealthy circle, says Spence. For example, some exploited maritime law to get rid of the young women they brought back from the clubs.
In the morning, they would go to bed and order the yacht to leave port, knowing the crew would have to remove any stragglers before they set sail. The symbiotic relationship between superyacht owners and crew is not as one-sided as it might appear. The majority of owners buy superyachts secondhand via brokers and refit them to their tastes.
They estimate that yachts of over 30 metres have been bought worldwide so far this year. The top tier are custom-designed by naval architects and can take shipyards several years to complete. Peter Thompson, a broker at Monaco-based Thompson, Westwood and White Yachts, says eastern European oligarchs and Gulf royals dominate the metre-plus superyacht market, also known as gigayachts.
The primary factor behind the increasing size of superyachts is the growing wealth of the super-rich. Last year, he ordered his 19th superyacht, the metre Spectre, due to be delivered by the Italian Benneti shipyards in Thompson, who was involved in many of the projects, says Staluppi gets a new superyacht every 18 months to three years, compared with a client average of every five to seven years. He loves the creation side of it. He uses them as floating homes.
In the French Riviera, many owners flip between staying on board their yacht or in their luxury villas or mansions, says Spence.
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