Over $ 1 billion. spent on luxury private ships since the beginning of the year
The rich have spent more than $ 1 billion on superyachts since the beginning of this year in a bid to escape the coronavirus and circumvent travel bans, the BBC reported, citing data from experts in the field. There was also a huge boom in second-hand yacht sales, they said.
The trend to buy superyachts began last summer and is on track to set records, according to Boat International. A superyacht is a ship that is over 24 meters long and needs a crew (the largest in the world reach 180 meters in length).
Small superyachts cost between 1m and 5m euros if bought second-hand. Annually
for maintenance
they still go
about 200,000
EUR for the crew,
fuel and
fees for
mooring
At the request of the owners, they can be equipped with a spa pool, sun deck, gym and what not, explains to the BBC Steward Campbell, editor in chief of Boat International. The sales boom is dictated by a “cohort of very rich people” who want to escape the restrictions imposed by the pandemic at all costs, and therefore try to stay away from the coast, he added.
More than 50%
from sales
are in the United States
and homeowners are flooding American coastal waters, outsmarting sanitation, Steward said. He emphasizes that not all superyachts are owned by oligarchs, but also by businessmen who have earned their money in an ethical way, and some of them are also donors for various causes. According to him, the owners of their own ships support tourism, as well as the shipbuilding industry.
The three largest second-hand yachts sold this year are Solo – for nearly 63m euros, Elixir – for 39m euros, and Lady Sheridan – for about 29m euros.
According to specialized sites, yacht sales in the first quarter of 2021 jumped by 46% compared to the same period last year.
133 ships
have changed
the owners
its against 91
in 2020
However, they are all real dwarves in front of the giant yacht, which the boss of “Amazon” Jeff Bezos is building to order for 5 years and which will cost 500 million dollars. It should come down from the construction docks and start plowing the seas this summer (see box).
According to statistics, there are currently 9,357 yachts in the world, over 30 meters long, with 85% motor and 15% sailing like Bezos. Most of them belong to corporations, so it is sometimes difficult to say which yacht is owned by whom.
At the same time, activists of the non-governmental organization Oxfam, which monitors the income growth of the world’s richest people, expressed public outrage that
such amounts are
give for expensive
toys, not
for vaccines in
poor countries
According to the organization, for the 1 billion spent on superyachts, the entire population of countries like Nepal could be vaccinated, where the disease causes huge damage. “It’s terrible and it’s a sign that the world has completely messed up its priorities. With so much wealth, poor countries can’t get vaccines to protect their populations, “said Max Lawson, one of Oxfam’s executives.
Bezos builds a floating Pyramid of Cheops
Undoubtedly the most anticipated premiere in the world of megayachts this summer is that of Amazon creator Jeff Bezos. There have been legends about it for several years now, since the billionaire commissioned it from the company “Oseaniko”, which is building it in a Dutch shipyard. The 127-meter ship is said to cost about $ 500 million – a price that the richest man in the world can easily afford, especially since during the pandemic he significantly increased his fortune and reached 200 billion. dollars. The BBC also reminds that at half of this price – 250 million dollars, in 2013 Bezos became the owner of the “Washington Post”.
The price does not include the smaller motorized “maintenance yacht” that Bezos also intends to buy. Its main purpose will be to serve as a landing pad: Bezos’ mistress, former TV presenter Lauren Sanchez, is a helicopter pilot.
There is no way to build a helicopter pad on the main yacht because of the three huge sailing masts on deck. The smaller ship will also be full of various luxury gadgets such as cutters, jets and even a submarine.
According to Bloomberg, the secret project for the yacht, known only by the designation Y721, should be completed by the end of this month. It takes at least 5 years to build such vessels, so apparently Bezos made the order a long time ago.
The Dutch company Oceanico has never commented on the project so far. Her work is the 107-meter yacht “Black Pearl” – one of the largest in the world. It is owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Burlakov. Yacht brokers call ships over 100 meters gigabytes.
Bezos’ yacht is 127 meters long. If it stands vertically, it will be almost as tall as the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza (138 m) and almost half the Eiffel Tower, compares the BBC.
When building such vessels for the richest in the world, usually all workers are required to sign contracts with special confidentiality clauses.
Until recently, the yacht of Russian oligarch Andrei Melnichenko, known as Sailing Yacht A, was the largest private sailing yacht in the world with a length of 142 meters. Bezos’s yacht will probably look like it, but not in the interior decoration – the stairs in the Russian ship are decorated with silver leaves.
Currently, the largest yacht in the world is the floating palace of the Emir of Abu Dhabi “Assam”, which beats everyone with its 180 m length.
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