Yacht spotting

October 19, 2007 7:33 PM

You’ve heard of train-spotters and maybe even plane-spotters. Now comes a new innovation in the world of voyeurism: yacht-spotters. Yacht-spotters are boat-obsessed individuals around the world who hang around docks, marinas, shipyards and ports snapping photos of megayachts and charting their migratory patterns. Some are in the yacht business; others live by the water or own boats themselves. But all share what they call a “passion” for rich people’s boats. (via)

All the links are in Robert Frank's blog post (3rd link), for the record:

"Stalkers of the High Seas: Yacht-Spotters Reveal Locations, Infuriating Owners", by Robert Frank, The Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2007; Page W2

The three top sites are Yachtspotter, the Megayachts forum, and Superyacht Times.

posted by stbalbach (23 comments total)

I'll stick to pylon spotting... yachts are too rich for my blood.
posted by zek at 8:06 PM on October 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Liver-spotting
posted by Poolio at 8:21 PM on October 19, 2007

A while back I got a few photos of Larry Ellison's yacht in St. Thomas and posted them to Flickr; I couldn't believe how many views it got in the first few days.

(Granted, it was a pretty ridiculous yacht. It had a boat that came off the yacht that was itself big enough to carry a large SUV around in. It's kind of a weird Russian-dolls thing, I guess. Or perhaps the nautical equivalent of a turducken.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:34 PM on October 19, 2007

Arrrr, this will be very helpful, matey. Ye done good.
posted by stavrogin at 8:35 PM on October 19, 2007

I was in Copenhagen recently and part of the canal tour right before the little mermaid was a stop at the Skat, Charles Simonyi's yacht. I at first thought it was a British naval vessel due to what looks like an attack helicopter on the top.

It made me want to write more code.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2007

I've seen Ringo's yacht with the world's fastest seaplane on it's deck in Nantucket's boat basin. If that yacht wasn't Ringo's, right now I would be dead from terminal class consciousness. The international arms merchants and Saudi princes can fuck themselves, but Ringo knew how work an ensemble. Ringo gets a pass.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 9:08 PM on October 19, 2007

That's funny about Ringo. I'm embarrassed to admit that I feel the same way.

All this Yacht crap just confirms my feeling that money is wasted on the rich.
posted by serazin at 9:28 PM on October 19, 2007

I saw Le Grand Bleu, Roman Abramovich's old yacht that he sold to his buiness partner Eugene Shvidler, while on holiday in Venice. It was easily double the size of every other yachts berthed next to it.
posted by PenDevil at 11:04 PM on October 19, 2007

Hey! It's the HMS B(ig)eagle!
posted by sourwookie at 12:30 AM on October 20, 2007

Excuse me, I have to go kill my guidance counselor.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:30 AM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Why not try it for your next holiday, its only a few hundred thousand a week.
Fraser Yacht charter, YPI charter.
Here are a couple (second link needs registration) of Super Yacht Industry and recreational maritime industry publications.
posted by adamvasco at 2:42 AM on October 20, 2007

I took many photos of the Octopus (5th largest in the world), in Cape Town, a few months ago. Having beheld that awesome craft, I'm not sure I much care about other big yachts. I only knew about it because I heard the crew rescued some people from a sinking ship, on their way to Cape Town.

My favorite thing about the boat (where 'favorite' = quaint/cute, as opposed to many awesome features), is the basket ball hoop over the garage door on the back (where they store the helicopters in bad weather).
posted by Goofyy at 2:45 AM on October 20, 2007

LOLASPERGERS amirite?
posted by kcds at 3:49 AM on October 20, 2007

Speaking of plane-spotting, some Tunisians are into that.
posted by NoMich at 5:31 AM on October 20, 2007

I used to work at a big ol' East Coast maritime museum which had dockage for megayachts. They'd pull in all summer and we'd gawk.

It's kind of a weird Russian-dolls thing, I guess.

Absolutely. Among the things some of the yachts carried were: other boats (fishing, sailing, dinghies, kayaks, canoes, motor launches); helicopters; motorcycles; ATVs; JetSkis; and SUVs.

Many of the yachts are not owned by a single individual, but are corporate yachts. They belong to some enormous company like ADM, and various executives and investors sort of time-share them as one of their perks or as part of an overall business strategy that includes lobbyist and investor entertainment and travel.

They are obnoxious, by the way, particularly when lying at a wharf next to a vintage Herreshoff.
posted by Miko at 6:51 AM on October 20, 2007

Yeah, but where's YachtPictures.net?

Oh. Lame.
posted by azazello at 7:14 AM on October 20, 2007

Reduce, reuse, recycle! Cut back on your consumerism! Avoid Chinese-made products! Global warming! Starvation! Fear!

Meanwhile, the elite continue to make all efforts by regular folk moot.

Sickening.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:12 AM on October 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Bah, big putt-putts. The only superyacht I care about is the Maltese Falcon, Tom Perkin's stunning 289' three-masted square-rigger.
posted by nicwolff at 4:34 PM on October 20, 2007

The spoiled retail scion who has been the main reason why I've been sleeping on the floor since I bought my place (by turning a Roman villa into a modernist nightmare) has been building marinas all over for these things.
posted by brujita at 9:08 PM on October 20, 2007

I saw Le Grand Bleu, Roman Abramovich's old yacht that he sold to his buiness partner Eugene Shvidler, while on holiday in Venice. It was easily double the size of every other yachts berthed next to it.

Thanks to pendevil. I just ended a dizzying 2 hour Wikipedia crawl that ended in Ethiopian politics.
posted by empyrean at 11:13 PM on October 20, 2007

The spoiled retail scion who has been the main reason why I've been sleeping on the floor since I bought my place (by turning a Roman villa into a modernist nightmare) has been building marinas all over for these things.

You win this month's "Most Confusing Comment" award.
posted by odinsdream at 8:20 AM on October 21, 2007

nicwolff,
Yeah, that boat is intense. This photo of the command center was intense. I figured that's probably what every hardcore gamer wished their rig looked like. WIRED's article and photo gallery of Perkins' Maltese Falcon.
posted by junesix at 9:29 AM on October 21, 2007

I've been venting about this over on Metachat for quite some time.
posted by brujita at 10:07 AM on October 21, 2007