“[A] gigayacht is the most expensive item [you can] own.”
July 19, 2022 4:15 PM Subscribe
In Evan Osnos’s latest dispatch for The New Yorker, he reminds us that the super rich are different from you and I by looking at the current booming yacht economy: “The Haves and The Have-Yachts”
[T]hese shrines to excess capital exist in a conditional state of visibility: they are meant to be unmistakable to a slender stratum of society—and all but unseen by everyone else… In a candid aside to a French documentarian, the American yachtsman Bill Duker said, “If the rest of the world learns what it’s like to live on a yacht like this, they’re gonna bring back the guillotine.”
I've always been surprised by how the front page of CNN seems to always feature at least one super-yacht, be it an actual, existing one or a 3d-concept. I get the feeling this article helps explain why.
posted by signal at 4:27 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 4:27 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
We have to end capitalism before it destroys us.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:31 PM on July 19, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:31 PM on July 19, 2022 [10 favorites]
Reality catching up to and outstripping Bond villains.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:33 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 4:33 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Watch "Succession," season 2, episode 10 to wean yourself off ever wanting a superyacht.
posted by chavenet at 4:38 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 4:38 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: I’m always looking for any excuse to bring the guillotine
*Reality catching up to and outstripping Bond villains.*
There’s some real William Gibson, near-future sci-fi potential in here. Maybe he’s already written it?
posted by Going To Maine at 4:38 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
*Reality catching up to and outstripping Bond villains.*
There’s some real William Gibson, near-future sci-fi potential in here. Maybe he’s already written it?
posted by Going To Maine at 4:38 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
The other thing about these things is that, come the revolution, they won't really be worth it to expropriate. They are obscenely expensive to operate and keep seaworthy, and they aren't actually useful for anything other than... maybe film shoots? I can't think of anything. You're not going to be able to turn them into Oligarch Museums or something like they did with Versailles etc, or turn it into a People's Yacht. They're just pure white elephants.
In a world without billionaires they would mostly be sold off for scrap, I think.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:41 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
In a world without billionaires they would mostly be sold off for scrap, I think.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:41 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
There’s some real William Gibson, near-future sci-fi potential in here. Maybe he’s already written it?
Yep, he already wrote it. The grandchildren of these yacht-owners are the future of humanity.
posted by pompomtom at 4:47 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yep, he already wrote it. The grandchildren of these yacht-owners are the future of humanity.
posted by pompomtom at 4:47 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
I am going to build a stealth super yacht where the apparent helipad can host theee retractable guillotine assemblies
Knowing the target audience, this will start a trend. My retractable guillotine assemblies will become All The Rage
And then my real plan shall begin
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Knowing the target audience, this will start a trend. My retractable guillotine assemblies will become All The Rage
And then my real plan shall begin
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
sold off for scrap
Drain the toxins best you can and sink them to seed new coral reefs.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:18 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Drain the toxins best you can and sink them to seed new coral reefs.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:18 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Is this their response to learning we're about to lose our coasts? We'll just live on boats instead? Fuck them.
posted by bleep at 5:19 PM on July 19, 2022
posted by bleep at 5:19 PM on July 19, 2022
The fragility of these people! What happened to them that they can destroy the world because of boat-related FOMO? I’ve only been able to stomach half the article so far so maybe that question is answered further along but I doubt it.
I know some sailing people. I know some very rich sailing people, who sold most of their boats about a decade ago and whose oldest friends are the crews they sailed with before they got so very rich. I don’t conceal my disapproval of boat owning from them so we don’t talk about it much, but somewhere along the way they made the switch from having fancier and fancier boats to putting their money into scholarships, preserving natural land, and buying art made by marginalized creators. They are by no means morally righteous and I disapprove of plenty of their money related choices, but I do wonder if they saw the beginning of this mega yacht bullshit and decided to get out before they completely lost touch.
posted by Mizu at 5:21 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I know some sailing people. I know some very rich sailing people, who sold most of their boats about a decade ago and whose oldest friends are the crews they sailed with before they got so very rich. I don’t conceal my disapproval of boat owning from them so we don’t talk about it much, but somewhere along the way they made the switch from having fancier and fancier boats to putting their money into scholarships, preserving natural land, and buying art made by marginalized creators. They are by no means morally righteous and I disapprove of plenty of their money related choices, but I do wonder if they saw the beginning of this mega yacht bullshit and decided to get out before they completely lost touch.
posted by Mizu at 5:21 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
It's trash TV (and very addictive, at least in my household) but I very much recommend the reality series Below Deck. It's about the crew on luxury rental yachts and it generally does NOT show the super wealthy in a positive or glamorous light. In fact, it usually shows them being not just insanely entitled but as being pretty dang unhappy people desperately trying to buy fun. The one where the boat gets turned around and a group gets booted off for leaving a baggie of cocaine on the toilet is one of the best moments of schadenfreude I've ever experienced via a dumb reality show.
In addition, I think the show does a pretty good job of showcasing the hard work that goes into running a yacht while pampering these people -- it does not look like an easy job, at all, from any angle.
All that said, the people who own the yachts in this article are likely stratospheres more wealthy than the people who would agree to have their rental featured on a reality show.
posted by treepour at 5:21 PM on July 19, 2022 [17 favorites]
In addition, I think the show does a pretty good job of showcasing the hard work that goes into running a yacht while pampering these people -- it does not look like an easy job, at all, from any angle.
All that said, the people who own the yachts in this article are likely stratospheres more wealthy than the people who would agree to have their rental featured on a reality show.
posted by treepour at 5:21 PM on July 19, 2022 [17 favorites]
The article mentions it in passing, but it does make it a tiny bit more palatable reading this through the lens of this AskMe answer. Let them eat rust.
posted by Mchelly at 5:22 PM on July 19, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 5:22 PM on July 19, 2022 [10 favorites]
“When I heard it (cancer) was in my lymph nodes, the worst bit was thinking that I couldn’t make plans,” he recalls, as we cluster around a saloon table on the big Perini Navi Perseus3 at the Monaco Yacht Show. “I’m somebody who has always lived with a plan.”The odd thing is how relatable this is but how foreign the chosen outlet. It's the lack of imagination that gets me, of another superyacht in a world of superyachts; I can absolutely understand the desire to create, and take full enjoyment of one's life. But... this?
A week after his diagnosis in 2009, he made two resolutions: to ensure every single day is lived according to the plan; and to have a lot of fun. “From that moment forward, from after that first week, every day I get out of bed and ask myself what I’m going to do to have fun today...
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:24 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sink. Them. All.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:27 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:27 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
In most cases, pleasure yachts are permitted to carry no more than twelve passengers, a rule set by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, which was conceived after the sinking of the Titanic. But those limits do not apply to crew. “So, you might have anything between twelve and fifty crew looking after those twelve guests,” Edmiston, the broker, said. “It’s a level of service you cannot really contemplate until you’ve been fortunate enough to experience it.”So, like, when the yachts get seized, turn 'em into public ferries. I'm not into guillotines, but I am TOTALLY into the public ferries.
The latest fashions include IMAX theatres, hospital equipment that tests for dozens of pathogens, and ski rooms where guests can suit up for a helicopter trip to a mountaintop.With public health clinics.
posted by aniola at 5:28 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Meanwhile I’ve been looking at the price of condos in eastern Mass., and the sub-$500K pricing on a new B-tier sailing “yacht” of the studio-apartment-on-water variety like the NEEL 43, and thinking about how all of my paternal grandmother’s children and grandchildren have total immunity to motion sickness … and despite the ~$20k/year estimated maintenance I’ve been asking myself just how committed I am to living on land.
(Yes, mom, I know it’s a terrible idea and I’m not super serious because I am familiar with the concept of depreciating assets. Just… real fuckin’ hard not to notice a new NEEL + marina fee is cheaper than a small but nice condo + HOA fee basically anywhere I’d consider civilized in the US, which is down to Boston or Seattle at this point.)
posted by Ryvar at 5:30 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
(Yes, mom, I know it’s a terrible idea and I’m not super serious because I am familiar with the concept of depreciating assets. Just… real fuckin’ hard not to notice a new NEEL + marina fee is cheaper than a small but nice condo + HOA fee basically anywhere I’d consider civilized in the US, which is down to Boston or Seattle at this point.)
posted by Ryvar at 5:30 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
i know the people who own these are accustomed to having people to boss around and wait on them, from house staff to corporate employees but a 5 to 1 staff to guest ratio is obscene. i feel guilty at a full service restaurant. at any rate, communism, now
posted by dis_integration at 5:42 PM on July 19, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 5:42 PM on July 19, 2022 [10 favorites]
Guilty at a full service restaurant, you say? Have another blockquote.
For those who aren’t soothed by the scent of cordite, Super offered an alternative. “We fly 3-D-printed, architectural freestanding restaurants into the middle of the Maldives, on a sand shelf that can only last another eight hours before it disappears.”posted by aniola at 5:45 PM on July 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
There's an advert in the second link for a $10 million yacht named the Status Quo.
posted by eagle-bear at 5:46 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by eagle-bear at 5:46 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Not that I would ever advocate for a few shaped charges with magnets stuck on them, bog no. But if you just happen to find some in your tackle box, well. I'm a strong swimmer.
posted by transitional procedures at 5:48 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by transitional procedures at 5:48 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
“You’re not worried about paparazzi. So you’ve got all this extra space, both mental and physical.”
So, about that homelessness crisis. Where you may have, like, you have little-to-no privacy because you're, well, homeless. I wonder how much affordable housing one of these could fund. Or how many basic incomes.
posted by aniola at 5:53 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
So, about that homelessness crisis. Where you may have, like, you have little-to-no privacy because you're, well, homeless. I wonder how much affordable housing one of these could fund. Or how many basic incomes.
posted by aniola at 5:53 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
this kind of money could buy you wall-to-wall joyful otter habitats
i do not understand people
except that the people who like wall-to-wall otter habitats are somehow never the people who can afford superyachts
what a world
posted by The otter lady at 6:08 PM on July 19, 2022 [40 favorites]
i do not understand people
except that the people who like wall-to-wall otter habitats are somehow never the people who can afford superyachts
what a world
posted by The otter lady at 6:08 PM on July 19, 2022 [40 favorites]
Things aren't going to get better, so it's important to remember that if we can't have justice we can still have revenge.
posted by Frowner at 6:09 PM on July 19, 2022 [46 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 6:09 PM on July 19, 2022 [46 favorites]
There’s an advert…
Er, why is it not for sale to US residents while in US waters? Like, a US resident could buy it outside of US waters? Is that some shady tax dodge thing?
posted by eviemath at 6:09 PM on July 19, 2022
Er, why is it not for sale to US residents while in US waters? Like, a US resident could buy it outside of US waters? Is that some shady tax dodge thing?
posted by eviemath at 6:09 PM on July 19, 2022
Yes.
Much of the time, superyachts dwell beyond the reach of ordinary law enforcement. They cruise in international waters, and, when they dock, local cops tend to give them a wide berth; the boats often have private security, and their owners may well be friends with the Prime Minister. According to leaked documents known as the Paradise Papers, handlers proposed that the Saudi crown prince take delivery of a four-hundred-and-twenty-million-dollar yacht in “international waters in the western Mediterranean,” where the sale could avoid taxes.posted by aniola at 6:12 PM on July 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
If countries could cooperate in the smallest way, this would be the perfect sort of thing to implement as a global luxury tax. The people owning these boats don't even want bigger boats per se they just want bragging rights that their boats are bigger than others. Slap a 200% tax on everyone's and you can still spend the same amount and keep the same positions, and just as a happy little accident burn less fuel.
Failing that the fur coat red paint treatment would not be absurd.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:17 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Failing that the fur coat red paint treatment would not be absurd.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:17 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Ethical nations could ban luxury yachts from entering their waters.
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa.
posted by Beholder at 6:20 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa.
posted by Beholder at 6:20 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
I love the idea of wall-to-wall joyful otter habitats (don't tell the orcas).
posted by aniola at 6:20 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by aniola at 6:20 PM on July 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
this kind of money could buy you wall-to-wall joyful otter habitats
posted by The otter lady at 21:08 on July 19 [+] [!]
Username checks out.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:23 PM on July 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by The otter lady at 21:08 on July 19 [+] [!]
Username checks out.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:23 PM on July 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
I could not bring myself to read the article.
But the comments thread is priceless.
posted by lhauser at 6:31 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
But the comments thread is priceless.
posted by lhauser at 6:31 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Given the staff to rich bastard ratio, where are the mutinies?
posted by njohnson23 at 6:31 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 6:31 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
Many are English-speaking twentysomethings, who find work by doing the “dock walk,” passing out résumés at marinas. The deals can be alluring: thirty-five hundred dollars a month for deckhands; fifty thousand dollars in tips for a decent summer in the Med. For captains, the size of the boat matters—they tend to earn about a thousand dollars per foot per year.$50,000 in tips, call the season 6 months. That's $100,000/year. That's like $50/hour in tips. Plus room and board. By comparison, the same adventure-seeking comes-with-room-and-board job-hunting crowd is going to be making like a solid $15/hour in California. I think to a lot of people working on those boats, participating in a mutiny would feel like killing the golden goose.
posted by aniola at 6:53 PM on July 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
I just... with this article I keep coming back to the fact that a house in, for example, Nicaragua, can be like $5,000 and a starter house in the blue or green parts of California is like $500,000. And I'm not sure what to make of that.
posted by aniola at 6:54 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by aniola at 6:54 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Relevant: Trinkets of Frivolous Utility
One look at the mega-rich shows the futility of great wealth. Jeff Bezos, for example, goes on amusement park rides alone and makes brief trips into near-space, thereby only emulating a mid-ranking Soviet Union Air Force officer of 61 years ago. That’s a pathetic return on billions of pounds.posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:58 PM on July 19, 2022 [12 favorites]
Scientific research corroborates all this. Whilst there is some albeit mixed evidence that money does buy happiness, it does not buy much...
Like I get that guillotines and expropriation are politically unpopular but I don’t get how it’s possible to read even a few paragraphs of this article and not think that these people deserve them both.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:03 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by uncleozzy at 7:03 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
A few thoughts:
1. In very recent memory, there's precedent for seizing yachts outright: Russian oligarchs became international pariahs overnight when the Ukrainian invasion happened, and the easiest way to hit them was to seize their yachts when they sailed into suddenly-unfriendly ports.
2. Once seized, yachts become immediate liabilities to the sovereign powers seizing them. Boats are notoriously holes in the water into which their owners must pour money. Giga-yachts have insanely high upkeep, by their very design as symbols of conspicuous wealth, and surprisingly little resale value. This makes large-scale seizure of yachts politically fraught.
So once we make it politically feasible to seize ALL yachts, we can streamline the process and save a bunch of money by just sending special forces teams to scuttle them at anchor. Private security forces don't mean shit against a single MK 48 torpedo launched from close range. You only have to sink one or two before every Saudi oil baron and PayPal billionaire avoids your waters at all costs.
posted by Mayor West at 7:09 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
1. In very recent memory, there's precedent for seizing yachts outright: Russian oligarchs became international pariahs overnight when the Ukrainian invasion happened, and the easiest way to hit them was to seize their yachts when they sailed into suddenly-unfriendly ports.
2. Once seized, yachts become immediate liabilities to the sovereign powers seizing them. Boats are notoriously holes in the water into which their owners must pour money. Giga-yachts have insanely high upkeep, by their very design as symbols of conspicuous wealth, and surprisingly little resale value. This makes large-scale seizure of yachts politically fraught.
So once we make it politically feasible to seize ALL yachts, we can streamline the process and save a bunch of money by just sending special forces teams to scuttle them at anchor. Private security forces don't mean shit against a single MK 48 torpedo launched from close range. You only have to sink one or two before every Saudi oil baron and PayPal billionaire avoids your waters at all costs.
posted by Mayor West at 7:09 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
Every time I'm out sea kayaking and some asshole in a giant yacht crosses me at full throttle (bonus points for when they loop around and do it again) I start to consider what it would take to add torpedoes to my lil' 14 footer.
posted by xedrik at 7:14 PM on July 19, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by xedrik at 7:14 PM on July 19, 2022 [9 favorites]
why is it not for sale to US residents while in US waters
Because a 1908 law requires a 1.5% duty be paid *before* a foreign-flagged boat can be offered for sale in US waters.
posted by nicwolff at 7:52 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Because a 1908 law requires a 1.5% duty be paid *before* a foreign-flagged boat can be offered for sale in US waters.
posted by nicwolff at 7:52 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Every time I'm out sea kayaking and some asshole in a giant yacht crosses me at full throttle (bonus points for when they loop around and do it again) I start to consider what it would take to add torpedoes to my lil' 14 footer.
There's a form to fill out and you have to pay a tax if you want a torpedo.
here
posted by nestor_makhno at 7:56 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
There's a form to fill out and you have to pay a tax if you want a torpedo.
here
posted by nestor_makhno at 7:56 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Is this their response to learning we're about to lose our coasts? We'll just live on boats instead? Fuck them.
The article I think makes a fine case that people in super yachts are not thinking about coasts disappearing, or of them as a back up plan for climate change (although Peter Thiel and seasteading get mentions). They think about yachts as both a way of ostentatiously showing off and as a way to live a kind of luxurious lifestyle impossible for us to imagine. We simply do not exist. Nor, really, do the coasts.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:02 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
The article I think makes a fine case that people in super yachts are not thinking about coasts disappearing, or of them as a back up plan for climate change (although Peter Thiel and seasteading get mentions). They think about yachts as both a way of ostentatiously showing off and as a way to live a kind of luxurious lifestyle impossible for us to imagine. We simply do not exist. Nor, really, do the coasts.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:02 PM on July 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Every time I'm out sea kayaking and some asshole in a giant yacht crosses me at full throttle (bonus points for when they loop around and do it again) I start to consider what it would take to add torpedoes to my lil' 14 footer.
I know sea kayakers don’t roll by choice, but back when I was whitewater kayaking, we used duct tape to spell anatomically difficult suggestions on the bottom of our boats anticipating rafting guide requests that we do tricks for their customers.
posted by skyscraper at 8:15 PM on July 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
I know sea kayakers don’t roll by choice, but back when I was whitewater kayaking, we used duct tape to spell anatomically difficult suggestions on the bottom of our boats anticipating rafting guide requests that we do tricks for their customers.
posted by skyscraper at 8:15 PM on July 19, 2022 [11 favorites]
I love the idea of wall-to-wall joyful otter habitats (don't tell the orcas).
I learned recently that Orcas actually tend to like seals more than otters. Otters, it turns out, are too dang furry to taste good.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:17 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
I learned recently that Orcas actually tend to like seals more than otters. Otters, it turns out, are too dang furry to taste good.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:17 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
1. In very recent memory, there's precedent for seizing yachts outright: Russian oligarchs became international pariahs overnight when the Ukrainian invasion happened, and the easiest way to hit them was to seize their yachts when they sailed into suddenly-unfriendly ports.
One part of the article is a real adventure regarding this!
posted by Going To Maine at 8:18 PM on July 19, 2022
One part of the article is a real adventure regarding this!
posted by Going To Maine at 8:18 PM on July 19, 2022
This makes me feel better: Jeff Bezos spent $500 million on a superyacht but they won't dismantle a historic bridge to let it through so it may never reach the ocean... Poor Jeff!
posted by mmoncur at 8:45 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by mmoncur at 8:45 PM on July 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
We simply do not exist.
Someone was telling me about how insurance in California is only allowed to increase by a certain % per year. But that % can be distributed over all of their contracts. So this person, living in a flammable area, has seen their house insurance go from $900/year to $7,000/year. Whereas other people, in lower-risk parts of California, are still paying the same amount for their insurance. Which got me to thinking about who will and who will not be able to afford to buy houses in these areas that are designated as high-risk by house insurance.
I have this theory. I think "risk of falling into the ocean" is something the insurers are aware of, and I wonder if it explains why all the houses right on the water in SoCal are mansions. The cost of insurance for living where their house will fall into the sea someday soon is probably so high that typically it's only going to be an option for people who can afford mansions.
There are a LOT of mansions on the California coast. Mansions, not McMansions. They line the coast, one right after the other. You'll see workers working on them, keeping the windows clean or giving them a fresh coat of paint or whatever. "No parking overnight" type signage sprout from the earth like the ugly unwelcoming things that they are. There is nowhere legal to tent camp on the beach in Los Angeles for like 80+ miles, this same stretch of beach.* But you can absolutely expect to be moved along if you try.
* Nevermind California's Right to Rest Act of 2018, - in fact, these street signs are designed with legalized anti-homelessness in mind. Nevermind also that
- (according to the Adventure Cycling Association) "In 1990, the governor of California signed a resolution redesignating the coastal route as an official state bicycle route",
- that biking along the Pacific Coast requires the ability to, like, sleep at night,
- that most people don't bike 80 miles in a day, and
- that the coastal bicycle route resolution was passed decades ago.
posted by aniola at 9:01 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I found a handwritten welcome note, on embossed club stationery, set alongside an orchid and an assemblage of chocolate truffles: “The whole team remains at your entire disposal to make your stay a wonderful experience. Yours sincerely, Service Members.” I saluted the nameless Service Members, toiling for the comfort of their guests.Nor, really, do the coasts.
Someone was telling me about how insurance in California is only allowed to increase by a certain % per year. But that % can be distributed over all of their contracts. So this person, living in a flammable area, has seen their house insurance go from $900/year to $7,000/year. Whereas other people, in lower-risk parts of California, are still paying the same amount for their insurance. Which got me to thinking about who will and who will not be able to afford to buy houses in these areas that are designated as high-risk by house insurance.
I have this theory. I think "risk of falling into the ocean" is something the insurers are aware of, and I wonder if it explains why all the houses right on the water in SoCal are mansions. The cost of insurance for living where their house will fall into the sea someday soon is probably so high that typically it's only going to be an option for people who can afford mansions.
There are a LOT of mansions on the California coast. Mansions, not McMansions. They line the coast, one right after the other. You'll see workers working on them, keeping the windows clean or giving them a fresh coat of paint or whatever. "No parking overnight" type signage sprout from the earth like the ugly unwelcoming things that they are. There is nowhere legal to tent camp on the beach in Los Angeles for like 80+ miles, this same stretch of beach.* But you can absolutely expect to be moved along if you try.
* Nevermind California's Right to Rest Act of 2018, - in fact, these street signs are designed with legalized anti-homelessness in mind. Nevermind also that
- (according to the Adventure Cycling Association) "In 1990, the governor of California signed a resolution redesignating the coastal route as an official state bicycle route",
- that biking along the Pacific Coast requires the ability to, like, sleep at night,
- that most people don't bike 80 miles in a day, and
- that the coastal bicycle route resolution was passed decades ago.
posted by aniola at 9:01 PM on July 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
I don't know how to scuba dive. I don't know how to construct limpet mines or torpedoes. This article instills a strong desire to learn all of these things.
posted by Hactar at 10:17 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Hactar at 10:17 PM on July 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
> Not that I would ever advocate for a few shaped charges with magnets stuck on them, bog no.
Reminds me of this scene from Neal Stepheon's pre-Snow Crash novel, Zodiac:
"What's on the agenda for today, Sangamon? Come to plant a magnetic limpet mine on an industrialist's yacht?"
This was vintage Dolmacher. Not "blow up" but "plant a magnetic limpet mine on." He cruised bookstores and bought those big picture books of international weapons systems, the ones always remaindered for $3.98. He had a whole shelf of them. He went up on weekends and played the Survival Game in New Hampshire, running around in the woods shooting paint pellets at other frustrated elements.
"Yachts are made out of fiberglass, Dolmacher. A magnetic mine wouldn't stick."
posted by AlSweigart at 10:35 PM on July 19, 2022 [14 favorites]
Reminds me of this scene from Neal Stepheon's pre-Snow Crash novel, Zodiac:
"What's on the agenda for today, Sangamon? Come to plant a magnetic limpet mine on an industrialist's yacht?"
This was vintage Dolmacher. Not "blow up" but "plant a magnetic limpet mine on." He cruised bookstores and bought those big picture books of international weapons systems, the ones always remaindered for $3.98. He had a whole shelf of them. He went up on weekends and played the Survival Game in New Hampshire, running around in the woods shooting paint pellets at other frustrated elements.
"Yachts are made out of fiberglass, Dolmacher. A magnetic mine wouldn't stick."
posted by AlSweigart at 10:35 PM on July 19, 2022 [14 favorites]
"Remember to try tonight's drink special: Stolen Vodka Surprise. We stole Vladikov's vodka. Surprise!"
-Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale.
posted by clavdivs at 10:37 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
-Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale.
posted by clavdivs at 10:37 PM on July 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
MetaFilter: too dang furry to taste good
posted by chavenet at 1:20 AM on July 20, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 1:20 AM on July 20, 2022 [8 favorites]
I have this theory. I think "risk of falling into the ocean" is something the insurers are aware of, and I wonder if it explains why all the houses right on the water in SoCal are mansions.
Oh yea, insurers are both aware of it and explicitly do not provide insurance for this. They know it's a guaranteed money loser. So the government fills the gap, but any time they try to raise the rates to match the actual risk, politicians get an earful and force the agency to back down.
And that's before how horrible the system works in that you can only replace the house you lost, not use the money to get an equivalent house not in a flood zone, so the government pays for the same houses over and over again that continually flood, so they're unsellable and the people who own them cannot afford to move elsewhere.
posted by jmauro at 1:28 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh yea, insurers are both aware of it and explicitly do not provide insurance for this. They know it's a guaranteed money loser. So the government fills the gap, but any time they try to raise the rates to match the actual risk, politicians get an earful and force the agency to back down.
And that's before how horrible the system works in that you can only replace the house you lost, not use the money to get an equivalent house not in a flood zone, so the government pays for the same houses over and over again that continually flood, so they're unsellable and the people who own them cannot afford to move elsewhere.
posted by jmauro at 1:28 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
"There's an advert in the second link for a $10 million yacht named the Status Quo."
Whatever you want, whatever you like, whatever you say, you pay your money, you take your choice.
Yeah, Status Quo is a nice name.
posted by ewan at 2:42 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Whatever you want, whatever you like, whatever you say, you pay your money, you take your choice.
Yeah, Status Quo is a nice name.
posted by ewan at 2:42 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
“[A] gigayacht is the most expensive item [you can] own.”
I suppose a gigayacht is fine if you're a filthy peasant, but the future conspicuous consumption symbol for the truly wealthy will be luxury private spaceliners.
posted by star gentle uterus at 3:57 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I suppose a gigayacht is fine if you're a filthy peasant, but the future conspicuous consumption symbol for the truly wealthy will be luxury private spaceliners.
posted by star gentle uterus at 3:57 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Apart from the tremendous waste that would go into constructing and launching them, I'm OK with sealing the ultra-wealthy inside relatively small, windowless cylinders orbiting the planet where they'll be surrounded by floating garbage and have to go to the bathroom using a vacuum pump. Even with recent investments in space, it's not like they're going to have anything like artificial gravity anytime soon.
Come to think of it, convincing the ultra-wealthy that such a dirty, smelly environment is a "luxury" to be sought after might be one of the best things we can do to get rid of them.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:59 AM on July 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
Come to think of it, convincing the ultra-wealthy that such a dirty, smelly environment is a "luxury" to be sought after might be one of the best things we can do to get rid of them.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:59 AM on July 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
> Given the staff to rich bastard ratio, where are the mutinies?
So you've mutinied, thrown the rich bastard overboard or marooned him on a desert island. Now what?
You can't return to any first-world port, you'll be instantly arrested. As the crew, you don't have enough money to keep the boat in good repair, so probably wherever you sail to next will be your final stop and then you're land based. Probably your bank account with the 50 grand in tips has been frozen so you can sell whatever was left on the boat (I doubt replicas of Renaissance Masters go for much) to make your nest-egg. Also there might be an Interpol notice out for you. Let's say you didn't maroon the guy or toss him into the sea, you just took him prisoner. For what? As much as these people really are enemies of all mankind, you're not going to find a court to charge them with that, so you're back to either permanently getting rid of him or letting him go (to seek revenge!). It's not the 1700s anymore, for better or worse, and you can't just pitch up on a remote Pacific island and hope no one finds you for the next 80 years.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 6:00 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
So you've mutinied, thrown the rich bastard overboard or marooned him on a desert island. Now what?
You can't return to any first-world port, you'll be instantly arrested. As the crew, you don't have enough money to keep the boat in good repair, so probably wherever you sail to next will be your final stop and then you're land based. Probably your bank account with the 50 grand in tips has been frozen so you can sell whatever was left on the boat (I doubt replicas of Renaissance Masters go for much) to make your nest-egg. Also there might be an Interpol notice out for you. Let's say you didn't maroon the guy or toss him into the sea, you just took him prisoner. For what? As much as these people really are enemies of all mankind, you're not going to find a court to charge them with that, so you're back to either permanently getting rid of him or letting him go (to seek revenge!). It's not the 1700s anymore, for better or worse, and you can't just pitch up on a remote Pacific island and hope no one finds you for the next 80 years.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 6:00 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
You might need a form to have a torpedo, but aquatic signalling devices designed to move away from your craft and create a large underwater bubble to signal your location to divers should be fine.
posted by jellywerker at 6:17 AM on July 20, 2022
posted by jellywerker at 6:17 AM on July 20, 2022
There’s a fairly popular tiktok account from a woman who works as a chef on a yacht. Given the size of the crew overall and how much food she cooks I think it must be a smaller yacht but it is hard to tell (the yacht is named Luna which is probably a pretty common yacht name and difficult to google because a Russian oligarch had a seized giant yacht named Luna).
She and the rest of the crew seem to be having a genuinely fun time and it seems like a good gig overall. I don’t think revolutionaries take these jobs and I think the people who do take them like them.
posted by jeoc at 6:20 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
She and the rest of the crew seem to be having a genuinely fun time and it seems like a good gig overall. I don’t think revolutionaries take these jobs and I think the people who do take them like them.
posted by jeoc at 6:20 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
A red gigayacht collided with a purple gigayacht. Both crews were marooned.
posted by fairmettle at 6:32 AM on July 20, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 6:32 AM on July 20, 2022 [13 favorites]
They think about yachts as both a way of ostentatiously showing off and as a way to live a kind of luxurious lifestyle impossible for us to imagine. We simply do not exist. Nor, really, do the coasts.
Nor do other people. From the article:
Learning how to coexist with people you don't otherwise like is a necessary skill for society to function. And these assholes are buying their way out of having to learn that skill.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:41 AM on July 20, 2022 [9 favorites]
Nor do other people. From the article:
Staluppi, of Palm Beach Gardens, is content to spend three or four times as much on his yachts as on his homes. Part of the appeal is flexibility. “If you’re on your boat and you don’t like your neighbor, you tell the captain, ‘Let’s go to a different place,’ ” he said. On land, escaping a bad neighbor requires more work: “You got to try and buy him out or make it uncomfortable or something.”I mean, in the rest of the world most people where you have two neighbors who don't get along, mostly they suck it up and learn how to leave each other alone and live and let live. The people who try to "make it uncomfortable" are usually regarded as assholes or busybodies.
Learning how to coexist with people you don't otherwise like is a necessary skill for society to function. And these assholes are buying their way out of having to learn that skill.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:41 AM on July 20, 2022 [9 favorites]
Fun fact: a mutiny is any refusal to obey orders (in the relevant military or marine context). So the crew don’t have to dispose of the rich yacht owner, they just have to not treat them like the boss. Turn the yacht into a democracy, or keep the billionaires confined to their quarters with only specific supervised contact with the outside world, or something like that. The crew couldn’t do something like that indefinitely, but the above is more in the realm of labor dispute than crime; or if the billionaire is inclined to pursue kidnapping charges, I’ve no doubt the crew would have enough evidence of abusive behavior toward crew or other misdeeds or peccadillos that the billionaire wouldn’t want coming to light.
posted by eviemath at 6:59 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 6:59 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I feel sorry for everyone in that story.
posted by storybored at 7:18 AM on July 20, 2022
posted by storybored at 7:18 AM on July 20, 2022
“No one today—except for assholes and ridiculous people—lives on land in what you would call a deep and broad luxe life. Yes, people have nice houses and all of that, but it’s unlikely that the ratio of staff to them is what it is on a boat.” After a moment, he added, “Boats are the last place that I think you can get away with it.”
...and that's the game. Real wealth isn't a number on a bank account. It's how many people you own.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 7:20 AM on July 20, 2022 [8 favorites]
...and that's the game. Real wealth isn't a number on a bank account. It's how many people you own.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 7:20 AM on July 20, 2022 [8 favorites]
Back in March the family was in Miami and we took one of those cruises around the harbor where you can see all the fancy homes and boats.
One yacht that caught my eye was the Gene Machine, mostly because it had a fancy lit-up logo on the side where most of the boats of this size prefer to be as nameless as possible. (And, I was a Gong Show fan but that's a derail).
Turns out the Gene Machine has a support yacht named Gene Chaser and they have...laboratories on board. With lots of articles touting that the owner used the labs extensively in developing COVID-19 tests back in the early days of the pandemic. But, of course, it also was convenient for family vacations in the Caribbean.
I've been around a few genetic labs and it seems like a yacht isn't the optimal place to do molecular and genetic research but what the hell do I know? To me it seems like the ultimate business writeoff. And pretty smart, when you think about it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:32 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
One yacht that caught my eye was the Gene Machine, mostly because it had a fancy lit-up logo on the side where most of the boats of this size prefer to be as nameless as possible. (And, I was a Gong Show fan but that's a derail).
Turns out the Gene Machine has a support yacht named Gene Chaser and they have...laboratories on board. With lots of articles touting that the owner used the labs extensively in developing COVID-19 tests back in the early days of the pandemic. But, of course, it also was convenient for family vacations in the Caribbean.
I've been around a few genetic labs and it seems like a yacht isn't the optimal place to do molecular and genetic research but what the hell do I know? To me it seems like the ultimate business writeoff. And pretty smart, when you think about it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:32 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
The article mentions it in passing, but it does make it a tiny bit more palatable reading this through the lens of this AskMe answer. Let them eat rust.
Were you referring to this bit: In a column this spring headlined “a superyacht is a terrible asset,” the Financial Times observed, “Owning a superyacht is like owning a stack of 10 Van Goghs, only you are holding them over your head as you tread water, trying to keep them dry.”?
I also enjoyed this anecdote: At a port in Spain, a Ukrainian engineer named Taras Ostapchuk, working aboard a ship that he said was owned by a Russian arms dealer, threw open the sea valves and tried to sink it to the bottom of the harbor. Under arrest, he told a judge, “I would do it again.” Then he returned to Ukraine and joined the military.
I have to wonder, for all the money involved in owning these monstrosities, how much time do the owners actually spend on them? It sounds nice being able to lounge around in luxury with every need attended to, but most of these people have some sort of business that presumably involves going to New York/London/Hong Kong/wherever to make deals, as well as it being good in general to live reasonably close to where your business is based if just to keep an eye on things. Plus they have all those homes they can live in scattered around the globe.
posted by TedW at 7:55 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Were you referring to this bit: In a column this spring headlined “a superyacht is a terrible asset,” the Financial Times observed, “Owning a superyacht is like owning a stack of 10 Van Goghs, only you are holding them over your head as you tread water, trying to keep them dry.”?
I also enjoyed this anecdote: At a port in Spain, a Ukrainian engineer named Taras Ostapchuk, working aboard a ship that he said was owned by a Russian arms dealer, threw open the sea valves and tried to sink it to the bottom of the harbor. Under arrest, he told a judge, “I would do it again.” Then he returned to Ukraine and joined the military.
I have to wonder, for all the money involved in owning these monstrosities, how much time do the owners actually spend on them? It sounds nice being able to lounge around in luxury with every need attended to, but most of these people have some sort of business that presumably involves going to New York/London/Hong Kong/wherever to make deals, as well as it being good in general to live reasonably close to where your business is based if just to keep an eye on things. Plus they have all those homes they can live in scattered around the globe.
posted by TedW at 7:55 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have this theory. I think "risk of falling into the ocean" is something the insurers are aware of, and I wonder if it explains why all the houses right on the water in SoCal are mansions.
Probably not? I mean, real estate analysis is not exactly scientific since the rules are set by man, but basically it finds that (1) humans like to see water (2) will pay more to be adjacent to water. They follow almost world-wide.
So given those findings, a city can do two things:
1) privatize the water front, which distributes the most real estate value to the properties directly on it, falling off precipitously to water view, to almost no gain at 1/2 a mile vs 20 miles away, given the same access to employment, services, etc.
2) give fair public access to the waterfront, which democratizes the land value within several miles of the coast, and in most cases, results in higher land values overall.
Mansions on the coast are a really obvious example of #1, and they are mansions to maximize real estate value. But even lakefront homes follow the same pattern.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:57 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Probably not? I mean, real estate analysis is not exactly scientific since the rules are set by man, but basically it finds that (1) humans like to see water (2) will pay more to be adjacent to water. They follow almost world-wide.
So given those findings, a city can do two things:
1) privatize the water front, which distributes the most real estate value to the properties directly on it, falling off precipitously to water view, to almost no gain at 1/2 a mile vs 20 miles away, given the same access to employment, services, etc.
2) give fair public access to the waterfront, which democratizes the land value within several miles of the coast, and in most cases, results in higher land values overall.
Mansions on the coast are a really obvious example of #1, and they are mansions to maximize real estate value. But even lakefront homes follow the same pattern.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:57 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Plus they have all those homes they can live in scattered around the globe.
I think part of the deal is that these gazillionaires are giving up the idea of 100MM homes fixed to the ground, and instead buying 100MM homes that will meet them in whatever city they decide to be in.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:13 AM on July 20, 2022
I think part of the deal is that these gazillionaires are giving up the idea of 100MM homes fixed to the ground, and instead buying 100MM homes that will meet them in whatever city they decide to be in.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:13 AM on July 20, 2022
I think part of the deal is that these gazillionaires are giving up the idea of 100MM homes fixed to the ground, and instead buying 100MM homes that will meet them in whatever city they decide to be in.
Nah. At some point you just run out of things to buy with money, and real estate is a play protected by every city in the US if not the world. They already own homes in all the 'A' list cities, at some point owning them in the 'B' and 'C' list seems sillier than buying a big boat.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:28 AM on July 20, 2022
Nah. At some point you just run out of things to buy with money, and real estate is a play protected by every city in the US if not the world. They already own homes in all the 'A' list cities, at some point owning them in the 'B' and 'C' list seems sillier than buying a big boat.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:28 AM on July 20, 2022
“Humans like to see water” is very true.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:32 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 8:32 AM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
This all reminds me of how erstwhile mefite the Whelk would point out that the more money there is sloshing around at the top, the stupider are the things it has to chase - I think he was usually referring to NFTs and stuff like that, but these yachts are pretty stupid. A confined area where either you're out at sea and can't go anywhere (and even a large yacht isn't really that large) or it's a production to go anywhere - you can't even go shopping or to a first night or however this type of person passes the time between now and the grave. If you're going to spend any amount of time on the yacht, everything is a production, and while you can outsource the work to your flunkies, you still have to wait for the gangplank to be lowered or the ship's boat to be launched or whatever.
...and that's the game. Real wealth isn't a number on a bank account. It's how many people you own.
I know that if you're used to being the cynosure of all eyes, etc, it doesn't seem as weird to be sort of a precious Faberge egg of a person but it seems pretty miserable to me to have the skill of "ring a bell and demand an iced tea" rather than the skill of "make tea".
In my adult life, I've seen technology render life ever more predictable - you don't go places like movie theaters or bookstores so you don't see or experience unexpected things, you don't browse shelves so you only see things that the algos think you'll like, you live in ever more isolated and policed areas, everything is chains now so you know exactly what you get everywhere you go, etc. I cannot imagine wanting to strip even the small unpredictability of doing my own shopping, cooking, light cleaning, etc out of my life by having servants everywhere I turned. It's like if you're very rich you don't actually need to upload your brain because you're already turning yourself into as much of a robot as possible.
posted by Frowner at 8:42 AM on July 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
...and that's the game. Real wealth isn't a number on a bank account. It's how many people you own.
I know that if you're used to being the cynosure of all eyes, etc, it doesn't seem as weird to be sort of a precious Faberge egg of a person but it seems pretty miserable to me to have the skill of "ring a bell and demand an iced tea" rather than the skill of "make tea".
In my adult life, I've seen technology render life ever more predictable - you don't go places like movie theaters or bookstores so you don't see or experience unexpected things, you don't browse shelves so you only see things that the algos think you'll like, you live in ever more isolated and policed areas, everything is chains now so you know exactly what you get everywhere you go, etc. I cannot imagine wanting to strip even the small unpredictability of doing my own shopping, cooking, light cleaning, etc out of my life by having servants everywhere I turned. It's like if you're very rich you don't actually need to upload your brain because you're already turning yourself into as much of a robot as possible.
posted by Frowner at 8:42 AM on July 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
What's bigger than a GigaYacht? A YottaYacht? A HellaYacht?
posted by JohnFromGR at 8:59 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JohnFromGR at 8:59 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have to wonder, for all the money involved in owning these monstrosities, how much time do the owners actually spend on them?
Probably not much. I knew an architect who lived in Aspen who was once invited on an unsanctioned tour of a Russian oligarch's place there from a builder who was doing a little maintenance work on the residence. It was as you'd expect--- ridiculous luxury and opulence. The owner visited as little as twice a year, usually in the winter to go skiing. But despite that, he expected the house to be kept as though he could come through the doors at any moment. Which was often the case, as his staff indicated that he might appear without notice. When the architect I mentioned visited he said it was winter and the house was uncomfortably hot-- almost a sauna. The floors were electrically-heated as was almost everything from the large swimming pool to the toilet seats. The house needed a total of 1400 amps service to power all of this stuff. And all for someone who was there 1% of the year or less.
posted by drstrangelove at 9:00 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Probably not much. I knew an architect who lived in Aspen who was once invited on an unsanctioned tour of a Russian oligarch's place there from a builder who was doing a little maintenance work on the residence. It was as you'd expect--- ridiculous luxury and opulence. The owner visited as little as twice a year, usually in the winter to go skiing. But despite that, he expected the house to be kept as though he could come through the doors at any moment. Which was often the case, as his staff indicated that he might appear without notice. When the architect I mentioned visited he said it was winter and the house was uncomfortably hot-- almost a sauna. The floors were electrically-heated as was almost everything from the large swimming pool to the toilet seats. The house needed a total of 1400 amps service to power all of this stuff. And all for someone who was there 1% of the year or less.
posted by drstrangelove at 9:00 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
The article mentions it in passing, but it does make it a tiny bit more palatable reading this through the lens of this AskMe answer. Let them eat rust.
Something else to consider is that to own and operate a yacht it costs about 10% of the list price per year to staff it, fuel it, insure it and stay on top of the upkeep. Which is why so many of these megayachts are also leased out.
And there's a YouTube doc I saw a few months ago about megayachts and one of the principle subjects they're interviewing openly said something like "Yeah, if they knew how we lived out here they'd bring back the guillotines!" in all seriousness, and that was one the opening lines. They know what they're doing in full and very well.
posted by loquacious at 9:08 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Something else to consider is that to own and operate a yacht it costs about 10% of the list price per year to staff it, fuel it, insure it and stay on top of the upkeep. Which is why so many of these megayachts are also leased out.
And there's a YouTube doc I saw a few months ago about megayachts and one of the principle subjects they're interviewing openly said something like "Yeah, if they knew how we lived out here they'd bring back the guillotines!" in all seriousness, and that was one the opening lines. They know what they're doing in full and very well.
posted by loquacious at 9:08 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
one of the principle subjects they're interviewing openly said something like "Yeah, if they knew how we lived out here they'd bring back the guillotines!”
This is quite possibly the incident quoted by Osnos above!
posted by Going To Maine at 10:30 AM on July 20, 2022
This is quite possibly the incident quoted by Osnos above!
posted by Going To Maine at 10:30 AM on July 20, 2022
The other thing about these things is that, come the revolution, they won't really be worth it to expropriate.
...
I am going to build a stealth super yacht where the apparent helipad can host theee retractable guillotine assemblies
...
Not that I would ever advocate for a few shaped charges with magnets stuck on them, bog no. But if you just happen to find some in your tackle box, well. I'm a strong swimmer.
Tim Curry would like to have a word. When you're a professional pirate, you don't have to wear a suit
Also Stefán Karl Stefánsson (RIP)
posted by shenkerism at 10:45 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
...
I am going to build a stealth super yacht where the apparent helipad can host theee retractable guillotine assemblies
...
Not that I would ever advocate for a few shaped charges with magnets stuck on them, bog no. But if you just happen to find some in your tackle box, well. I'm a strong swimmer.
Tim Curry would like to have a word. When you're a professional pirate, you don't have to wear a suit
Also Stefán Karl Stefánsson (RIP)
posted by shenkerism at 10:45 AM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
chavenet I see your tagline (courtesy of GoblinHoney) but all things considered I'd prefer the more aggressive : Metafilter: we need a guillotine cannon or a guillotine combine harvester.
posted by mce at 11:28 AM on July 20, 2022
posted by mce at 11:28 AM on July 20, 2022
I might be the only person who read this article and was like 'ooh, I want to learn more about Motor Yacht A.'
But in case I'm not, here's a Philippe Starck interview and a WSJ tour.
posted by box at 1:13 PM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
But in case I'm not, here's a Philippe Starck interview and a WSJ tour.
posted by box at 1:13 PM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Shahid Kahn, owner of the Premier League’s Everton club, also owns the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
From the Guardian:
“…he has presided over the worst team in the NFL despite being the league’s fourth-richest owner, while mooring Kismet, his subtly-named superyacht, on one side of the Jags’ homefield, and asking the taxpayer to fund a property development on another. The Jacksonville city council denied his request.”
posted by aiq at 1:17 PM on July 20, 2022
From the Guardian:
“…he has presided over the worst team in the NFL despite being the league’s fourth-richest owner, while mooring Kismet, his subtly-named superyacht, on one side of the Jags’ homefield, and asking the taxpayer to fund a property development on another. The Jacksonville city council denied his request.”
posted by aiq at 1:17 PM on July 20, 2022
One little detail that popped out to me was the reference to fine French furniture being a symbol of ostentatious consumption during the 50's, because it made an experience I'd had a decade and a half ago finally click. Basically, I met this lawyer at a dinner in Paris who asked if I'd been to Versailles yet, and when I said no, he told me his family was going on a tour the next day and I should come along. Sounds fun, so I take the train out and walk to the palace and buy a ticket for the tour and wait for the guy and his family to show up. And he's like, no, we're not doing the public tour. And then their guide shows up, who is dressed extremely well and carries all the keys to Versailles palace wrapped in a cloth to keep them from clanking too much, and he takes us through all the back rooms of Versailles, which are pretty run down, and they start oohing and aahing over these old chairs with their sun-bleached upholstery. Because this what he got a private tour of Versailles to see: the chairs! I figured it was just this guy's hobby. I love when people are enthusiastic about random stuff! But now I'm like ohhhhh, it's this whole thing.
Also the tour guide was a complete royalist. Like, he actually wanted the Bourbons back. That was weird.
posted by phooky at 2:33 PM on July 20, 2022 [9 favorites]
Also the tour guide was a complete royalist. Like, he actually wanted the Bourbons back. That was weird.
posted by phooky at 2:33 PM on July 20, 2022 [9 favorites]
I did like this bit: "if you want to disparage another man’s boat, say that it looks like a wedding cake."
posted by Mchelly at 3:08 PM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 3:08 PM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Marie Antoinyacht
posted by Jacen at 4:00 PM on July 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 4:00 PM on July 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
I don't feel bad for the obscenely rich people in this story, but I do find them strangely pathetic. The business tycoons securing deals -- and maybe the folks who quietly told the author of the piece that they don't want to talk about how much they enjoy yachting -- are the only ones who seem to be having fun. I'm trying to imagine spending millions of dollars on something that just gives me a constant sense of niggling inferiority. The ultramegawhatever superyachts -- fine, nihilism aside, I can see it. But it's wild to think that a bunch of small to mid-sized superyacht owners are just sort of miserable every time they get to port because they have to contend with having a slightly smaller boat.
posted by grandiloquiet at 4:52 PM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by grandiloquiet at 4:52 PM on July 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I might be the only person who read this article and was like 'ooh, I want to learn more about Motor Yacht A.'
I looked up Motor Yacht A after reading and thought that it looked pretty dang cool.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:59 PM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I looked up Motor Yacht A after reading and thought that it looked pretty dang cool.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:59 PM on July 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
I know that if you're used to being the cynosure of all eyes, etc, it doesn't seem as weird to be sort of a precious Faberge egg of a person
Literally: Suspected Fabergé egg found on Russian oligarch’s superyacht
posted by mubba at 7:39 AM on July 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
Literally: Suspected Fabergé egg found on Russian oligarch’s superyacht
posted by mubba at 7:39 AM on July 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I also enjoyed this anecdote: At a port in Spain, a Ukrainian engineer named Taras Ostapchuk, working aboard a ship that he said was owned by a Russian arms dealer, threw open the sea valves and tried to sink it to the bottom of the harbor. Under arrest, he told a judge, “I would do it again.” Then he returned to Ukraine and joined the military.
Florida's Indian River Press Journal of March 2 this year explains that the yacht in question is the 158ft Lady Anastasia, which Ostapchuk tried to sink on April 28 in Mallorca.
"A local Civil Guard spokesman said the yacht's other crew members alerted authorities of the attempted sinking," the paper's wire copy continues. "Officers who showed up at the marina Saturday found two open hatches letting in water. The yacht was saved and Ostapchuk arrested. [...] According to his court deposition, the sailor acted to avoid polluting or causing harm to others by closing the yacht's fuel valves and alerting the Ukrainian crew members. A fight broke out between Ostapchuk and his colleagues, who ended up calling the marina's management."
It goes on to note that the Civil Guard "weren't able to confirm the yacht's ownership", which I guess is why Ostapchuk was allowed to go free and join the war in Ukraine. Let's hope he's still OK.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:30 PM on July 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Florida's Indian River Press Journal of March 2 this year explains that the yacht in question is the 158ft Lady Anastasia, which Ostapchuk tried to sink on April 28 in Mallorca.
"A local Civil Guard spokesman said the yacht's other crew members alerted authorities of the attempted sinking," the paper's wire copy continues. "Officers who showed up at the marina Saturday found two open hatches letting in water. The yacht was saved and Ostapchuk arrested. [...] According to his court deposition, the sailor acted to avoid polluting or causing harm to others by closing the yacht's fuel valves and alerting the Ukrainian crew members. A fight broke out between Ostapchuk and his colleagues, who ended up calling the marina's management."
It goes on to note that the Civil Guard "weren't able to confirm the yacht's ownership", which I guess is why Ostapchuk was allowed to go free and join the war in Ukraine. Let's hope he's still OK.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:30 PM on July 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
If it has a crew working aboard, it’s a yacht.
So, my new business proposal is:
Minimum Viable Yachts (MVYs). It's a jet ski with a sidecar. Your valet drives and you sit in an armchair in the sidecar. There's a Nespresso machine and one of those battery-powered massage wands.
The target market is up-and-coming entrepreneurs who still haven't secured pre-seed funding but want to start flaunting their future success in fake-it-til-you-make-it mode.
posted by signal at 7:22 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
So, my new business proposal is:
Minimum Viable Yachts (MVYs). It's a jet ski with a sidecar. Your valet drives and you sit in an armchair in the sidecar. There's a Nespresso machine and one of those battery-powered massage wands.
The target market is up-and-coming entrepreneurs who still haven't secured pre-seed funding but want to start flaunting their future success in fake-it-til-you-make-it mode.
posted by signal at 7:22 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
> Yachts are made out of fiberglass, Dolmacher. A magnetic mine wouldn't stick
Yachts, maybe, but superyachts top out (long out?) at 175 feet. After that, it's steel, though it requires a lot of upkeep in salt water, so titanium or Monel might be a better choice. Insanely expensive, but seems that's part of the point. Bezos's, by the way, is 417 ft. (127 m)
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 12:34 PM on July 23, 2022
Yachts, maybe, but superyachts top out (long out?) at 175 feet. After that, it's steel, though it requires a lot of upkeep in salt water, so titanium or Monel might be a better choice. Insanely expensive, but seems that's part of the point. Bezos's, by the way, is 417 ft. (127 m)
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 12:34 PM on July 23, 2022
What becomes of the superyachts owned by sanctioned Russians?
'' the yachts that are in places like France and Germany are just sitting there, the owner can't pay to look after them because they can't move money around. But the yachts are still sitting there and they require maintenance. If the value of the yacht is going to be maintained - and that is, as I understand it on mainland Europe, at the public expense - then that will increasingly become a political issue.
There are two ways to look at a superyacht (and perhaps you relate to both) – Either as a symbol of extreme excess and exuberant wealth, or as an enormous portal of wealth distribution, employing tens of thousands of seafarers, suppliers and shipyard workers. The latter is arguably the main justifiable reason for the very existence of a superyacht, but by ‘seizing’ or ‘freezing’ a superyacht you strip it of any positive impact it was previously having on the economy or society. By freezing a superyacht you make it nothing more than a burden on the taxpayer, a PR opportunity for a politician, and ultimately a useless floating symbol of wealth for the mainstream media and general public to scorn.
posted by adamvasco at 3:41 PM on July 26, 2022
'' the yachts that are in places like France and Germany are just sitting there, the owner can't pay to look after them because they can't move money around. But the yachts are still sitting there and they require maintenance. If the value of the yacht is going to be maintained - and that is, as I understand it on mainland Europe, at the public expense - then that will increasingly become a political issue.
There are two ways to look at a superyacht (and perhaps you relate to both) – Either as a symbol of extreme excess and exuberant wealth, or as an enormous portal of wealth distribution, employing tens of thousands of seafarers, suppliers and shipyard workers. The latter is arguably the main justifiable reason for the very existence of a superyacht, but by ‘seizing’ or ‘freezing’ a superyacht you strip it of any positive impact it was previously having on the economy or society. By freezing a superyacht you make it nothing more than a burden on the taxpayer, a PR opportunity for a politician, and ultimately a useless floating symbol of wealth for the mainstream media and general public to scorn.
posted by adamvasco at 3:41 PM on July 26, 2022
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posted by GoblinHoney at 4:25 PM on July 19, 2022 [76 favorites]