The often hidden, confusing, opaque yacht ownership data prompts a glimpse into modern wealth and power: 25 megayachts are associated with members of the royal families and businessmen of the Persian Gulf states, and another two dozen – with citizens of the former Soviet Union.
At least 23 megayachts are owned by Americans, including the founders of Microsoft, Amazon, WhatsApp and Snapchat.
Let’s take a cruise through the history of gigayachts, as well as their smaller but no less famous sisters, full of juicy details.
in 1895 Nineteen years before the First World War, the future King Edward VII of England punches his nephew Kaiser Wilhelm II in the face as the German’s 37 meter yacht Meteor II defeats the Royal Britannia in a race off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel.
in 1954 Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis ushers in an era of post-war maritime supremacy with his 99-metre Christina O.
The yacht has a swimming pool that turns into a dance floor, whale foreskin furniture and pornographic carvings.
in 1963 During his last birthday party on the presidential yacht Sequoia, John F. Kennedy follows the future Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee’s wife, Antoinette, into the bathroom and begins fondling her.
“I was very surprised, but I was flattered and shocked at the same time,” she said later.
After JFKennedy’s assassination, the ship’s visitor logs were destroyed.
in 1984 Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd builds the record-breaking 145-meter-long Prince Abdulaziz ship.
in 1987 US Senator Gary Hart is dropping out of the race for the country’s presidency shortly before incriminating photos surfaced of him with model Donna Rice sitting on his lap on the Monkey Business yacht.
in 1988 Donald Trump is buying the 86-metre yacht Nabila, formerly owned by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and featured in the James Bond film Never Say Never. He renames the ship the Trump Princess, installs a disco and replaces the traditional letter H that marks the helipad with a T.
in 1991 After the bankruptcy of one of Trump’s casinos, he sells the Trump Princess to a Boston bank, which in turn sells to a Saudi prince. The new Trump Princess II yacht, which Trump boasted would be “longer than 400 feet (120 m), closer to 500 feet (152 m),” was never built.
in 1991 The body of British publisher Robert Maxwell has been found in the Atlantic Ocean, where he was sailing on the 55-metre yacht Lady Ghislaine, named after his daughter.
The ship is eventually sold to Anna Murdoch, the second wife of another media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.
in 1994 At a cocktail party on Russian oligarch Petro Aven’s yacht in the Caribbean, millionaire Boris Berezovsky meets Roman Abramovich and calls him “a nice boy who wanted to discuss commercial projects.” He and R. Abramovich begin to cooperate in order to acquire the Russian state oil company “Sibneft”.
in 1997 Completion of construction on Victoria’s Secret owner Les Wexner’s 96 meter yacht Limitless. The project was overseen by his good friend Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire financier who would later be convicted of recruiting minors into prostitution and in 2019. will kill himself in a prison cell.
in 1999 One of the founders of the Oracle company, Larry Ellison, buys the 58-meter yacht Izanami from a Japanese seller.
He later said that he changed the name to “Ronin” because the media kept pointing out that “Izanami” when read the other way around in English is “I’m a Nazi”.
in 2002 US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, vows to strip corporate kingpins of their ill-gotten gains after scandals rocked Enron and WorldCom: “We’re going after the yachts.”
in 2003 The same T. DeLay takes 500 thousand from supporters. US dollars (465 thousand euros) for a ticket to a yacht cruise.
in 2005 Mr Ellison has denied rumors that midway through construction he ordered his latest yacht, the 138m Rising Sun, to be lengthened to surpass Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s recently launched 126m Octopus.
in 2005 Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham is pleading guilty to bribery charges after he was caught living for free on the Duke-Stir yacht docked in Washington, D.C., which belonged to a US arms industry magnate who received government orders.
in 2005 Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s 162-metre Dubai beats Prince Abdulaziz in race for world’s longest yacht.
in 2006 Media mogul Barry Diller unveils the world’s longest sailing yacht, the 93-meter-long Eos, with a nearly 3-meter-tall sculpture of his wife Diane von Furstenberg on the front.
in 2007 B. Diller opens the headquarters of his company IAC in Manhattan in a building that looks like a sailing ship. It’s across the street from where Eos docks.
in 2008 George Osborne, the second most important person in the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom, is relaxing with his family in Greece on the yacht of Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska.
The Briton denies that he asked for funding and explains that the two discussed Russian history and drank tea.
in 2009 Golf star Tiger Woods moves to the 47-meter yacht “Privacy” in search of solace after the collapse of his marriage.
in 2010 R. Abramović’s new ship “Eclipse” surpasses “Dubai” and becomes the longest yacht in the world. The 162-meter-long megayacht has a submarine, anti-missile systems and lasers to thwart the paparazzi.
in 2011 After an unsuccessful lawsuit to claim 5 billion dollars (4.6 billion euros), which he believes R. Abramović owed for the sale of “Sibneft”, B. Berezovsky, living in exile, claims that his former partner helped buy the yacht “Olympia” for Vladimir Putin.
When, five years later, the BBC publishes an account of another Russian businessman confirming this fact, Abramovich’s lawyers dismiss the allegation as a retelling of speculation and rumours.
in 2012 While Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney faces criticism for his investment funds in the tax-favored Cayman Islands, his campaign supporters are being invited to a party aboard Cracker Bay. This yacht, owned by Harold Schwartz, founder of The Villages in Florida, is sailing under the flag of the Cayman Islands.
in 2013 The then president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, launches the 181-meter-long megayacht Azzam, which surpasses R. Abramovich’s Eclipse.
After the Sheikh’s death in 2022 the yacht remained the property of his family.
in 2014 The Wall Street Journal reports that Oracle founder Ellison has basketball courts on at least two of his yachts, followed by a smaller boat to retrieve balls that fall overboard.
in 2016 Billionaire Mr. Allen’s 92-meter-long yacht “Tatoosh” sails while dragging anchor through a protected zone in the Cayman Islands and destroys 1,300 square meters. meters of coral.
in 2017 After leaving the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama set sail for a South Pacific vacation on US producer and entrepreneur David Geffen’s 139m yacht Rising Sun, where they are joined by Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen.
in 2017 R. Abramović’s business partner Yevgenijus Švidler blocks the view of the Statue of Liberty when his 113-meter yacht “Le Grand Bleu” drops anchor in New York harbor for a month.
in 2017 Republican US Congressman Vern Buchanan buys a yacht and votes to cut yacht taxes on the same day.
in 2018 Media mogul Murdoch is airlifted to hospital after collapsing on a yacht with his fourth wife Jerry Hall. “He was almost dying,” the witnesses said.
in 2018 Someone is unmooring the 50-meter yacht Seaquest owned by Trump administration secretary of education (and billionaire) Betsy DeVos as it crashes into a dock on Lake Erie.
in 2018 Businessman Jho Low, who financed the film “The Wolf of Wall Street”, is accused of participating in a 4.5 billion dollars (4.2 billion euros) in the embezzlement scheme of Malaysian state development funds and having used part of them for 250 million. dollars (232 million euros) to purchase a yacht.
in 2019 US actress Lori Loughlin is arrested in connection with a college admissions bribery scheme. Her daughter, University of Southern California student Olivia Jade, is vacationing in the Bahamas on a yacht owned by University of Southern California board chairman Rick Caruso.
in 2019 As part of an investigation into corruption in Nigeria’s oil industry, the US government is auctioning businessman Kolawole Aluko’s yacht, the Galactica Star, six years after rapper Jay-Z chartered the vessel for his wife Beyonce’s 32nd birthday.
in 2019 It is reported that 450 million A $418 million (€418 million) painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that was supposed to be in an Abu Dhabi museum has been spotted hanging on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s private yacht, Serene.
in 2020 During the rampage of COVID-19, producer D. Geffen writes on Instagram from the yacht “Rising Sun”: “I isolated myself in the Grenadines to avoid the virus. I hope you are all safe.”
in 2020 Suspected money-laundering investment banker Steve Bannon is detained by US police off the Connecticut coast while sailing on the Lady May, a 150-foot yacht belonging to Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, who is wanted by Interpol.
in 2020 Liberty University President Jerry Falwell hosts a costume party on a NASCAR racing magnate’s yacht. Later, he posts a photo on Instagram of his unzipped pants holding his wife’s assistant in his arms.
in 2021 Against any restrictions on gun ownership in the US, Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, testifies that he took refuge on the yacht Illusions after the mass shootings that shook the country: you won’t like it here.”
in 2021 Tatyana Akhmedova, the wife of Azerbaijani billionaire Farchad Akhmedov, hired a team of British special forces veterans to take over her husband’s yacht Luna in order to comply with a Marshall Islands court order during a bitter divorce, the Daily Mail reports. Finally, they reached an agreement and F. Akhmedov kept the yacht.
in 2021 In Turkey, the Port Azure port, called the world’s first exclusively for mega-yachts, opens in Gecek. It proclaims: “This is the place where both small and big problems disappear.”
in 2022 Residents are threatening to throw eggs at the ship after reports that a historic bridge will be torn down to allow Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ newly built yacht Koru to leave a Rotterdam shipyard. The city is changing plans.
in 2022 A Ukrainian mechanic is arrested in Mallorca for trying to sink a ship belonging to his boss, a Russian arms dealer.
in 2022 United States President Joe Biden promises Russian oligarchs that he will take away their ill-gotten gains from the war in Ukraine: “We’re going to confiscate the yachts.”
in 2022 Republican Senator Rick Scott is criticizing Mr. Biden for vacationing in Delaware while relaxing on a luxury yacht in Italy.
Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX reveals in court filings that founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund once spent $2.5 million dollars (2.3 million euros) for the yacht, which one of the managers named “Soak My Deck”.
in 2023 Mr. Bezos officially registers Koru. 500 million A bust of his fiancee Lauren Sanchez stands on the 127-meter-long vessel worth $465 million. A second auxiliary yacht of 75 meters length is also added with crew quarters and a hangar for a helicopter piloted by L.Sanchez.
in 2023 After the divorce with J. Hall, media magnate R. Murdoch is on vacation on the yacht “Christina O” with the former mother-in-law of R. Abramović, Jelena Žukova.
2024-08-18 16:39:35