世界上的億萬富翁們哪裡買他們的玩具

05-15

Where the worlds very richest billionaires buy their most expensive toys:

The mega-yachts from Lürssen in Bremen, Germany

Today, I want to write about a topic I love: boats.

Not really my preferred ones, but nontheless very impressive:

The biggest, most luxurious and most expensive mega-yachts on this planet .

So if you ever wanted how much these cost to buy, operante and maintain, who buys them, and why 「less is more」 in this case (in my own view in any case), then read on

Actually, this is a coincidence: I was travelling in Germany, e.g. I attended the worlds largest industrial fair, the Hannover fair.

On the way back to France, my plane would take of from Bremen, on the river Wester, with direct access to the North Sea and therefore Atlantic Ocean.

We had some time to kill, and went to Bremen Vegesack, a part of town a little downstream, where I wanted to visit as small museum port with some old sailing ships and boats, like I prefer them.

I was unaware that Vegesack is the home to 2 shipyards who』s names I know well: Abeking & Rasmussen, and Lürssen.

The former used to be a big name for first class wooden sailing yachts in Germany.

Today, very visibly, they are also into the luxury motor yacht business.

The other is Lürssen, whom I knew to be the leading shipyard on this planet for the most luxurious and expensive mega yachts for the richest billionaries. The shipyard is 143 years old.

This is what I say when I arrived on the other river bank:

2 huge yachts.

It』s very hard to judge their size from a distance: The proportions are so similar for larger or smaller yachts that it can get confusing.

But then I got lucky in a double sense:

An old fishing vessel came by.

I love this kind of ship much better than the billionaire』s yachts.
It gives the perfect scale:

I researched the shipping vessl according to it』s acronym painted on the hull, BV2.

http://www.vegesack-bv2.de/das-schiff.html

The ship is called Vegesack, like the part of town.

It was build in 1895 as a herring fishing vessel, and is today operated by an association which keeps it in operating conditions and offers cruises of different legnths.

Speaking of length: The BV2 Vegesack is 35.4 m in length over all, 5.4 m wide. It』s not a small boat!

Now check out again the picture with the 2 luxury yachts!

At least the one to the right must easily be in the class > 100m.

I could not find out what Lürssen is currently working on, or recent completions didn』t fit these 2 yachts.

However, what I did find in the process were the larger completions of Lürssen.

Here is a selection of the biggest yachts, and their illustrous global billionaire owners. It』s amazing that all of these come from this one shipyard:

So here you have it, without further ado:

The largest (longest) private yacht in the world, as of now, is the AZZAM:

180 meters, or 590 feet (my own boat is 30 feet by comparison)

And if legth is X, then all survaces (e.g. for painting the underwater part against algae) is X2 , and all volumes and weights (e.g. the amount of high alloy stainless steel you must buy when you pay for a component) is X3

2 diesel, and more importantly 2 gas turbines, allow the AZZAM a speed of 30 knots (> 55 km/h).

That is als extremely fast for a full displacement yacht, similar to a military frigate.

The reported building cost alone is > $ 600 million.

It belongs to Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Shorter, but more voluminous is the DILBAR. 156 m. She has 7 decks (stories) and 2 helicopter landing pads. Why do you need 2 pads ?! Don』t ask me!

There is a 180 m3 internal swimming pool (also a world record).

Our pool has ~70 m3, but that』s on dry land!

To push this baby around, there is a 30.000 horsepower Diesel-electric propulsion installed.

We』ll get to fuel consumption and cost』s further down!

TOPAZ, 147 m

At the time of launch in 2009, AL SALAMAH was the biggest yacht in the world at 139m.

She then belonged to the Saudi Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.

So here you have one of the 「big problems」 with such super-yachts:

If one day you think you have the longest (Yacht! What were you thinking?!), that might not be the case anymore tomorrow, which is a shame.

Built to impress, how can you impress when everybody asks: Is that the biggest? Which one IS the biggest? In this world, the 「second is the first looser」.

I have had my boat now for 13 years, and have no intention of selling or changing. But the average ownership of a super yacht is only 3 years, then owners pass her on. There doesn』t seem to be any really strong emotional bond with the yacht!

Another famous owner: RISING SUN, at 138 m, was built for notoriously competitive business man and sailing team owner (?BMW Oracle Racing「), Larry Ellison, the founder and owner of Oracle (e.g. Adobe).

But Ellison sold her to the record executive David Geffen.

PROJECT THUNDER is brand new, 135m long, and actually can store a helicopter inside.

The next one is very famous: OCTOPUS, 126m.

This yacht belongs to Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Paul Allen.

It』s used for scientific discoveries by Allen.

GOLDEN ODYSSEY at 123 m is owned by Prince Khaled of Saudi Arabia.

The super yacht is the ultimate way to display obscene wealth.

8 of the 10 most expensive luxury acquisitions of all time fall under the super yacht category.

On average, a 100-meter superyacht with a top speed of 25 knots and 50 crew members should cost around $275 million.

The 30 largest super yachts are all even longer than 100 meters.

And you must not only be able afford to buy one, but also to keep it going, which is not cheap either:

For the 100m example, annual dockage fees run for $350,000 (ranging widely between ports of course, but you want to be in a port where you are 「seen」, so a bargain doesn』t help).

Insurance averages $240,000

Maintenance and repairs can be in the millions, as can crew salaries.

Overall, a good rule of thumb is about 10% of the yachts initial cost annually on top

Crews can be huge and expensive. The Azzam employs ~ 50 people, the Al Said, owned by the Sultan of Oman, employs 154 crew members.

A (comparatively small!) 71-meter yacht uses 500 liters of diesel few per hour. You can do the math what that means, depending on use of the yacht. Many hundreds of thousand $ at any rate.

So now that we are all deeply impressed by all those huge numbers, and zeros are circling our heads, let』s put it into perspective:

As a sailor, I am not jealous. If I had such a yacht, I would sell it as fast as possible, and buy a normal sized sail boat again, even if I could afford the running costs.

One simple reason is, that I want to operate my own boat, not need a crew of 50 people. I already detest electrical winches and hydraulic tensioners on large sail boats.

For me, the sailboat is a hands-on experience, harnessing the forces of nature.

This boat is ideal for 2, can also sleep 4, or be handled alone.

You know my boat from my Zhihu homepage. It』s a design from the 1920/30s, built in 1977.

Since it is small enough, you can go into small bays and creeks. At the same time, it is seaworthy enough to round the globe.

In fact, by coincidence there was a boat in the museum port in Bremen, which was very similar to mine.

Call me crazy, but these boats were the reason why I had gone there. The Mega yachts were a monstrous surprise.

I knew they had the 「Schulschiff Deutschland」 there.

Schulschiff means 「sailing training vessel」, Deutschland = Germany is the name.

It is a full-rigged sail ship (3 square rigged masts), maintained as a historical monument and museum ship. She was employed as a school ship for the merchant marine beginning in 1927.

The ship carries 25 sails with a total sail area of 1950 square meters.

Finally, I also saw 2 fisherman catch a big fish in front of our eyes. I am confident that today, the Weser is clean enough to eat it, which they were certainly planning.