Amazon founder and world’s second richest man, Jeff Bezos, is about take delivery of not one but two superyachts. Why does he need two yachts? Because apparently his new 417 foot primary yacht can’t hold all his toys. That’s what the 246 foot support yacht is for. Check them out.
Project Y721 – World’s Largest Sailing Yacht
Jeff Bezos’ primary yacht, codename Project Y721, is built by Oceanco, the same shipbuilder that’s building Steven Spielberg’s new 358 foot superyacht (Project Y720). Unlike Spielberg’s yacht, Project Y721 will be a sailing yacht because Jeff wants to be more environmentally friendly. At least that’s what his publicist will say.
When Jeff takes delivery later this year, Y721 will become the biggest private sailing yacht in the world, beating out the 350 foot Black Pearl (picture below), also built by Oceanco, by a good 67 foot. Y721 is also the largest yacht ever made by Oceano and the longest vessel to be built in the Netherlands.
Project Y721 is 417 foot long and will use a triple sailing mast similar to the Black Pearl. Oceanco claims the technologies used in Project Y721 will allow it to cruise across the ocean on wind power alone. I’m sure Christopher Columbus would be in awe by such amazing technologies, if he was alive today.
When not on wind power, which is probably most of the time, Y721 is powered by two giant MTU engines that can push the 4,000 ton behemoth up to 20 knots. At a normal 15 knot cruising speed, she’ll burns a gallon of fuel every 9 seconds.
Project Y721 will accommodate up to 18 guests and requires a crew of 40 to run. At an estimated cost of over $500 million, she is among the most expensive yachts ever built. But wait, there’s more!
The 246 Foot Shadow Yacht
Unlike a normal superyacht, Jeff’s sailing boat will be accompanied by what’s known in the industry as a shadow yacht. A shadow yacht is a trailer yacht for your superyacht – a floating garage of a sort that tags along or “shadows” your primary yacht to carry your collection of helicopters, cars, motorcycles, jet skis, tenders, submarines, etc.
Because the shadow yacht carry all toys for the primary yacht, it frees up the designers to give the primary yacht more living space. That’s a good thing because a lack of living space is clearly a problem in a 417 foot boat.
The shadow yacht, codename YS7512, is 246 foot long and is currently under construction at Damen Yachting. At 1,900 tons, YS7512 is the largest vessel in the Damen Yacht support range. YS7512 can accommodate 45 people including crew, specialist staff and guests not good enough to stay on the primary yacht.
You may ask why didn’t Jeff just made one huge megayacht that can hold everything instead of commissioning a primary yacht and a shadow yacht. The reason is it’s actually cheaper this way. A shadow yacht is mainly used for support and doesn’t need to be as luxurious as the primary yacht. If YS7512 were a normal superyacht, it would easily cost over $250 million. As a support yacht however, it can be built for only $95 million.
Jeff Bezos Used Be Among The Greenest Billionaires
For being the second richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos used to have a much lower carbon footprint than billionaires who are much poorer than him. However, adding two superyachts is sure to rocket Jeff up to the number one spot for billionaire emissions, especially with Roman Abramovich docking his yacht in Turkey to avoid it being seized.