Clive Palmer’s superyacht Australia runs aground off Singapore

The 56m luxury vessel – complete with two sundecks, outdoor and indoor bars, jacuzzi and VIP suite – hit a reef in low tide around on Monday night.

Clive Palmer's superyacht Australia runs aground off Singapore on Monday.

A $40m superyacht belonging to Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer has run aground on a reef off Singapore’s Sentosa beach, leaving the vessel listing sickeningly in full view of some of the city state’s wealthiest residents.

The 56m luxury vessel – complete with two sundecks, outdoor and indoor bars, jacuzzi and VIP suite – hit a reef in low tide around 5.30pm on Monday evening, after appearing to sail too far south of buoy markers as it left a local marina.

It was freed with the high tide and sailed away around 10.30pm Singapore time last night.

Mr Palmer bought the vessel in late 2020 and renamed it Australia in a bold display of patriotism, despite having just a year earlier relocated his corporate headquarters to the low-taxing Southeast Asian nation.

Australian expatriate Simon Kearney told The Australian he had rushed down to Sentosa – a luxury island resort populated by five-star hotels, beach clubs and gated communities for the super-rich – to see for himself after hearing it was Mr Palmer’s boat that had come a cropper.

“The yacht has basically run aground on a reef that is really well known and sits right off the front of Sentosa,” Mr Kearney said.

The error has sparked bemused commentary within Singapore yacht club chat groups who shared video and photographs of the stricken boat, including one showing uniformed crew standing on the lower deck as a Singapore port authority boat watched on.

“I don’t know what to say. This is something that just doesn’t happen,” Franco, an Italian Singaporean resident and local Sentosa yachtie, told The Australian.

“Everybody knows there are rocks and coral there. It’s very clearly signed. Unless they were having motor problems it’s very, very difficult to make this kind of mistake because your instruments should tell you that you’re going into shallow waters.

“It’s not that you’re sailing in the middle of the ocean and suddenly there’s a rock. You can see it with your eyes.”

The Australia yacht is believed to have been moored at Sentosa’s One Fifteen Marina – one of the best in Southeast Asia – for seven days before leaving the marina in the early evening on Monday only to run aground just outside of it.

Franco, who asked not to give his surname, said the vessel “didn’t even make it 300 metres outside of the marina”.

“It’s a pity because it’s a beautiful boat. I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of the person who was piloting it.”

The expensive grounding comes a fortnight after Mr Palmer splashed an estimated $2m on advertising for the Indigenous voice referendum in Australia to warn that a Yes vote would lead to a higher financial burden for struggling Australian families.