Amazon boss on-board as the ultra-rich dive into superyachts

A few kilometres upriver from Rotterdam, a three-mast ship costlier than a space rocket is taking shape. But it still needs a support yacht.

Jeff Bezos’s superyacht, the Y721, will have its own support ship with a helipad, above. Picture: Gerrit van Katwijk, courtesy of Superyachtfan.com

A few kilometres upriver from Rotterdam, a three-mast ship twice as long as Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory and costlier than a space rocket is taking shape.

The owner of Y721, which may be one of the largest ocean-going vessels of its kind when finished, has been named as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the world’s richest man.

Since the superyacht’s masts leave little space for a helicopter pad, the ship will apparently be ­accompanied by a “support yacht” with a helipad so that Mr Bezos’s girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, 51, a qualified pilot, can land at sea.

It is one of the more striking examples of a record surge in the market for giant yachts during the pandemic, as the ultra-wealthy ­indulge a desire for luxurious ­isolation.

In the first three months of this year 220 superyachts — defined as privately owned vessels at least 24m in length — changed hands, according to VesselsValue, a maritime valuation and data company based in London.

This was twice as many as in the same periods in 2020 and 2019. The number has risen steadily over the past 12 months.

An analysis by Boat Inter­national magazine estimated that sales had risen by 46 per cent in a year, with particularly strong ­demand for larger vessels.

“The first quarter (of 2021) was roaring,” Sam Tucker, head of ­superyachts at VesselsValue, said.

“We’re only a few weeks into the second quarter now but we’ve already seen as many sales as there were in the entire second quarter last year.”

In a secretive industry, information about the Y721 superyacht is hard to come by. One of the few certainties is its length: 127m, longer than any ship of the line built by the Royal Navy, and roughly the same as HMS Warrior, Britain’s first ironclad warship. It is being assembled by Oceanco, a shipyard at Alblasserdam in The Netherlands, which is owned by the Omani oil and gas billionaire Mohammed al Barwani and which specialises in custom yachts more than 80m long.

Bloomberg identified its owner as Mr Bezos, 57, whose fortune is estimated at $US192bn. The yacht is expected to cost more than $US500m to build, according to Bloomberg. This would be at least twice the sum Mr Bezos paid for The Washington Post in 2013, or enough to buy 10 rocket launches from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, his chief rival in the commercial space race.

THE TIMES