If only

[John Arton]

Even if I win todays euro millions jackpot (£51 million) I still cannot afford one of these.......blast
30 most expensive superyachts of the mega rich
rgds
JA

[Ivan Cloherty]

John, I went aboard one of these superyachts/cruisers a few years ago in Nice before it was handed over to its new owner, a friend was the official photographer for the builder, I was so impressed I forget its name! the interior was a mixture of opulence and vulgarity, the latter in my mind being the more prominent. The bridge was like something out of Startrek, the Master was an Australian who made it quietly obvious the job was boring, but the money was stupendous, but his crew had to be invisible whilst guests were aboard, but everything still had to be shipshape. On his previous yacht most guests were not nice people and a ship master was just a servant like all the other crew. Whilst gold taps, door handles and carpet holders were in abundance they still had to hoist that black or canvas black ball when the anchor was out. It was the opposite of everything I enjoyed about going to sea, but then again I was mostly a tramping man

[John Arton]

Ivan
I was friendly with the Cayman Islands surveyor based in the U.K. (Southampton). The Caymans at that time were the register with the largest number of super yachts on it and he told me many stories about these superyachts. As you said the crews had to be invisible in most cases and he talked of year old superyachts that had less than 48 hours running time on their engines, they spending most of there time tied up in Monaco or other Med. ports. The crew had to be on permanent stand by as they would often get just an hours notice that the owner was joining and wanted to go on a cruise. They also had to keep the catering stock fully furnished and would often throw away weeks of food as many owners demanded that the food was no more than 3 days old.
When the owner turned up they would cruise round to the next harbour, moor and then the owner and his guests would all traipse ashore for a meal in a fancy restaurant, despite having a Michelin starred chef on board, come back to their yacht and next day cruise back to their home port.
What many of the owners of these yachts failed to understand was that due to their sheer size they fell under many of the SOLAS regulations that a commercial vessel would have to comply with regarding crewing, nav. and safety gear.
He used to attend all the international boat shows such as Southampton, Greece, etc. touting for business and advising the mega rich on the requirements for registering there yachts in the Caymans.
He told me of one instance when he was at a boat show in Greece with his Cayman Islands stand handing out leaflets to all and sundry when the room suddenly went quite as this well dressed man entered followed by his entourage. Apparently he was some mega rich well known guy. He came up to the Cayman's stand and introduced himself saying that he was here with his yacht builder and designer and proudly announced that he was having this 100 metre long superyacht been built. My Cayman friend congratulated him on his new yacht and said he would be happy to assist them with any requirements regarding outfit and registry. The owner said that after he had described all the luxury fittings and the size of his yacht to him, he had not appeared too impressed to which my friend said that he was very happy for the guy and his yacht but he had to realise that the register already had a number of even larger (and more luxurious) yachts on it. The guy went away in a huff and my friend thought that that would not be a yacht going on his register. A few months later he was in the office when he got a phone call from the yacht builder, he started to apologise to the builder saying he hoped he had not annoyed his client but the builder interrupted him with the news that not only was the client still getting him to build the original yacht but had also engaged him to build a further bigger and more luxurious one that would rival the biggest in the world and that bothy of them would be on the Cayman's registry.!!!!!!!!
rgds
JA