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Jeff bezos’ massive new $500m superyacht — complete with helipad and pool — spotted in north sea.

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Hoist up the Jeff B sails.

Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos’ $500 million superyacht Koru, codenamed Y721, is finally seaworthy — spotted in the North Sea after leaving Rotterdam on Feb. 13,  footage posted by the organization Dutch Yachting  shows.

The massive, 417-foot vessel’s test run came months after it was originally set to be delivered to the 59-year-old billionaire. 

It requires a 250-foot support vessel that houses a helicopter landing pad for the Blue Origin founder.

Bezos’ mega boat created controversy last year after a report that Dutch officials would  have to dismantle  the historic Koningshaven Bridge because the 130-foot steel structure wouldn’t allow the vessel and its 229-foot masts to pass through.

Following an uproar from residents, local leaders decided the plan was a bridge too far — and the boat was towed from its construction location to another shipyard in a nearby town without its masts,  according to Jalopnik .

The uproar likely played a big part in how and when it would float away.

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Citizens of Rotterdam reportedly swore in February that, should Bezos’ superyacht traverse the De Hef bridge, they would pelt it with eggs in protest . 

And when it finally came time to move the vessel out of its Dutch shipbuilding yard, the decision was made to tow it away under cover of darkness, the Cut reported.

Koru costs about $25 million a year to run. The pleasure boat can accommodate 18 guests — and requires a crew of 40 sailors.

It is far from the world’s most expensive yacht. That dubious honor is reserved for the $4.8 billion History Supreme — a gold- and platinum-plated vessel featuring a Tyrannosaurus rex bone wall made of meteoric stone. It was bought in 2011 by an anonymous Malaysian businessman,  according to the Richest .

Yet the half-billion-dollar price tag is a relative drop in the ocean for the Amazon founder, whose net worth was valued at  $181 billion  by Forbes.

Koru will join a fleet of superyachts , helicopters and planes already owned by the entrepreneur and his millionaire girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez.

The aluminum and steel schooner reportedly boasts three decks, including one with a swimming pool. 

The smaller, 250-foot support vessel that will sit alongside the mammoth one will include a helicopter landing pad for Bezos or his celebrity guests. This smaller yacht is also expected to be loaded with an array of toys including luxury cars, jet skis, speedboats, and perhaps even a personal submarine, the Daily Mail has reported .

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Has the World Finally Had a Glimpse of Jeff Bezos’s $500 Million Mega-Yacht?

By Shivani Vora

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is appears to be getting closer to welcoming the superyacht he reportedly commissioned in 2018: a fancy toy fitting for the world’s second-richest person, given that it costs a reported $500 million and breaks one world record after another.

Called Y721, this vessel of all vessels is being custom designed by Dutch builder Oceanco and was spotted at a shipyard last week in Zwijndrecht, a town in the western Netherlands. It’s reportedly heading to another Netherlands town, Alblasserdam, for a final fitting. With a length of 417 feet, Y721 is the biggest sailing yacht in the world and the longest vessel to be built in the Netherlands. Features include a black hull, classic shape, three large decks, and three masts.

Superyacht Bravo Eugenia , belonging to the U.S. billionaire Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, was built by Oceanco, which is also rumored to be behind Bezos’s new massive vessel.

Y721 is going to totally change the world of yachting with its design and innovation, says Fernando Nicholson, a luxury yacht sales broker with the yachting company Camper & Nicholsons. “It’s a boat with the latest technology and bells and whistles that have never been seen,” he says. “This will be the standard for all superyachts to follow, but in years to come, when its features become more affordable. Right now, only someone with Bezos’s wealth can swing the cost.”

The superyacht is said to be modeled after Oceanco’s famous yacht, the Black Pearl , which the company site says , “is one of the largest and most ecological sailing yachts in the world. She can cross the Atlantic without burning even a liter of fossil fuel.” Y721 will go through sea trails following its fitting-out in Alblasserdam and is expected to be ready sometime next year.

The Flying Fox , allegedly owned by Bezos.

However, it’s only one of two new boats for Bezos: He has also commissioned a shadow vessel called YS 7512 from builder Damen Yachts. This support ship measures 246 feet in length and accommodates 45 additional crew and guests. It will also feature a helipad and meeting space and have a vast amount of storage for Bezos’s endless number of water toys, with diving and snorkeling gear, jet and water skis, waterslides, and surfboards among the bunch. Shadow vessels are a growing phenomenon in the superyacht industry and one more extra toy that their owners want to have at the ready, says Nicholson. “You see them more and more now as an add-on to a superyacht purchase,” he says. “They’ve almost become a must.”

There’s no doubt that Bezos will be sailing the high seas in full panache and style come 2022. But really, is there any other way when you have more money than almost anyone else in the world and attract an endless amount of attention too?

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Jeff Bezos’s New Yacht Comes With Its Own Yacht?

Another day, another reason that we must simply eat the rich. Construction is almost complete on the $500 million superyacht purchased by Amazon Daddy and Lizzo superfan Jeff Bezos. The 417-foot-long monstrosity, which Bezos bought two years ago, is among the biggest ever built in the Netherlands, the unofficial big-boat-building capital of the world.

What does a yacht longer than a football field come with? Multiple decks, an “ ambient cinema,” and its own support yacht. Yes, the yacht comes with its own yacht.

Project Y721 — the big boat’s temporary name — also has its own helipad. This is apropos given the rumors that Bezos’s sudden interest in helicopters may be what exposed his affair with now-girlfriend and famously “alive girl” Lauren Sanchez.

On top of the half-a-billion-dollar price tag, operating costs for the yacht will average about $60 million a year, per Bloomberg . To put that into context, for someone who makes $68,700 a year, the current median income in the U.S., that’d be like paying $23 in yearly operating costs. A pittance for the literal richest man on the planet.

Bezos isn’t the only rich person continuing to do rich-person things amid a struggling global economy. As Bloomberg reports, the yacht industry is among the few markets that thrived despite the spread of coronavirus. This shouldn’t come as any surprise, given the pandemic made the rich even richer . Bezos, for example, saw his wealth increase by 57 percent, per CBS News . Between March 18, 2020, and March, 18 2021, Bezos’s worth grew from $113 billion to $178 billion. Last year, the median income among Amazon employees was $29,007, per Business Insider .

Perhaps this purchase is Bezos in full post-divorce crisis mode. (He did buy the yacht the same year he and MacKenzie Scott announced they would be splitting.) While Scott recently remarried , Bezos continues to surround himself with the biggest, dumbest things money can buy. If anything, this all just further proof that the only good boats are the ones that get stuck .

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The country that wants to ‘be average’ vs. Jeff Bezos and his $500 million yacht

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — The image would have been a social media phenomenon: a few thousand citizens of the Netherlands’ second largest city, standing beside a river and hurling eggs at the gleaming, new 417-foot sailing yacht built for Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and one of the world’s richest men. By the time the boat passed the crowd, it would have been spattered with bright orange yolk, plus at least one very bright spot of red.

“I would have thrown a tomato,” said Stefan Lewis, a former City Council member. “I eat mostly vegan.”

One recent afternoon, Lewis was standing near the Hef, as the Koningshaven Bridge is affectionately known, and explaining the anger that Bezos and Oceanco, the maker of the three-masted, $500 million schooner, inspired after making what may have sounded like a fairly benign request. The company asked the local government to briefly dismantle the elevated middle span of the Hef, which is 230 feet tall at its highest point, allowing the vessel to sail down the King’s Harbor channel and out to sea. The whole process would have taken a day or two and Oceanco would have covered the costs.

Also worth noting: The bridge, a lattice of moss-green steel in the shape of a hulking “H,” is not actually used by anyone. It served as a railroad bridge for decades until it was replaced by a tunnel and decommissioned in the early 1990s. It’s been idle ever since.

In sum, the operation would have been fast, free and disrupted nothing. So why the fuss?

“There’s a principle at stake,” said Lewis, a tall, bearded 37-year-old who was leaning against his bike and toggling during an interview between wry humor and indignation. He then framed the principle with a series of questions. “What can you buy if you have unlimited cash? Can you bend every rule? Can you take apart monuments?”

In late June, the city’s vice mayor reported that Oceanco had withdrawn its request to dismantle the Hef, a retreat that was portrayed as a victory of the masses over a billionaire, though it was much more than that. It was an opportunity to see Dutch and American values in a fiery, head-on collision. The more you know about the Netherlands — with its preference for modesty over extravagance, for the community over the individual, for fitting in rather than standing out — the more it seems as though this kerfuffle was scripted by someone whose goal was to drive people here out of their minds.

Related More on the Maritime Industry

• Yacht reportedly built for Jeff Bezos too big for Dutch bridge (February)
• Rotterdam will not dismantle bridge to allow Bezos’ superyacht through

The first problem was the astounding wealth of Bezos.

“The Dutch like to say, ‘Acting normal is crazy enough,’” said Ellen Verkoelen, a City Council member and Rotterdam leader of the 50Plus Party, which works on behalf of pensioners. “And we think that rich people are not acting normal. Here in Holland, we don’t believe that everybody can be rich the way people do in America, where the sky is the limit. We think ‘Be average.’ That’s good enough.”

Verkoelen was among those who considered Oceanco’s request a reasonable concession to a company in a highly competitive industry. But she heard from dozens of infuriated voters, all of them adamantly opposed. She understood the origins of the fervor, which she illustrated with a story from her childhood.

“When I was about 11 years old, we had an American boy stay with us for a week, an exchange student,” she recalled. “And my mother told him, just make your own sandwich like you do in America. Instead of putting one sausage on his bread, he put on five. My mother was too polite to say anything to him, but to me she said in Dutch, ‘We will never eat like that in this house.’”

At school, Verkoelen learned from friends that the American children in their homes all ate the same way. They were stunned and a little jealous. At the time, it was said in the Netherlands that putting both butter and cheese on your bread was “the devil’s sandwich.” Choose one, went the thinking. You don’t need both.

Building the Earth’s biggest sailing yacht and taking apart a city’s beloved landmark? That’s the devil’s all-you-can-eat buffet. The streak of austerity in Dutch culture can be traced to Calvinism, say residents, the most popular religious branch of Protestantism here for hundreds of years. It emphasizes virtues like self-discipline, frugality and conscientiousness. Polls suggest that most people in the Netherlands today are not churchgoers, but the norms are embedded, as evidenced by Dutch attitudes toward wealth.

“Calvin teaches that you’re given stewardship over your money, that you have a responsibility to take care of it, which means giving lots of it away, being generous to others,” said James Kennedy, a professor of modern Dutch history at Utrecht University. “Work is a divine calling for which you will be held accountable. It’s considered bad for society and bad for your soul if you spend in ostentatious ways.”

There are billionaires in the Netherlands and a huge pay gap between CEOs and employees. Statista, a research firm, reported that for every dollar earned by an average worker, CEOs earned $171. (The figure is $265 in the United States, the widest gap of any country.) The difference is that the rich in the Netherlands don’t flaunt it, just as the powerful don’t highlight their cachet. The Dutch once ran one of the world’s largest empires, but there’s a certain pride here that the prime minister of the country rides a bicycle to pay visits to the king — yes, the Netherlands has a royal family, which is also relatively low-key — and locks the bicycle outside the palace.

There’s a premium on equality that has survived the country’s struggles to assimilate immigrants and a gentrification boom that is pricing the middle- and working-class out of cities. An ethos endures that nobody is any better than anyone else, or deserves more, and it stems from an unignorable geographic fact. Roughly one-third of the Netherlands is below sea level and citizens for centuries have had little choice but to band together to create an infrastructure of dikes and drainage systems to remain alive.

“The Netherlands is built on cooperation,” said Paul van de Laar, a professor of history at Erasmus University. “There were constant threats of disaster from the 15th and 16th century. Protestants and Catholics knew that to survive, they could not quarrel too much.”

Chip in. Blend in. Help others. These are among the highest ideals of the Netherlands. Does this sound like a country eager to cut some slack to a man with $140 billion and a $500 million boat? It didn’t help that Dutch critics of Bezos believe that employees at Amazon are underpaid, which, given his fortune, strikes them as not just grotesquely unfair but immoral. “He doesn’t pay his taxes,” is a common refrain in this city, and it doesn’t mean that Bezos is considered a tax cheat. It means that he isn’t fighting inequality by sharing his money, an obligation that transcends the tax code.

(Emails to Amazon were not returned. Bezos did not respond to a ProPublica article last year, based on leaked IRS files, that showed he paid a tiny percent of his fortune in federal income taxes, using perfectly legal methods.)

The Rotterdam vs. Bezos brawl first made international headlines in February, when news broke that Oceanco had been granted city approval to briefly take apart the middle of the Hef. (The cost of this operation was never made public.) The assent had come from a civil servant who apparently didn’t see the harm. An uproar ensued.

“I thought it was a joke,” said Lewis, who learned about the permission on Facebook from incredulous friends. “So I called the vice mayor’s office and asked, ‘Is this for real?’ And they said, ‘We don’t know anything about this.’ It wasn’t on their radar. It took them a day to get back to me.”

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When word of the accommodation reached the public, fuming residents became a staple of local TV news and a Facebook group formed to organize that mass egg pelting. (“Dismantling the Hef for Jeff Bezos’ latest toy? Come throw eggs…”) One aggrieved council member soon likened the masts of the yacht to a giant middle finger, pointed at the city.

Oceanco, which employs more than 300 people, has not spoken publicly about its decision to rescind its Hef request and did not respond to an email for comment. News reports stated that the company was concerned about threats against employees and about vandalism.

It’s unclear how the yacht, now known as Y721, will be completed. In February, the City Council’s municipality liaison, Marcel Walravens, was quoted in the media saying that it was impractical to float the mast-less yacht to another location and finish it there.

To van de Laar, the real villain in this tale is not Oceanco or Bezos, who probably had never heard of the Hef. It’s the City Council, which completely misunderstood the depth of feelings about the bridge and bungled the messaging about its decision.

“Emotions are important,” he said. “The council didn’t grasp that, which is incredibly stupid.” The issue wasn’t just this particular billionaire and this particular yacht. It was this particular bridge. To outsiders, the Hef looks like an ungainly industrial workhorse that no longer works.

That’s not what locals see. When opened in 1927 it was considered an architectural marvel, one celebrated by Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, in his 1928 film “The Bridge.”

“There are poems about the Hef,” said Arij De Boode, co-author of “The Hef: Biography of a Railroad Bridge.” “Anyone who makes a movie about Rotterdam includes the Hef. It’s more than a bridge.”

Rotterdam is one of the few European cities in which nearly all the buildings, both commercial and residential, are new because the place was bombed to devastating effect by the Nazis in World War II. It turned this into a city of the future, always looking ahead, tearing down whatever doesn’t work or isn’t needed.

Except for the Hef. It has become the city’s most recognizable landmark. After the war, it became a symbol of resilience and to locals of an older generation, the Hef is a rare link to the past.

When there was talk decades ago of tearing it down, residents protested. It was declared a national monument in 2000 and underwent a three-year restoration that ended in 2017. Today, the Hef stands as a triumph of function over form that no longer functions, a monolith that can’t be altered, even temporarily — no matter who asks, no matter the price.

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Jeff Bezos Reportedly Purchasing Mysterious 417-Foot Superyacht Worth $500 Million

The sailing yacht, known only as Project 271, has its own "support yacht" with a helipad

Jeff Bezos is eyeing a new ride: a massive, one-of-a kind superyacht!

The Amazon CEO, 57, reportedly plans to purchase a 417-foot long yacht that spans several decks and boasts three enormous masts, according to Bloomberg . It also has a "support yacht" with a helipad.

The vessel, known only as Project 271, reportedly costs roughly $500 million. Its maker is a Dutch manufacturer called Oceanco .

Per Bloomberg, the boat is set to move to a new shipyard for completion in June. Additional details about the yacht have not be reported.

Oceanco did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Sam Tucker, head of superyacht research at London-based VesselsValue, told the outlet that the yacht industry has been booming as of late, likely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic 's impact on social gatherings.

"The market's been roaring," said Tucker. "It's impossible to get a slot in a new-build yard. They're totally booked."

Bezos is currently estimated to be worth $183.8 billion, making him the wealthiest person on Earth, according to Forbes . He was briefly surpassed by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in January .

RELATED VIDEO: Jeff Bezos Claims 'National Enquirer' Tried to Blackmail Him by Threatening to Publish Nude Photos

Over the last year, the billionaire has focused on other efforts outside of Amazon, including his Bezos Earth Fund , which will provide billions of dollars to scientists and organizations who are working to save the planet from the effects of rising temperatures.

In February, Bezos announced that he was stepping down from his role as Amazon CEO and will transition to his new position as Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021. He'll be replaced by Andy Jassy, the current CEO of Amazon Web Services.

Related Articles

Jeff Bezos $500 Million Dollar Yacht

Feb 21, 2022

The founder and executive chairman of the well-known corporation Amazon , Jeff Bezos, recently made headlines by investing about $500 million in a new yacht. Controversy surrounds this insane build of the world’s largest sailing yacht, which will necessitate the removal of a historic bridge in order to move it. Let’s take a closer look at all of the features of this incredible yacht, as well as the current transportation scenario.

(Source: Forbes)

The SuperYacht

There are three other well-known tech millionaires who are commissioning boats, but they are not as huge as the one Bezos is building. Many say this is another opportunity for these well-padded men, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and new People magazine owner Barry Diller, to show off and one-up one other. Needless to say, the scale of these yachts is amazing, and you will be astounded by everything that has been intended to be on board.

Y721 Overview

Once completed, this boat will be known as the world’s largest sailing super-yacht.

Owner: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos Cost:  $500 million Features:  Three deck levels, a swimming pool, a helicopter landing pad on the tender, and a kinetic-propulsion system. Length:  417 feet Speed:  20 knots Passengers:  40 crew, 18 guests Running costs:  $25 million a year www.nypost.com

(Source: BOAT International)

Transportation Dilemma

Many local citizens in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, are outraged by the necessity to dismantle their historic bridge in order to transfer Bezos’ yacht. As a result of their rage, one person has organized a Facebook event to hurl rotten eggs at his super-yacht in retribution. Over 20,000 people have indicated that they would attend the event via rsvp. There isn’t another option for Amazon’s founder to relocate his ship, unfortunately. As a result, we sincerely hope he finds a way through this coming stumbling block. We are eager to see how the sailing super-yacht will appear after the sails have been attached.

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Billionaires are getting ready for summer with wildly spectacular superyachts

• Superyachts, the most expensive asset  a billionaire can own, are pushing the boundaries of luxury.
• The boats, which cost eight or nine figures, are getting larger and include more features than ever.
• From massage rooms to basketball courts, here's what the world's richest want on board.

For many wealthy boat owners, a private spa is a must-have on board. A sauna is a nice touch. A Jet Ski or two makes days at sea way more fun. And if you don't have someone on board who can whip up a Michelin-star-worthy meal , you might as well stay on land.

In the world of massive yachts , there's no such thing as too much. After all, if someone spends eight or nine figures to design the vessel of their dreams — or at least $500,000 a week to charter one — more is more.

"Yachting. It's not rational; it's emotional," Ralph Dazert, the head of intelligence at SuperYacht Times, told Business Insider at the Palm Beach International Boat Show, where dozens of superyachts — often defined as vessels over 30 meters in length — were on display.

And while there are certain classic features, such as jacuzzis and bars, what superyacht owners want is evolving, insiders at the show said. That might mean more crew members, more space for helicopters, or more water toys, but might also include manicure salons and putting greens.

"The bar of what is the baseline expectation has increased exponentially just over the last four or five years," Anders Kurtén, the CEO of brokerage Fraser Yachts, said. Clients are "spending more time on the boat and really wanting to extend the lifestyle they lead on the shore."

A lot of this can be chalked up to the pandemic. Superyacht purchases and charters spiked as life and luxury travel on land screeched to a halt. While the market has moderated slightly, the number of superyachts on order — 1,166 as of September, according to Boat International's Global Order Book — is still above pre-pandemic norms.

"What the pandemic really showed is that the appetite for being out there at sea, sort of living the marine lifestyle, is still as valid as ever," Kurtén said.

That means there's a lot of money on the water. The total value of the 203 superyachts over 30 meters delivered last year was $6.4 billion, according to data from SuperYacht Times. New custom builds from the world's most prestigious shipyards — Lurssen, Feadship, Oceanco , Benetti — can run into the hundreds of millions. Even used superyachts at the Palm Beach show cost as much as $75 million.

And it's not just traditional buyers like retired wealthy couples looking for a place to relax or celebrities looking for a place to party away from the paparazzi. New clients are often younger and have families, so want areas to work and watch movies . They also want pricey water toys, access to fitness equipment, or even pizza ovens for picky eaters.

"This would've never happened in the nineties," said Giovanna Vitelli, the vice president of the Azimut Benetti Group, the world's biggest producer of superyachts. "You would go with your beautiful woman, Champagne — the idea of yachting was much more showing off with your jacuzzi and things like that."

Pure opulence has made room for function.

When Benetti's Nabila set sail in 1980, its 50-person crew, gold-and-diamond-encrusted interiors, and lavish parties captured headlines and even inspired the Queen song "Kashoggi's Ship."(Seven years later, Donald Trump bought Nabila for $30 million , renaming her the Trump Princess.)

"Life on board was considered very formal — big formal dining rooms, boats were high on the water, you would be segregated from the rest of the world," Vitelli said, remembering another client who insisted on a replica of the Sistine Chapel above the dining table.

But the ostentatious, palatial-like interiors that used to be highlighted in yacht brochures have made way for lists of more functional features .

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Rather than esoteric novelties like an extra-large safe for rifles that one builder had to construct per a Russian yacht owner's request , the superyachts on display at the Palm Beach show featured basketball courts, saunas, and ice baths.

Owners want elevators and luxury gyms. Pampering options, be it a massage room, manicure station, or a professional-grade facial machine, are a dime a dozen. Some bathrooms have fancy Toto toilets, which can cost around $20,000.

Sterns (that's the back of the boat) used to be built high to guard guests' privacy. Now, they're built as "beach clubs" — an open swim platform.

And what good is a massage room if no one on board can give one? Many superyachts can hold twice as many crew members as guests, if not more. One broker, representing a boat that didn't have a masseuse, said it could be quite a "tricky" issue because if a charter wants one, they have to find someone who can massage guests and "pull their weight with the crew."

"It's not uncommon to look for a deckhand who can also mix a martini, play an instrument, maybe entertain the guests with singing, and ideally even give a massage," Kurtén said.

Of course, a crew comes at a cost . Most are considered full-time employees, requiring salaries and benefits like health insurance. Captains, first mates, and chief engineers often make six figures a year. That's without tips; a charter guest will typically spend six figures on gratuities for the crew who worked during a weeklong vacation.

For the superrich, there must be room for toys.

It's not just the onboard amenities that count. What's known as "toys" in the industry — water slides, eFoils, Jet Skis, and underwater scuba diving jets — are popular, and costs range from merely hundreds of dollars (banana boats) to millions ( submersibles , which are still popular despite the recent tragedy).

" Tenders and toys, the sky seems to be the limit," Kurtén said. "More is more."

Of course, if you can't fit all those toys in the yacht's storage space, you can just use another boat. Jeff Bezos' support yacht is a superyacht in itself, measuring 75 meters and costing tens of millions of dollars. (His main yacht, Koru , cost a reported $500 million.)

Support yachts are also faster, meaning the crew can get to a destination first and set up the Jet Skis, seapools, and the like, Dazert said. "By the time the owner arrives on the main yacht, everything's set up, and he can go and have fun."

Even tenders, the smaller vessel that brings guests from the ship to the shore, are getting glow-ups. The Nero, a 90-meter beauty available to charter for about $500,000 a week and modeled after J.P. Morgan's 1930s ship, has custom-built tenders to match the design. The most expensive ones often cost seven figures. Nero has three.

"It used to be a tender was a tender," Jeffrey Beneville, who handles yacht insurance at NFP, told BI. "Now they're called limousine tenders. Think of an incredibly luxurious gondola that's got a hard top so nobody's hair gets mussed when they're being dropped off at the Monaco Yacht Club ."

One thing that clearly hasn't changed in superyachting: showing off. If the boat next door at the marina has an indoor-outdoor cinema, it's natural to want one too. Ditto a wine cellar or helipad.

"It's a bit of a celebration of your success in life, of wealth," Vitelli, whose company is behind the Lana yacht Bill Gates chartered for a birthday party three years ago, said. "You push it a little more."

And that's a boon for yacht makers and brokers catering to the superrich.

"Our job is to make clients' dreams come true," Kurtén said.

Watch: Inside the world's biggest cruise ship that just set sail

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The Most Powerful Lexus Ever Is A $5 Million 2,000 HP Yacht With Twin Volvo Diesel Engines

I t seems Lexus has decided to leave us landlubbers behind and take to the seas . The automaker just unveiled its new flagship: a 2,000 horsepower, 68-foot long yacht with a 1,849-gallon fuel tank, accommodations for 15 people and six beds.

The Lexus LY 680 (of course LY stands for Luxury Yacht) is the next generation of Lexus’ foray into big ol’ boats that started with the LY 650 back in 2018 , according to a release from Toyota . If you’re the kind of person who has the means for a Lexus LY 680, be prepared to fork over about $5.1 million. There’s also the small caveat thatyou’ve got to be in Japan to order one through Toyota Marine, Automotive News reports. I know, I know. That’s tough to hear.

Outside the LY 680 is wrapped in a very cool copper and silver paint scheme. It actually looks very similar to the rose gold color you can get on the Lexus LC500 . It’s quite sleek-looking, as far as yachts go. Inside is where the real good stuff is. You’ll find all sorts of lounge sofas, high-gloss paneling and other appointments designed by Lexus with the help of Italian styling company Nuvolari Lendard, according to AutoNews .

The second deck of the LY 680 (called the flybridge by nautically-inclined folks ) has apparently been extended by about 4.5 feet, and it features a lounge sofa and a grill. Lexus also extended the swimming platform by about 2.3 feet. If I had to guess, that’s probably where a good chunk of the three feet it grew over the LY 650 came from.

It should be noted, the boat itself won’t actually be built by Lexus . The Japanese automaker is outsourcing that job to a Taiwanese company called Horizon Group. Lexus says that the manufacturer has a “reputation for its advanced technological capabilities which have been honed through the construction of superyachts .

Powering the LY 680 is a pair of 12.8-liter straight-six diesel engines supplied by Volvo, according to Lexus. In their base configuration, the engines make a combined 1,600 horsepower. However, if that’s not enough for you, feel free to up the power to 1,000 horsepower each. That’s right baby. This is a 2,000-horsepower boat.

Here’s a little more from Lexus on what the LY 680 is all about:

Lexus aims to be a luxury lifestyle brand and the flagship Luxury Yacht is the embodiment of the Lexus design philosophy “Crafted.” The LY 680 expresses this philosophy by thoroughly paying attention to every single detail, in order to exceed customers’ expectations and create a unique experience that stimulates their senses, even while at sea. The concept for the Luxury Yacht is “to feel like a hideout in the middle of the sea, providing a space where discerning customers can feel free and at ease.” The exterior embodies the Lexus design philosophy of L-finesse, and the interior has been meticulously crafted down to the smallest details to provide a comfortable living space. In terms of performance, Lexus aims for confidence inspiring cruising performance, offering stable maneuverability, excellent ride comfort, and quietness.

Toyota first entered the boat business back in 1997, and it has sold nearly 1,100 boats since then, but only some have made it to the U.S. market, according to Automotive News .

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Inside a 400-foot-long superyacht that costs $3 million per week.

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Said Kahn's 400-foot long superyacht Kismet charters for over $3 million per week

I haven’t met Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan yet. But, after touring his previous 313-foot-long superyacht that’s played host to numerous A-list celebrities at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show a few years back, and recently learning that his newly launched superyacht is 400-feet-long, it’s pretty obvious he likes to go big.

The interior for the 400-foot-long Kismet that charters for $3 million per week

And as you can see in these images, Khan’s new KISMET ( Cecil Wright sold his previous 313-foot-long KISMET last September and is the central charter agent for this one) that was built by Lürssen in Germany, has an exterior design by Nuvolari Lenard , and an interior design led by the Khan’s family working alongside Reymond Langton Design takes going big to a whole other level.

Actually, what makes KISMET even more opulent is the simple fact that eventhough it’s much, much longer than an American football field, it’s designed to pamper just 12 uber VIP ’s over the yacht’s six massive decks.

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The owners suite aboard the 400-foot-long Kismet that charters for $3 million per week is opulent

In fact, the master suite spans two decks and features a large skylight and fireplace, and his and hers bathrooms and dressing rooms. The private hot tub and sunbathing area forward and the private staircase leading up to a spectacular office simply must be seen to be believed.

The interior for the 400-foot-long Kismet that charters for $3 million per week is massive

The guest cabins also offer an oasis of comfort and serenity with the flexibility to accommodate varying preferences. Meanwhile, the yacht’s wellness and beauty areas include a Balinese-inspired spa with hammam, sauna, and cryotherapy chamber to a dedicated gym and yoga studio with a juice bar, both with opening sea terraces. In addition, there is a further treatment room with a massage table, waterfall shower and chromotherapy bathtub. For red carpet ready evenings, the yacht has two hair and beauty rooms, one in the spa area and another in the owner’s suite.

The outdoor cinema aboard the 400-foot-long Kismet that charters for $3 million per week

Entertainment areas include a large outdoor cinema on the bridge deck and a Nemo cinema on the lower deck with a 150-inch drop-down TV and underwater viewing lounge. Of course there’s also a DJ station overhanging the bridge deck aft, a Boganyi grand piano on the upper deck and four bars, including a champagne bar and wine cellar room.

As you’d expect, the yacht also boasts a full suite of water sports toys including: Jet Skis, SeaBobs, e-foils, Flitescooters, an Aquaglide floating deck and inflatable slide, dive gear and oh, by-the-way, there’s a basketball and pickleball court forward of the master cabin on the foredeck.

Sounds amazing, right? It is. And all of that over-the-top luxury can be yours for approximately $3,000,000 per week via Cecil Wright . And I bet KISMET ’s summer season is close to be fully booked already!

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The underwater hunt for the lost ship of an American slave trafficker

ANGRA DOS REIS, Brazil — Gilson Rambelli motored out into the dark waters, thinking of the crime that had haunted him for years. The evidence of it was down there, in the bay’s depths. That was where the researcher believed he’d find the Camargo, the long-lost slave ship of Nathaniel Gordon, the only person ever executed in the United States for the crime of trafficking enslaved Africans.

As dense clouds muffled the December morning sky, Rambelli and his research team approached a small island off the coastline of Rio de Janeiro state. There wasn’t much to distinguish it from the dozens of others dotting this vast bay. But it was here that the crew dropped anchor.

“This is it,” Rambelli said.

For decades, Rambelli and others have researched the shipwreck. According to contemporaneous accounts, Gordon sailed his American-made vessel into Brazilian waters in December 1852. As authorities closed in on him, Gordon sold his “cargo” — more than 500 enslaved Mozambicans — to the coffee plantations in the mountains beyond. Then he burned and sank his ship somewhere in the bay and escaped arrest dressed as a woman, scandalizing Brazil’s government and leading to its first crackdown on the country’s illegal slave trade.

The remarkable story is part of a forgotten chapter in the history of America and slavery, when American ships and the American flag were used to illegally transport enslaved Africans to Brazil by the tens of thousands.

In the first half of the 19th century, after much of the world had banned the transatlantic slave trade but before the end of slavery, a highly lucrative contraband trade continued to supply Brazil with enslaved Africans. Some of its most important players, according to historians and a Washington Post review of thousands of pages of records, were American merchants and sailors.

They sold ships, captained slaving voyages and ultimately assumed such an active role in the illegal commerce that senior U.S. diplomats at the time suggested it couldn’t have happened without them.

“The African slave trade ‘thickens around us,’” wrote U.S. Brazil Minister Henry A. Wise in an 1845 letter to Secretary of State John C. Calhoun. “Without the aid of our citizens and our flag, it could not be carried on with success at all.”

In all, between 1831 and 1850, American-made ships brought approximately 430,000 enslaved Africans to Brazil — nearly as many as were shipped to the United States during its entire history of slavery, Brazilian historian Leonardo Marques has found . During the latter half of that period, according to Marques’s review of British consular reports, more than one-third of all slaving vessels that made landfall in Rio de Janeiro did so under an American flag.

Hunting in December for one of the most notorious of those vessels, Rambelli and colleague Luís Felipe Santos pulled on their wet suits. This expedition, scheduled to last four days, was their fourth attempt to find the Camargo in two years. All previous efforts to retrieve physical evidence of the ship had failed. Funding opportunities were drying up.

If they didn’t find the Camargo soon, the team worried that the tale could again slip through the cracks of history — and deprive a nearby community of descendants of enslaved Africans answers about its role in Brazil’s history.

“When our elders told us stories of this ship, we thought it was just another tall tale,” said Marilda de Souza Francisco, a leader of the Santa Rita do Bracuí community in the city of Angra dos Reis. “Now we find out it could be true.”

The men fastened on their oxygen tanks. They pulled down their goggles. Jumping overboard, they vanished beneath the water.

‘Our flag is preferred over any other’

How U.S. nationals became “leaders in fomenting the illicit slave trade” and “permanently transformed Brazil for all time,” in the words of historian Gerald Horne , was largely a function of two historic developments.

The first was a diplomatic dispute. In the early 1800s, Great Britain led an international campaign to end the transatlantic slave trade. It signed accords with several of the world’s naval powers, allowing British patrols to inspect suspected slaving vessels. But wary of British influence, the United States refused to sign on, effectively placing ships sailing under the American flag beyond the reach of the crown.

The second was innovation in American ship engineering. In the early 1800s, shipyards from Maine to Maryland started pumping out ships built for speed. The Baltimore Clipper, which could easily outrun British patrols, grew popular among merchants moving high-profit, low-volume goods. Few were as lucrative as enslaved Africans. Their value skyrocketed upon making landfall in Brazil, where officials did little to impede the commerce.

Seizing the opportunity, American merchants based in Rio de Janeiro sold U.S.-made vessels to slavers sailing for Africa. The proliferation of the American ship and flag — used by slavers of all nationalities — in the illicit commerce soon provoked alarm among diplomats.

“Our flag is preferred over any other,” complained Gorham Parks, the U.S. consul in Rio de Janeiro, in an 1848 letter.

Half of all enslaved Africans brought to Brazil, estimated U.S. diplomat David Tod in January 1850, “are introduced through the facilities directly and indirectly afforded by the American flag.”

What ultimately ended the involvement of U.S. nationals in the trade was Brazil’s passage in 1850 of a new anti-trafficking law. The legislation was virtually the same as an 1831 prohibition, save one crucial difference. This time, Brazil vowed to enforce it.

An early test of that commitment came in late 1852, when the Camargo neared the Rio de Janeiro coastline. With authorities in pursuit, Gordon dropped anchor at the mouth of the Bracuí River. His human cargo was brought ashore to the farm of Santa Rita do Bracuí. Then Gordon set fire to his ship and fled.

“He escaped in woman’s clothes,” a U.S. diplomat at the time reported, “hastily put on in the cabin.”

The Camargo sank to the depths of the bay, where researchers believed it had sat, undisturbed, ever since.

Diving beneath the current

Embarking on their mission, the aquatic archaeologists were painfully familiar with its challenges. First was the immense size of the bay. Next was the water’s opacity: The thick sediment blinded Rambelli and Felipe, researchers at the Federal University of Sergipe, just feet beneath the surface.

“Like you’re in a grave,” Felipe said.

Then there was the mud. It coated the seafloor in a thick film. The scientists believed the ship’s remains had sunk into the clay, further concealing its location.

But after several fruitless searches, they had a breakthrough. During an expedition in July 2023, they detected what they called an “anonymous” shape using sonographic technology. Sketched out, it looked like an exact blueprint of a historic skipper. They believed it had to be the Camargo.

“The only thing left to do is go down and touch it,” Felipe now boasted, on the second day of the December dive, as he plunked into the dark waters. Sixteen feet beneath the surface, he and Rambelli combed a search perimeter the size of a soccer field, plunging pointed stakes into the muck. After 30 minutes, they surfaced.

They submerged again. Thirty more minutes passed. Again, nothing.

“It’s just mud down there,” Rambelli vented.

Another dive. Nothing.

The men began to get nervous.

“You come in with so much expectation,” Felipe said. “And sometimes, the result isn’t what you’re hoping for.”

Years of diving, and their strongest lead yet hadn’t yielded a thing.

A hunt decades in the making

The search for the Camargo began by happenstance.

In the summer of 1994, historian Martha Abreu was scouring old newspaper clippings at Brazil’s national library in Rio de Janeiro, working on her dissertation, when she learned of an untold history that left her stunned. It was, in her understanding, Brazil’s first real attempt to crack down on the illegal slave trade. At the center of the tale were an American captain and his ship, the Camargo.

After the ship burned, Brazilian police launched an operation to rescue the Africans sold by Gordon and searched the region’s coffee plantations. The action was seen as a direct challenge to Brazil’s powerful slaveholding elite and helped establish a new precedent in a country that had allowed enslavers to do as they pleased.

Police ultimately found 75 people whom Gordon had sold into slavery. Most of them were children. The youngest was 11.

The rest were lost.

Abreu published a book chapter on the fallout and moved on to other projects. But she never stopped thinking about the Camargo or its captain. She later learned that Gordon continued his slaving exploits until he was convicted in federal court in New York of slave trading in 1861. The punishment was death. No one had ever suffered that consequence. But this time was different.

“Any man, who, for paltry gain and stimulated only by avarice, can rob Africa of her children to sell into interminable bondage, I will never pardon,” Abraham Lincoln said, according to author Ron Soodalter , denying Gordon’s pleas for clemency.

Nearly 150 years later, Abreu was researching how slavery was remembered along the Rio de Janeiro coastline when, at the mouth of the Bracuí, the story of the Camargo again found her. In the community of Santa Rita do Bracuí, founded by descendants of enslaved Africans on what had once been the farm of Santa Rita do Bracuí, she met a bald patriarch named Manoel Moraes, 85. He told her a story he first heard in his youth. He didn’t know the name of the boat that had gone down. But all the details aligned. Moraes was describing the Camargo.

“I got goose bumps,” Abreu said. “I said, ‘It’s not possible.’”

Then Moraes, now deceased, provided a bit of information even more tantalizing: He knew where the Camargo had sunk.

“People often talked about that boat,” he said, “because it was a good spot to fish.”

“It sank at the point of an island” named Cunhanbebe.

A community in the mist, long ignored

For generations, the people of Santa Rita do Bracuí have told and retold the story of the Camargo. Their version, recounted in spartan homes set against a misted mountain, included details not found in any historical text. The sinking of the Camargo was more chaotic than recorded. Many of the captured Africans perished. The fate of those who survived was little better.

“They were brought into the mountains beyond and put to work up there,” said Flavia da Silva Adriana, who’d heard the tale from her grandmother. “But first, they were brought here.”

The land on which this village was built was then a crucial entry point in Brazil’s illegal slave trade. The Souza Breves family, among Brazil’s largest enslavers, had used its Santa Rita farm to receive and revive newly arrived enslaved Africans. Many came ashore so emaciated, Moraes once told researchers, that “they’d lost their value” and had needed a “fattening station” before being sold into labor.

This story and others, told in informal settings, helped form a cultural framework through which the community came to understand its place in Brazil’s history. But many of the tales were impossible to prove.

“They were myths,” said Emerson Luís Ramos. “We didn’t have any documents.”

As a result, residents said, the community had always been easy to ignore. The people never secured official ownership of the land, and a federal highway cleaved it in two. Many have only known poverty and struggle.

But then, several years ago, came a new story, this one told by visiting researchers: The Camargo was not a myth. It was real. And the evidence there in the bay, waiting to be found — proof of the historic injustices suffered and witnessed by the people of Santa Rita do Bracuí.

“If God wills it,” said Adriana, “we will find the ship.”

Desperation, then sudden hope

With time running out, the researchers remembered Abreu’s research and the clue provided by Moraes. They had initially discarded it. For one, there were two islands in the bay named Cunhanbebe — Big Cunhanbebe and Little Cunhanbebe. And in an area known to attract illegal treasure hunting, where fisherman eyed outsiders with suspicion, they’d had trouble corroborating the lead.

But they felt they had to try again. They called a local man affiliated with Santa Rita do Bracuí, who had once told them he’d fished over the Camargo as a child. The man, Jorge de Almeida, soon brought them to the spot he remembered, near Little Cunhanbebe. But again, nothing.

As the prospect of failure hardened into reality, a fisherman approached their vessel.

“I know what you’re looking for,” the man shouted. Then he continued on, without stopping to talk.

The next morning, on the last day of the expedition, the researchers again saw the fisherman. This time, he did stop. He said his name was Luiz Henrique de Freitas. He’d grown up on Big Cunhanbebe, where his family had lived for generations, and had fished the bay’s waters his entire life. He knew where the Camargo had sunk and, after hours of conversation, agreed to lead the researchers there.

They motored to the northeast lip of Little Cunhanbebe — just 500 meters from where they’d looked the day before — and dropped anchor.

There, on their first dive, they came upon something, buried in the muck. It was a hard, wooden. They grabbed a few pieces of the debris. What they saw when they emerged elicited shrieks of euphoria. The wood was blackened and charred. The sunken ship they’d discovered had been burned.

“We found it!” Rambelli yelled.

In the weeks to come, the researchers would alert government authorities and designate the area as an official excavation site to ward off potential treasure hunters. They’d test the wood fragments, revealing traces of copper — the material that had encased the Camargo’s hull. And in partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and George Washington University researchers, they would plan another expedition in May to further examine the remains, to study the hull and engineering and hopefully render a final conclusion on whether it’s the Camargo. The true scholarly work was only now just beginning.

But for this moment, they sat on the boat, cherishing the discovery and what it meant.

“This is an answer for the communities here, that the stories they’ve always told were true,” Felipe said. “They weren’t just stories.”

Marina Dias in Brasília contributed to this report.

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Trump's bond is now $175 million in fraud case. Here's what the New York attorney general could do if he doesn't pay.

By Katrina Kaufman , Graham Kates

Updated on: March 25, 2024 / 7:46 PM EDT / CBS News

Former President Donald Trump and other defendants in his fraud case won an appeal Monday to have their bond reduced , requiring them now to put up $175 million within 10 days to pause enforcement of a $464 million judgment against them . If Trump fails to post bond, it could leave some of his prized real estate and other assets vulnerable to seizure by the state.

The bond was lowered from $464 million on the day that a 30-day grace period for payment expired. New York Attorney General Letitia James had indicated her office would pursue Trump's assets if he failed to post bond.

"If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets," she said during a February interview with ABC News.

Attorneys for Trump wrote in a March 18 filing in the case that it was a "practical impossibility" for the defendants to secure such a large bond. 

"Very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude," wrote the lawyers, Alina Habba, Clifford Robert, Christopher Kise and John Sauer. They noted that surety providers often require collateral up to 120% to guarantee the bond, driving the amount Trump might need over $500 million.

Trump claimed to have nearly $500 million in cash in a Truth Social post on March 22. In depositions and testimony in 2023,  he claimed to have between $300 and $400 million.

JD Weisbrot, managing director of the surety operation at Risk Strategies, said Trump's options for amassing the full $464 million were "frankly very limited."

"The issue is that this type of bond is very hazardous in nature to a surety company. And why is that? It's a demand instrument, the bond guarantees that in the event that the defendant loses the appeal, that the sum be immediately made available to the plaintiff," Weisbrot said.

As a result, Weisbrot said surety companies want liquid assets as collateral, specifically cash or a letter of credit, and not hard assets like real estate.

The judgment stems from a civil case in which a judge found Trump and others connected to his company liable for a decade-long scheme to use falsified real estate and net worth valuations to obtain favorable loan and insurance rates. The judge concluded Trump and others gained more than $364 million through the scheme.

Bruce Lederman, an attorney who specializes in real estate law  for the New York firm DL Partners, said James' office has a range of options to choose from in its effort to enforce the judgment if Trump fails to post bond.

Once the deadline passes, "the attorney general can start enforcement proceedings, which could include sending restraining notices, could include sending executions to the sheriff for real property, could include tying up security accounts, could include sending notices to companies that they can't make any payments to Donald Trump personally, or any of the children, the boys, against whom judgments are entered," said Lederman, referring to Trump's adult sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr.

To execute on Trump's real property, James could get judicial liens against the properties.  In New York, the process to sell a property takes 63 days. The sheriff's office must publicly post notice of sale in three places in the town or city where the property is located, and the notice must be published four times throughout that period. After 63 days, there is a sheriff's sale, typically on the courthouse steps. 

However, untangling the web of ownership of some of Trump's properties may be challenging. In the event of sale, there are also loans and mortgages that could impact how much the state can even collect - not to mention the disputed valuation of Trump's properties, an issue that was at the heart of the civil fraud trial.

For properties located outside of Manhattan, James has to enter the judgment with local jurisdictions — even those as near as suburban Westchester County, New York, where her office registered the judgment on March 6. 

"The New York judgment can be filed in any state and is then entitled to full faith and credit under the Constitution," said Lederman, who noted that Trump's Mar-a-Lago club might be more complicated to seize than other properties. "Enforcement rights in other states would be based upon the law of the state where property is located. For example, Florida does not allow a sale of a primary residence." 

Adam Pollock,  a former New York assistant attorney general, said a restraining notice would limit Trump's ability to spend freely.

"A restraining notice … says, 'Don't spend money, don't transfer any property, until you pay us.' And for good reason. You shouldn't be out, you know, fueling up your jets with $20,000 of gas, when you owe the people in the state of New York nearly $500 million," said Pollock.

Pollock said James' office could get a bank execution and give it to a New York sheriff or marshal, who can then walk into a bank branch and drain Trump's account. A bank normally has to wait at least 27 days to turn over the money in an account — unless the plaintiff is the state of New York, in which case, the bank is supposed to transfer the funds immediately.

James can also sign an execution forcing Trump to turn over his personal property.

"If I have a judgment against you, I get to take any property I can find of yours. Whether it's your Rembrandt, your Rolls Royce, or your iPad, or like your 500 LLCs that you happen to own," said Pollock.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, could ultimately end up among the one in 100 Americans whose pay is withheld so creditors can collect.

Adam Kaufmann, an attorney at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, said the state could garnish Trump's income and revenues from the Mar-a-Lago Club, for example.

"You could have a president of the United States having his wages garnished by a creditor," Kaufmann said.

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AT&T finds over 70 million users’ Social Security numbers on ‘dark web,’ scrambles to reset passwords

AT&T said it has begun notifying millions of customers about the theft of personal data recently discovered online.

The telecommunications giant said Saturday that a dataset found on the “dark web” contains information such as Social Security numbers for about 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.

The company said it has already reset the passcodes of current users and will be communicating with account holders whose sensitive personal information was compromised.

It is not known if the data “originated from AT&T or one of its vendors,” the company said in a statement. The compromised data is from 2019 or earlier and does not appear to include financial information or call history, it said. In addition to passcodes and Social Security numbers, it may include email and mailing addresses, phone numbers and birth dates.

While the data surfaced on a hacking forum nearly two weeks ago, it closely resembles a similar data breach that surfaced in 2021 but which AT&T never acknowledged, said  cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt .

“If they assess this and they made the wrong call on it, and we’ve had a course of years pass without them being able to notify impacted customers,” then it’s likely the company will soon face class action lawsuits, said Hunt, founder of an Australia-based website for warning people when their personal information has been exposed.

An AT&T spokesperson didn’t immediately return a request for comment Saturday.

It is not the first crisis this year for the Dallas-based company. An outage in February temporarily  knocked out cellphone service  for thousands of U.S. users. AT&T at the time  blamed the incident  on a technical coding error, not a malicious attack.

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