below deck sailing yacht gary king

Below Deck Sailing Yacht star Gary King breaks silence after BravoCon removal

Below Deck Sailing Yacht star Gary King has broken his silence after he was removed from BravoCon amid some serious allegations.

In August, news broke that a Below Deck Sailing Yacht production team member had accused Gary of sexual misconduct.

A month later, Gary was taken off the list of yachties attending BravoCon , an event he was a fan favorite at last year.

BravoCon takes place this weekend, with Bravoleberties taking on Las Vegas.

Ahead of the three-day event, Gary shared his first message in months that made quite a statement.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht’s Gary King breaks silence after BravoCon removal

Taking to Instagram on Thursday, Gary shared a post of him posing in a field of Daisies in South Africa. Gary has a serious look that’s a vast difference from how Below Deck Sailing Yacht viewers see him on the show.

“It’s sad that people will do anything in their power to bring you down. It’s not about how you fall but how you get up. Luckily for me the fall was into a sea of daisies 🌼,” was the caption on Gary’s IG post.

It wasn’t just the caption that alluded to the allegations against Gary. The hashtag spoke volumes about how Gary feels about being dismissed from BravoCon and the claims made.

Gary called the allegations against him a lie, told people not to believe everything they see, and called out the media. He also declared he wouldn’t do what he was being accused of doing and that Gary continues to hold his head up high.

The Below Deck Sailing Yacht star also used hashtags for the show and shared he’s moving on. Gary didn’t get into specifics of what that means.

However, there’s no question that the timing of his first social media message in months was to address his BravoCon absence.

Gary has earned support from some of his costars since the allegations broke.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht stars show support for Gary King amid scandal

The comments section of Gary’s post showed not all of his former crew members had abandoned him during this time.

Captain Glenn Shephard became very close with Gary after they filmed Season 2 of the sailing show. They work together on Parsifal III even when the cameras aren’t rolling.

The captain was one of the first to pop up with emojis that kicked off an exchange of bro love between him and Gary.

Season 4 chef Ileisha Dell also showed her love for Gary as the two had a little back-and-forth to reveal they are still friends.

Gary King from Below Deck Sailing Yacht won’t be at BravoCon and has addressed his absence the day before the big fan event.

As Monsters and Critics previously reported, Captain Glenn, Colin MacRae, and Daisy Kelliher will all be at BravoCon. No doubt, the three of them will be asked about Gary at some point.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht is currently on hiatus on Bravo. Seasons 1-4 are streaming on Peacock.

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Another Scandal Rocks Below Deck — WIll [Spoiler] Be Fired, Too?

Thursday, August 24th, 2023

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Weeks after two cast members were fired on Below Deck Down Under for sexual assault, another scandal hits the franchise — this time, involving Below Deck Sailing Yacht ‘s Gary King .

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King, who has been a First Officer on Below Deck Sailing Yacht since Season 2, was accused of sexual misconduct by production member Samantha Suarez in a report by Rolling Stone on August 24, 2023. Suarez, who joined the franchise as a makeup department crew member in Below Deck Season 10, claimed that King tried to force himself on her while filming Below Deck Sailing Yacht in Sardinia, Italy, in the summer of 2022. She alleged that she and King met for the first time when the cast and crew arrived in Sardinia to film Season 4.

Rolling Stone reported that the cast and crew both stayed at the same hotel, the DoubleTree by Hilton Olbia-Sardinia, before filming started, and for a few “dark days” before the season, no. one in production or the cast worked. Along with doing hair and makeup for the cast, Suarez said that she also assisted the series’ talent manager with making sure the cast members were sequestered in their hotel rooms and didn’t talk to each other until filming started. She was also tasked with bringing food and water to the cast members as they weren’t allowed to leave their rooms due to COVID-19 protocols.

On a “dark day” in July 2022, Suarez claimed that she accompanied a drunk King back to his hotel room after he filmed interviews for Below Deck Sailing Yacht , where producers allegedly provided him with alcohol. “There is no limit to alcohol consumption whatsoever, which I think poses a really big problem,” she told Rolling Stone . Once they arrived at his hotel room, Suarez claimed that King behaved erratically and started  yelling outside his balcony to other cast members to try to find where their rooms were. She claimed that she tried to keep King in his room but eventually told him that she needed to leave to assist other cast members.

Suarez claimed that King allegedly suggested that she get in bed with him and continued to ask her not to leave his hotel room. After a few minutes, Suarez left King’s room and told him that she would return later to get get him water and snacks. When she knocked on his door later that night, King allegedly answered it in his underwear and continued to ask her to stay. “I was like, ‘I have to go — I need to go bring other people water and food,’ and he’s like, ‘No, no, please,’” Suarez said. “So I stepped into the room to set the case of waters down and again, he’s repeating, ‘Don’t leave,’ and I was like, ‘I have to go, I’m not staying.’”

She alleged that when she turned to the door, King came up behind her, grabbed her, pressed her body against his and refused to let her go as she tried to kick and elbow him to get off of her. After she managed to escape, Suarez claimed that she tried to open the door to leave before King allegedly slammed the door shut from behind her. “At that point, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was freaking out,” Suarez said. “It just happened so fast.” At that moment, Suarez claimed she received a call from the talent manager and answered it, which is when King let her go. “I’m freaking out, and he goes, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘Just leave me alone,'” she said. “He tried to come up behind me and put his arm around me. He’s in the hallway in his underwear and it’s all weird and f— up, and so I’m just like, ‘Just go back in your room and don’t come out.’”

Suarez told Rolling Stone that she immediately told producers about what happened. The next day, a co-executive producer reached out to ask her about the incident. She then had another meeting with the same producer, as well as executive producers Courtland Cox and Vivian Choi and Below Deck Sailing Yacht ‘s talent manager, in which she told him that she didn’t feel comfortable to be around King or do his hair and makeup. She claimed that Cox apologized for King’s behavior and said that the producers would have a conversation with him. Cox also allegedly assured Suarez that King would be fired from the show if any other incidents occurred. “It pretty much sucked from there on out,” Suarez said. “I was just in a super depressive state.”

After Rolling Stone ‘s report, fans have called for King to be fired from Below Deck Sailing Yacht . “Everybody read the article about Gary and multiple sexual assaults. Not surprising AT ALL,” one user commented on Gary’s Instagram post. Another user commented, “What about when your MUA asks you not to touch her, Gary??”

The report also comes weeks after two cast members were fired from Below Deck Down Under following another sexual harassment scandal. Bosun Luke Jones was fired on Below Deck Down Under Season 2, Episode 7, after he got after he got in bed naked with Third Stewardess Margot Sisson while she was asleep and passed out drunk from a crew night out. That same episode, Second Stewardess Laura Bileskaline was fired for her continued sexual advances toward Deckhand Adam Kodra and her insensitive comments to Sisson following Jones’ firing.

King declined to comment on his sexual harassment scandal to Rolling Stone . In a statement, a spokesperson for Bravo, which airs the Below Deck franchise, confirmed that Suarez’s claims were investigated. “Bravo is committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows,” the statement read. “We require our third-party production companies to have appropriate workplace policies and trainings in place and a clear process on how to report concerns. The concerns Ms. Suarez raised in July 2022 were investigated at that time and action was taken based on the findings.”

A spokesperson for 51 Minds Entertainment, the production company behind the Below Deck franchise, also confirmed Suarez’s complaints were looked into. “51 Minds is committed to providing an environment in which every member of the casts and crews on our productions feel respected and, most importantly, safe,” the spokesperson said. “51 Minds provides mandatory harassment and sensitivity training for every series it produces at the outset of each new season and lays out a clear process on how and to whom to report any questionable activity.”

The spokesperson continued, “With any complaint filed, a timely investigation is launched and, based on the findings, appropriate actions are implemented to ensure the safety of our cast and crew, up to and including termination. With regard to the incident reported by Ms. Suarez involving Mr. King, the case was investigated and reviewed as soon as it was submitted, and production acted accordingly based on the results.”

Rolling Stone also published Suarez’s email to Zach Klein, the COO of 51 Minds Entertainment, in which she recalled King’s behavior toward her. “[King] comes up behind me, puts his arms around me, holds me against his body, physically restraining me from leaving, and says stuff like no don’t go,” she wrote in the email. “I get out of his grip, tell him again that I have to leave, that I am not staying, and I go reach for the door knob and he comes over and puts both his hands on the door, with his whole weight, to push it shut. This whole time he’s laughing. I ask him to please let me out of the room, that I have to go. I then get a phone call from [the talent manager]. He sees and hears that I answer and he finally moves away from the door, allowing me to open it. I step outside, not even able to listen to what [the talent manager] is saying to me because I’m so overwhelmed at that point, and Gary grabs his room key, comes out of his room, again, is only in his underwear, letting the door close behind him.”

Suarez continued in her email, “Now that I’ve been able to sit down and process the situation little by little the past couple of days, I realize that I am not okay. It feels like it was taken more as a misunderstanding, than it was as a physical assault/sexual harassment… My feelings/emotions about what happened feel diminished. I can’t help but think, had it been a crew member, it would have been handled differently. I honestly feel quite traumatized by the whole situation.”

Suarez also claimed that an HR representative for 51 Minds’ parent company, Banijay America, told her not to talk about the incident with other crew  members because “it was becoming water cooler talk” on the set and it seemed like Suarez was “trying to rally the troops” against the show. After the incident, Suarez claimed that she only saw King in passing a couple times, but never directly interacted or communicated to him.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Gary King (@king_gk)

Another crew member, who remained anonymous because they still work on Below Deck, told Rolling Stone that they’ve also witnessed King “constantly” make women on set feel uncomfortable. “He’s next-level scary with women,” they said. A second crew member, who also remained anonymous, told Rolling Stone that they witnessed King grab a female cast member’s butt and touch her inappropriately even though she said, “No.” The crew member also claimed that, while filming at a beach club in Sardinia, they saw King grab another crew member’s genitals. The crew member alleged that they reported the issue on a walkie talkie to the control room with producers and heard no response back. “The girl was literally saying, ‘No, stop, don’t,’” the crew member says. “I’m explaining this over my walkie and no one’s acknowledging it.”

The crew member continued, “It was insane. There were multiple incidents of sexual harassment in front of multiple producers after this person had been given verbal warnings multiple times.” The crew member also claimed that the incidents were filmed but didn’t air on Bravo. “I had to promote and make this guy who just assaulted someone look awesome,” the crew member said. “That was my job, to make this person look cool, capable, and exciting.”

Suarez, for her part, also accused production of not doing enough to hold King accountable. “You’re an executive producer on the show and you’re not even worried that your cast member put his hands on me and is being a creep currently while being on TV?” Suarez said. “Somebody shouldn’t be able to keep a platform for being a gross creep.”

She continued, “Nobody knew how to handle [my situation] and I think that’s why it was handled so poorly, because nobody knew what to do or what the right thing to do was. I was told there weren’t any protocols and the only thing was to reach out to HR but even then, nothing was really happening. Why can’t you just get on TV and be like, ‘Gary had to be removed from the show for his misconduct?’ If anything, that would make me respect the producers and the show and everything a lot more if they were just honest instead of trying to sweep things under the rug, which is what feels like happened.”

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<p>Nancy Lee Grahn, who plays Alexis Davis on General Hospital, would definitely stir the pot if she was on The Real Housewives. Anyone who follows her on social media knows she is very outspoken and not afraid of confrontation. She’d likely become the center of some kind of controversy before long because of what she might say.</p>

<p>Katherine Kelly Lang, who plays Brooke Logan on Bold & Beautiful, already owns a Beverly Hill boutique, Benheart. Seeing many of the other housewives also have their own boutiques and fashion lines, she would be a perfect fit! It would also be delicious to see how her on-screen rivalry with Shauna Fulton, played by Denise Richards, translates off-screen.</p>

<p>Young & Restless’ Michelle Stafford has her own skincare line, Skin Nation, so we think she’d fit in perfectly with the other housewives. She’s also raising her children on her own, something she could bond with Kyle Richards, who was also raised by a single mother. Richards’ mom even became manager to two of her daughters, Kyle and Kim Richards, who became child actresses.</p>

<p>Sure Chrishell Stause is already starring in Netflix’s Selling Sunset, but many of the other housewives juggle other projects. And seeing the drama she’s gone through this past year with her marriage to This is Us’ Justin Hartley falling apart, she could really let loose and get crazy as a Beverly Hills housewife. Plus she knows how to deal with snarky women already as we’ve seen on her Netflix show. </p>

<p>With Kristian Alfonso out as Hope Brady on Days of our Lives, perhaps The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills could be her next gig. Plus it would reunite her with her former co-star Lisa Rinna, who played Billie Reed and one of Hope’s biggest rivals for Bo Brady’s love and attention. Days of our Lives fans would eat up seeing how these two interact off-screen. </p>

<p>General Hospital’s Kelly Monaco (Sam McCall) is no stranger to reality television, having competed twice on Dancing with the Stars and appearing on the short-lived series Dirty Soap. We imagine Monaco would be a more calm and down to earth housewife, probably someone who would connect with Teddi Mellencamp. Of course when push comes to shove, we could see her turning into a real firework if need be.</p>

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<p>Laura Wright, who plays Carly Corinthos on General Hospital, would fit right in on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She and her former husband owned a winery, and the women on the show definitely love their wine. She also likes to remain fit and active but also is trained in meditation, so perhaps she can help the ladies find some inner peace at tense times. Of course, playing one of the biggest hypocrites on General Hospital, she hopefully has a lot of experience spotting one in real life. </p>

<p>Jacqueline MacInnes Wood plays a fashion designer Steffy Forrester on Bold & Beautiful, so we think she’d fit right in with the other fashionistas on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Being the mother of a one-year-old, she’d probably bond with Teddi Mellencamp, who is pregnant with her third child, and Dorit Kemsley who also has two small children.</p>

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'Below Deck' Crew Member Accuses 'Sailing Yacht' Star Gary King of Sexual Misconduct

Former 'Below Deck' production team member Samantha Suarez alleges King forced himself on her and refused to let her leave a hotel room while filming the Bravo reality series 'Below Deck Sailing Yacht'

Below Deck Sailing Yacht 's Gary King has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former Below Deck production team member.

Samantha Suarez first joined Below Deck as part of the makeup department on the Bravo series' original Caribbean-based franchise during its 10th season . In the summer of 2022, she worked behind the scenes on Sailing Yacht 's fourth season . During that time, she alleges King, 34, forced himself on her while the show filmed in Sardinia, Italy.

Fred Jagueneau/Bravo via Getty

As part of her responsibilities, Suarez helped the production’s talent manager with day-to-day tasks. During one "dark" day when the on-camera crew members were recording confessional interviews rather than being filmed working on the boat, she says she was tasked with escorting King, who had been drinking alcohol, back to his hotel room.

“There is no limit to alcohol consumption whatsoever, which I think poses a really big problem,” Suarez told Rolling Stone .

Suarez described King's behavior as erratic, including yelling from his balcony to his costars so they could sneak out of their rooms, which was not allowed. She claims he and asked her to stay with him. She responded by joking that she would sit outside of his room to prevent him from leaving. 

Suarez says King then asked her to get in bed with him, despite knowing she was in a relationship with someone else. After leaving the room and returning with water and snacks, Suarez claims King answered the door in his underwear and asked her again not to leave. “I was like, ‘I have to go — I need to go bring other people water and food,’ and he’s like, ‘No, no, please,’” Suarez recalled. “So I stepped into the room to set the case of waters down and again, he’s repeating, ‘Don’t leave,’ and I was like, ‘I have to go, I’m not staying.’”

As Suarez attempted to exit the hotel room, the Rolling Stone report alleges that “King came up behind her, grabbed her, pressed her against his body, and refused to let go of her even though she says she tried to kick and elbow him to get him off her.”

Suarez claims she was able to evade King, but she alleges he slammed the door shut from behind her when she attempted to leave. “At that point, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was freaking out. It just happened so fast,” she told Rolling Stone .

She said the interaction was interrupted when she received a phone call from a talent manager and King allowed her to leave to answer the call in the hallway.  

“I’m freaking out, and he goes, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘Just leave me alone,’” she claimed. “He tried to come up behind me and put his arm around me.”

She alleged, “He’s in the hallway in his underwear and it’s all weird and f--- up, and so I’m just like, ‘Just go back in your room and don’t come out.’”

Suarez claims she immediately told producers about the incident. She said she was longer comfortable around King and didn’t want to do his hair or makeup anymore. In response, producers allegedly removed King from the hotel and instructed him to sleep on the boat. 

“It pretty much sucked from there on out. I was just in a super depressive state,” said Suarez.

Fred Jagueneau/Bravo

In response to the allegation, a Bravo spokesperson tells PEOPLE, “Bravo is committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows. We require our third-party production companies to have appropriate workplace policies and trainings in place and a clear process on how to report concerns. The concerns Ms. Suarez raised in July 2022 were investigated at that time and action was taken based on the findings.” 

PEOPLE also reached out to  Below Deck ’s production company 51 Minds Entertainment, which issued a statement to Rolling Stone : “51 Minds is committed to providing an environment in which every member of the casts and crews on our productions feel respected and, most importantly, safe. 51 Minds provides mandatory harassment and sensitivity training for every series it produces at the outset of each new season and lays out a clear process on how and to whom to report any questionable activity.” 

The statement continued, “With any complaint filed, a timely investigation is launched and, based on the findings, appropriate actions are implemented to ensure the safety of our cast and crew, up to and including termination. With regard to the incident reported by Ms. Suarez involving Mr. King, the case was investigated and reviewed as soon as it was submitted, and production acted accordingly based on the results.”

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In addition to Suarez, Rolling Stone spoke to three other crew members who told the publication that King acted inappropriately toward women on set.

One crew member — who chose to remain anonymous — told the publication that they alleged that King grabbed a female cast member’s bottom and continued to touch her inappropriately even when she told him no. He was also allegedly caught grabbing the genitals of a production crew member and a male camera operator.

“It was insane. There were multiple incidents of sexual harassment in front of multiple producers after this person had been given verbal warnings multiple times,” the eye witness claimed. According to another crew member, King was “next-level scary with women.”

PEOPLE has reached out to King, who had not yet publicly commented on the allegations at time of publication.

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Gary King joined the brand new cast of  Below Deck: Sailing Yacht  for season two in early March. He wasn't the only new crew member to join the show, as the only returning cast member from season one was Captain Glenn Shephard . Gary was named the first mate of the boat and works alongside deckhands Sydney Zaruba and Jean-Luc Cerza Lanaux. Even though Gary may expect nothing but perfection from his teams, he always knows when it is time to let loose and have a little fun.

Arriving on the Parsifal III in Croatia in the premiere episode was nothing new to Gary. He has been working in the yachting industry for more than 12 years as a first mate and a captain on smaller boats. Gary tries his best to not get distracted at work, but crew drama can sometimes get the best of him, especially now that he put himself in the middle of a love triangle with Sydney and Alli Dore.

Related:  Below Deck: Daisy Reveals Causes Behind the Crew's Frequent Clashes

According to  Reality Titbit , Gary was born and raised in South Africa, but moved to New Zealand at an unknown time. At the age of 18, the first mate traveled to Europe during a gap year and ended up accepting his first job on a yacht. He started in the yachting industry as a way to make easy money, but ended up enjoying the work and has been traveling the world ever since. Some of the places Gary has traveled to for work include Spain, Greece, Cuba, Italy, New Zealand, and Norway. Through his experience, Gary has been able to captain smaller boats and run the deck on several busy superyachts. His 12 years of experience on the exterior of a boat have been apparent in the way he runs his deck team on the show.

On the show, Gary has shown how exceptional he is at his job as the first mate. However, he tends to lack self-control, especially when it comes to dating the crew. By the end of the second episode, Gary had already hooked up with one of the crew members – his deckhand, Sydney. The pair work closely together throughout the day, so the tension between them was definitely felt by the rest of the crew. However, Gary wasn't really interested in Sydney and was hoping he could develop a closer bond with the third stewardess, Alli. Now that he and Alli have cemented a romantic relationship, emotions are high between Gary, Alli, and Sydney. Hopefully, his mishap doesn't put Gary's job in jeopardy.

Gary has been in the yachting industry for over a decade, so it is no surprise he has been successful during his time on  Below Deck: Sailing Yacht . He has been working on boats since he was a teenager, and it seems as though he does not plan on leaving the industry anytime soon. Plus, the drama he brings as a playboy makes him all the more attractive to Bravo. As for whether or not he will make it to season three, only time will tell.

Next:  Below Deck: Cast Members Who Got Fired Through The Seasons

Below Deck: Sailing Yacht  airs Mondays at 9 pm ET on Bravo.

Sources:  Reality Titbit , Gary King (Instagram)

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Below Deck: Sailing Yacht star Gary King accused of sexual misconduct by production member

A Bravo spokesperson said the network is "committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows."

The Below Deck franchise is once again being buffeted by a sexual misconduct scandal.

According to a new Rolling Stone report , a production member on Below Deck: Sailing Yacht has accused cast member Gary King of trying to force himself on her during the making of the Bravo reality show's fourth season, which filmed in Italy last year.

Samantha Suarez, a makeup artist who also assisted a talent manager with day-to-day tasks like bringing food and water to cast members, told the magazine that she first met King, the first mate of superyacht Parsifal III , at the hotel in Sardinia that served as a home base of sorts for the show. One day during the season, Suarez said she accompanied an inebriated King back to his hotel room after he filmed interviews for the show.

While cast members were supposed to remain sequestered due to COVID protocols and a desire to preserve authenticity in their interactions, Suarez said King was trying to break isolation to spend time with his castmates, so she attempted to keep him confined to his room. When she attempted to leave to assist other cast members, Suarez said King asked her to stay and told her she should join him in bed. Suarez said that after she left and later returned to deliver snacks and water, she found King in his underwear, and he once again asked her to remain in his room with him.

"I was like, 'I have to go — I need to go bring other people water and food,' and he's like, 'No, no, please,'" Suarez told Rolling Stone . "So I stepped into the room to set the case of waters down and again, he's repeating, 'Don't leave,' and I was like, 'I have to go, I'm not staying.'"

Suarez said King then grabbed her in an attempt to stop her from leaving, prompting her to "kick and elbow him" in order to escape.

Suarez said she immediately contacted an HR representative, who told her that the company would conduct an investigation into the incident. However, Suarez said the HR rep discouraged her from discussing the encounter because "it was becoming water cooler talk" on set. According to Suarez, King was eventually removed from the hotel and instructed to sleep on the boat for the rest of the season.

Two other crew members, who requested to remain anonymous, attested to Rolling Stone that King was "constantly" making women on set uncomfortable, and that "He's next-level scary with women." The crew members also said they'd heard Suarez's account while the season was filming.

King declined to comment to Rolling Stone . After season 4 finished airing last month, he wrote in an Instagram post , "we all know that #belowdecksailing season 4 wasn't my best, and I know that and will work towards being a better person. With saying that I still had a great time with everyone."

A Bravo spokesperson said Thursday in a statement provided to EW, "Bravo is committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows. We require our third-party production companies to have appropriate workplace policies and trainings in place and a clear process on how to report concerns. The concerns Ms. Suarez raised in July 2022 were investigated at that time and action was taken based on the findings."

51 Minds Entertainment, the production company behind Below Deck , didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment. A spokesperson told Rolling Stone , "51 Minds is committed to providing an environment in which every member of the casts and crews on our productions feel respected and, most importantly, safe. 51 Minds provides mandatory harassment and sensitivity training for every series it produces at the outset of each new season and lays out a clear process on how and to whom to report any questionable activity."

The spokesperson added, "With any complaint filed, a timely investigation is launched and, based on the findings, appropriate actions are implemented to ensure the safety of our cast and crew, up to and including termination. With regard to the incident reported by Ms. Suarez involving Mr. King, the case was investigated and reviewed as soon as it was submitted, and production acted accordingly based on the results."

The Rolling Stone report comes on the heels of two cast members on sister show Below Deck Down Under being fired for inappropriate behavior . As chronicled on a recent episode, bosun Luke Jones was terminated after entering the bed of an unconscious castmate while Jones was naked, and second stewardess Laura Bileskalne was axed after making multiple unwanted advances toward a castmate.

Related content:

• The politics of Below Deck
• Below Deck Down Under crew members Luke and Laura fired for inappropriate behavior
• Is Below Deck Sailing Yacht 's Gary a hero, a villain, or just a very capable first mate?

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Below Deck ’s Gary King Accused of Sexual Misconduct

It’s been a torrid season for Below Deck . On-camera sexual assault resulted in cast members being removed from the show , and, now, a different cast member, Gary King, is being accused of sexual misconduct off-camera. Samantha Suarez, a former makeup artist on the original show who assisted talent managers on Sailing Yacht , told Rolling Stone that King sexually assaulted her during the filming of season four of the spinoff. Suarez says King attempted to coerce her into staying in his room while drunk, and, later, when she didn’t comply, he allegedly “refused to let go of her even though she says she tried to kick and elbow him to get him off her,” according to the report.

Suarez reportedly told the producers of the show the next day. King was then removed from the hotel and slept on the yacht while not shooting. HR later arranged for Suarez to have counseling, but asked her not to speak to other members of the production team about the assault. Suarez says that the producers offered to fire King from the show, but left the decision up to her, which she does not approve of, especially since she didn’t have the agency to enforce that decision, if made. “Bravo is committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows,” reads a statement to RS. “We require our third-party production companies to have appropriate workplace policies and trainings in place and a clear process on how to report concerns. The concerns Ms. Suarez raised in July 2022 were investigated at that time and action was taken based on the findings.” 51 Minds Entertainment, the show’s production company, stated “the case was investigated and reviewed as soon as it was submitted, and production acted accordingly based on the results.”

Other members of the production team corroborated that King is known on set for his bad behavior. “He’s next-level scary with women,” a source told RS . He is reported to have grabbed women inappropriately and not taken producers’ orders to stop seriously. “It was insane. There were multiple incidents of sexual harassment in front of multiple producers after this person had been given verbal warnings multiple times,” a source said. His official cast bio on NBC reads , “He brims with mischievous charm but his flirtation gets him in hot water on and off deck.”

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‘Below Deck’ Star Out of BravoCon After Rolling Stone Exposé

By Krystie Lee Yandoli

Krystie Lee Yandoli

On the heels of BravoCon in Las Vegas this weekend, Below Deck Sailing Yacht cast member Gary King posted a message on Instagram alluding to the sexual misconduct allegations against him published in a Rolling Stone investigation , saying he was “canceled because of a lie.” He also said in the comments that he won’t be attending BravoCon.

“It’s sad that people will do anything in their power to bring you down. It’s not about how you fall but how you get up,” King wrote. “Luckily for me the fall was into a sea of daisies.” King then wrote a series of hashtags, including: “#iwascancelledbecauseofalie #anythingforaplatform #dontbelieveeverythingyousee #bullshitmedia #ivegotmyheadheldhigh #flowers #wakeupandsmelltheroses #worldisanuglyplace #iwouldneverdothat #belowdeck #belowdecksailing #onwardsandupwards.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Gary King (@king_gk)

Representatives for Bravo declined to comment.

Then on August 24, Rolling Stone published a story about how members of Below Deck Sailing Yacht production said they experienced and witnessed sexual harassment and misconduct from King behind the scenes. Samantha Suarez, who worked in the makeup department of Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season Four and also assisted the talent manager with day-to-day tasks, said King tried to force himself on her during production. In emails reviewed by Rolling Stone , Suarez detailed the incident to producers as well as an HR representative for Banijay America, the parent company of 51 Minds Entertainment, which produces the Emmy-nominated reality series.

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Following the Rolling Stone investigation , King was removed from the lineup of BravoCon attendees. King will not be present at any of the Vegas events and the BravoCon site does not include him in any scheduled events, even though his fellow cast members Captain Glenn Shephard, Daisy Kelliher , and Colin MacRae will be in attendance. 

In addition to the written caption King shared on Instagram on Thursday, King also responded to multiple comments that people left on his post. One user asked King if he was going to BravoCon to which he replied, “that is a no :(.” Some of King’s Below Deck Sailing Yacht cast members also responded to his recent post. Chef Ileisha Dell wrote, “Love this.” Captain Glenn Shephard also commented on the post with a thumbs up and smiley face with sunglasses emojis. “Love you cap,” King responded with a heart emoji.

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‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht’ star Gary King accused of sexually assaulting staffers: ‘He’s next-level scary’

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“Below Deck Sailing Yacht” star Gary King has been accused of sexually assaulting a staffer on the show by trying “to force himself” on her.

Samantha Suarez, who joined “Below Deck” in the makeup department on Season 10 of the original Bravo reality series, said in an interview published Thursday that the incident occurred last summer during production on Season 4 of the “Sailing Yacht” spinoff.

Suarez, 27, told Rolling Stone that she met King when the cast and crew arrived in Sardinia, Italy, to begin shooting.

She said the crew stayed at a hotel for the duration of filming, and cast members would join them prior to going on the yacht as well as on their off days.

During one off day in July 2022, Suarez — who also worked alongside a talent manager with daily tasks including bringing food and water to cast members — said she accompanied an allegedly inebriated King back to his hotel room after filming.

“There is no limit to alcohol consumption whatsoever, which I think poses a really big problem,” she told the magazine.

Suarez remembered King, 35, “behaving erratically” when she brought him to his room, yelling from his balcony to his castmates so they could sneak out of their rooms — which was not allowed.

Suarez claimed King begged her not to leave his room, and she joked that she would sit outside the door to prevent him from leaving.

She then alleged that King asked her to get in bed with him, although he was aware that she was in a relationship with someone else.

Suarez then left the Bravolebrity’s room but later returned with snacks and water. That’s when she claims he answered the door wearing just his underwear. When he took the case of water from her, he allegedly asked her not to leave his room again.

“I was like, ‘I have to go — I need to go bring other people water and food,’ and he’s like, ‘No, no, please,’” Suarez told Rolling Stone. “So I stepped into the room to set the case of waters down and again, he’s repeating, ‘Don’t leave,’ and I was like, ‘I have to go, I’m not staying.’”

Suarez said that when she turned toward the door, King allegedly “came up behind her, grabbed her, pressed her against his body and refused to let go of her” even though she tried to “kick and elbow him to get him off her.”

She said that once she was able to get out of his grasp, she tried to leave out the door, but King allegedly slammed it shut from behind her.

“At that point, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was freaking out,” she recalled. “It just happened so fast.”

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But at that time, Suarez said, she received a phone call from the talent manager. She claimed that’s when King let go of the door and she was able to get into the hallway to answer the call.

“I’m freaking out, and he goes, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘Just leave me alone,'” she said.

“He tried to come up behind me and put his arm around me. He’s in the hallway in his underwear, and it’s all weird and f–ked up, and so I’m just like, ‘Just go back in your room and don’t come out.’”

Suarez said she immediately told producers what allegedly occurred with King. The following day, she said, she no longer felt comfortable working with him, and the producers allegedly assured her that King would be fired if any more incidents took place.

Producers then reportedly removed King from the hotel, and he was instructed to sleep on the boat for the duration of filming.

“It pretty much sucked from there on out,” Suarez said. “I was just in a super depressive state.”

Suarez shared that she stayed in her hotel room for a week following the alleged incident and even debated leaving the show altogether.

In response, a spokesperson for Bravo says in a statement to Page Six, “Bravo is committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows. We require our third-party production companies to have appropriate workplace policies and trainings in place and a clear process on how to report concerns.

“The concerns Ms. Suarez raised in July 2022 were investigated at that time, and action was taken based on the findings.”

Page Six did not immediately hear back from “Below Deck” production company 51 Minds Entertainment.

King, meanwhile, declined to comment on the mag’s bombshell story.

Rolling Stone also spoke to other crew members who claimed King allegedly made women feel uncomfortable on set.

“He’s next-level scary with women,” one alleged.

Another crew member — who wanted to remain anonymous — told the publication that they allegedly witnessed King grab a female cast member’s butt and touch her inappropriately even when she asked him to stop. He was also allegedly caught grabbing the genitals of a production crew member and a male camera operator.

“It was insane. There were multiple incidents of sexual harassment in front of multiple producers after this person had been given verbal warnings multiple times,” the anonymous crew member claimed.

Earlier this month, Bravo and NBC made headlines for being accused of subjecting their reality stars to “grotesque and depraved mistreatment.”

In a legal letter obtained by Page Six, attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos claimed the networks ply their talent with “alcohol while depriving them of food and sleep,” deny mental health treatment for those displaying “obvious and alarming signs of mental deterioration” and cover up “acts of sexual violence.”

An NBCUniversal spokesperson responded by saying it is “committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows,” echoing Bravo’s statement.

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'Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Gary King Explains Jealousy of Daisy Kelliher & Colin Macrae's Romance (Exclusive)

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There are rough seas ahead for the crew of Parsifal III... but mostly of the proverbial kind, as the cast of  Below Deck Sailing Yacht  navigates an unexpected love triangle!

After three years of working together and keeping things mostly platonic (save for one drunken make-out session in a hot tub), chief stewardess Daisy Kelliher finds herself caught between first mate Gary King and chief engineer Colin Macrae. Season 4 is Colin's first as a single man, creating a dynamic Gary couldn't have anticipated. 

"Now, I'm shooting myself in the foot," Gary admits to ET of not pursuing Daisy in their first two seasons together. "Daisy and I have had a connection -- well, I certainly believe so, for many years -- and I think there's chemistry there and ... it certainly hit me. I was like, wow. I've had my chance to get with Daisy, I didn't take my chance, and now she's hooking up with Colin and I'm jealous over it. So, it's quite a contradiction, but it's just how I felt really."

"Looking back now, after the season, going back to previous seasons, season 2 and 3 , you can kinda see there was maybe a connection between Daisy and Colin," he confesses. "I certainly noticed it."

Daisy's been clear: had Gary wanted her, he should've pursued her in the two years they knew one another before Colin expressed interest in her. 

"I guess I didn't shoot my shot just knowing we live two different lives," he confesses. "I guess that could be my only reason, and I've never believed in long distance. I've tried that, it didn't work out, and I'd said I'd never do that again. ... Daisy and I see each other for maybe two months a year, and I don't think that's a feasible relationship."

While the whole ordeal caused some personal strain among the "dream team" trio, Captain Glenn Shephard says it didn't trickle into their work.

"I'm glad that they kind of police themselves," he chuckles. "Our crew in general are pretty good at being discrete."

"Some of this crazy stuff that happens on this show, I don't see it until it's on air, like, six or nine months later, you know?" he remarks. "I didn't know about Daisy and Colin right at the beginning; I knew a little bit later on, but again and that's a testament to them just keeping it-- obviously, these guys know, but they do a pretty good job, like, I don't think the guests are clueing into it, at least not at the beginning."

While there's a bit of a rivalry set to play out on the episodes still to air, Gary says he's all good with Daisy and Colin today.

"Me and Colin chat all the time," he offers. "I'm not gonna let someone get in the way of a friendship. I mean, you can see from season 2 and 3, Colin and my relationship is really, really good. Yes, it was a love triangle and yes, Colin and I do argue a little bit... I guess that's all I'm gonna say, but I think we've brushed it under the rug. Our friendship is strong enough to not let anything get in the way of it."

Seeing as Glenn couldn't weigh in on the triangle in real time, though, ET surprised him with a video message from Daisy , asking, "Team Colin or Team Gary?" 

"Don't tell him," Glenn whispers, jokingly holding his hand up to block Gary's view of him talking. "I'm probably Team Colin!"

"Jesus, I'm team Colin!" Gary cracks. 

"Gary's a mess," Glenn ribs. "Colin's a great guy. Gary’s a great guy, I love them both. They're like family. It's, you know, choosing teams is kinda like choosing your favorite kid, but Colin's a little more settled down. So, if Daisy's asking me, if she wanted to have a long-term relationship with either of these two guys who I would say, it's win-win. But if I had to choose one, I would probably say, go with Team Colin, 'cause [Gary's] got more women chasing him; it's just gonna be more difficult!"

Glenn speaks from experience in the love department; he went Instagram official with longtime love Danelis Jimenez last year, after keeping their romance a secret for most of  Below Deck Sailing Yacht 's run.

"There were reasons at the beginning that we didn't want to, personal reasons," he says of keeping his relationship under wraps, "but then things changed enough that we could say, it's time now so, you know, 'cause it was almost awkward. I would get a lot of questions about, 'Oh, are you single?' Or, 'Are you a bachelor? What is going on?'" 

Gary points out, Glenn did keep a picture of Danelis next to his bunk, which some eagle-eyed fans spotted.

"She looks younger than her age and so people, some people [would ask], 'Is that your daughter?' It's like, no...'" he shares.

Glenn says appearances by Danelis on future installments of BDSY  aren't out of the question; she certified to work aboard the vessel and helps him manage Parsifal III when cameras aren't around. She missed out on the dramatics of season 4, though, which kicked off with the boat unable to leave the dock, its engine unusable after salt water destroyed some of its mechanism. 

"I have been on that boat for 13 years, I have been doing this for 20-something years, and I never had that kind of situation, where it's really bad," Glenn laments, "but it's also, you have no idea how it can get good. You don't know if it's going to get good. You know, there's a good chance it's not going to and that puts a lot of pressure on you."

Glenn does concede that what viewers are seeing at the start of the season "is pretty much the worst," but there are more challenges to come.

"Smoke, fire scare," Gary rattles off. Gary actually missed the initial issues with the charter season, sidelined by positive COVID tests. 

"I kind of wished I had COVID at that moment," Glenn jokes. 

When Gary does arrive (in episode 3), he walks into what sounds like a chaotic scene.

"I got there early in the morning after a negative COVID test -- after a couple negative COVID tests -- and it was after a crew night out, so everyone was feeling a little bit fragile," he teases. "I walked into the crew mess, and I think it was [stewardess Lucy Edmunds] standing there with her T-shirt off, and she had these scratches down her back. I'm not sure what happened!"

"I came in with all this energy, being stuck in a hotel room, and no one was really welcoming, to be honest," he adds. "Daisy was in bed! I had to wake her up."

As for what comes after that, both Gary and Glenn promise "great guests and great sails."

"Some of the best guests we've ever had," Gary proclaims.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht  airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.

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Why Gary King Wasn’t Around for the Start of Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season 4

Captain Glenn Shephard explained why Gary's absence was a "tough one" for the rest of the crew.

Captain Glenn Shephard kicked off the charter season with a bang on the April 10 premiere of  Below Deck Sailing Yacht   Season 4 , but one notable person was missing from Parsifal III  when the crew arrived: First Mate Gary King .

How to Watch

Watch Below Deck Sailing Yacht on Peacock and the Bravo app . 

Fellow returners Daisy Kelliher and Colin MacRae  were the first crew members to greet Glenn, and the captain soon explained why Gary wasn't going to make it to Sardinia on Day one.

"So, Gary's got COVID," Captain Glenn explained in an interview on the Season 4 premiere. "It's like... pretty much the worst thing that could happen. Every day I've been hopeful that he's going to have a negative test, but he keeps testing positive."

Because the First Mate kept receiving positive tests, the Canadian captain wasn't sure yet of what Gary's fate would be on  Parsifal III. He referred to the situation as a "tough one."

"I don't know when he's coming," Captain Glenn admitted. "It sucks massively."

Is Captain Glenn Shephard Engaged? What to Know About His Relationship

Glenn's statement was proven accurate when the deckhands tried to get the vessel ready for the charter guests without anyone around to guide them. 

"We are a brand new deck crew, and we are supposed to pick up charter tomorrow without our boss on board. We're not ready," South Carolina native Chase Lemacks said on the debut episode. "I'm thinking we're kind of f----d."

Though Gary wasn't physically on the sailing yacht to help the deck team ahead of the start of the Season 4 charter season, he did appear virtually on the premiere.

While FaceTiming Captain Glenn, Gary said that he was "feeling fine" physically, but that he wished he could be on the boat to help out.

"I feel really bad not being there," he added. He called Glenn again on the morning of the first charter to confirm that he had, yet again, tested positive for COVID.  

Gary King Says He’s “Trying” to Pursue Below Deck Sailing Yacht’s Daisy Kelliher

Gary wasn't around to welcome the new crew members to  Parsifal III , but he will eventually make it on the boat, as the Season 4 trailer confirms. Once Gary does arrive, he'll be engaging in some steamy boatmances.

"My intention is not to come and hook up with a chick. I'm here to make money, have a good season, and give guests a good experience," he said in the trailer, which turns out to be partly true, as he ends up engaging in more than just one makeout. 

As for his connection with Daisy, which started when the two kissed in the hot tub on Season 3 , that will also become complicated. In the trailer, Daisy makes out with Colin, and Gary wonders if she's "spitefully hooking up" with his best friend to make him jealous.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Gary King (@king_gk)

Gary's hookups and his love triangle with Colin and Daisy will begin once he arrives on the boat.

When will Gary make it on board? You'll have to keep tuning in to  Below Deck Sailing Yacht find out.

Watch  Below Deck Sailing Yacht  on  Peacock  and the  Bravo app .

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Below Deck Franchise's 2024 Schedule Explained

• Below Deck franchise continues to dominate TV screens in 2024 with new seasons, spin-offs, and drama-filled adventures for fans.
• Expect delays in the airing schedule for Below Deck Sailing Yacht season 5 due to misconduct allegations against crew member Gary King.
• Below Deck Mediterranean season 9 is set to premiere on June 3, offering viewers thrilling drama, eccentric guests, and new challenges.

The multiple shows in the Below Deck franchise will air in the 2024 TV airing cycle; however, the schedule has changed from what fans became accustomed to in recent years. When the Original (OG) Below Deck show premiered in 2013, the reality series quickly became one of the best shows of the year. Below Deck 's unique premise of detailing the lives of crew members on a yacht during a charter season drew in an impressive 1.4 million viewers per episode.

Unsurprisingly, Below Deck quickly spurned multiple spin-offs, including Below Deck Mediterranean , Below Deck Sailing Yacht , Below Deck Down Under , and Below Deck Adventure , most of which became equally successful as the OG show. The 2024 TV airing cycle for shows in the franchise kicked off with the Below Deck season 11 premiere on February 5, 2024. Still, fans wouldn't have to wait that long as another show is lined up to premiere just weeks after the finale.

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Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season 5 Is Delayed

The new bdsy season wont air for a while..

After months of anticipation, Below Deck Sailing Yacht fans will have to wait a bit longer for season 5 to premiere, with emerging reports that Below Deck Mediterranean season 9 will take its spot in the 2024 TV airing schedule. Below Deck Sailing Yacht season 5 was expected to air after the OG Below Deck season 11 runs its course come June, but that has changed. According to reports, the new Below Deck Sailing Yacht season may have been delayed due to crew member Gary King, who was accused of misconduct during Below Deck Sailing Yacht season 4.

A makeup artist who also worked on the show, Samantha Suarez, accused Gary of making inappropriate moves on her in a hotel room. Although Gary came out to deny the allegations, producers may edit Gary out of the new season or cancel it altogether. While the Below Deck Sailing Yacht crew has been dropping hints about filming another season in the past couple of months, in addition to some on-set leaked pictures, there have been no reports of an official casting or an airing date for Below Deck Sailing Yacht season 5.

Below Deck Mediterranean Season 9 Is Next

Fans will be getting a lot of below deck med.

Below Deck Mediterranean will return to the screens for its ninth season on June 3 , just five months after the season 8 finale. Since its debut, Below Deck Med has brought in substantial viewership numbers and the ratings for season 8 were also impressive. Below Deck Med season 8 featured all the traits that have made the show a favorite in recent years, with love triangles, an early exit, and fiery crew drama. Still, Captain Sandy Yawn will once again return to the helm of the yacht Mystique as she and her crew cruise through Athens, Greece.

Aesha Scott will return to Below Deck Med Season 9 as Chief Stew after her previous stint on the show as Second Stew during Season 4. Elena Dubaich will also return to the show as a stew after filling in for former crew member Kyle Viljoen during Below Deck Med season 7. According to the preview, Below Deck Med season 9 is set to be another dramatic season featuring strange guests and never-before medical and mechanical issues.

When Will Below Deck Down Under Season 3 Air?

Below deck down unders return date is still unknown.

Since its debut, Below Deck Down Under has become a fan favorite, and after the dramatic events of season 2, the show has been renewed for a third season (via Premiere Date ). However, despite its renewal announcement, the premiere date of the new season has not been announced yet . The last two seasons of the show premiered during the Winter TV schedule, but that changed in 2024. Under the direction of Captain Jason Chambers, Below Deck Down Under crew members have been praised for positively portraying their personal lives and challenges faced during a charter season.

However, that almost changed during season 2 when bosun Luke Jones climbed into the third stew Margot Sisson's bed absolutely naked. Second stew Laura Bileskalne also entered deckhand Adam Kodra's room despite his protest, climbed into his bed without consent, and attempted to give him a massage before producers kicked her out. Luke and Laura were immediately fired by Captain Jason , who later revealed NBC and Bravo would put some new guidelines in place to prevent similar events from occurring (via Yahoo! ).

When Will Below Deck Season 12 Premiere?

New season of below deck is already in production.

The OG Below Deck returned to the screens for a historic eleventh season on February 5, 2024. With Captain Kerry Titheradge taking over at the helm after Captain Lee Rosbach's exit, the show has been delivering on its promise of another drama-filled adventure with just two episodes left before its May 20 finale. Nonetheless, Below Deck seems to have been renewed for its twelfth season after fans spotted Captain Kerry piloting the St. David on Simpson Bay Bridge in Sint Maarten.

Alongside Captain Kerry, who waved at photographers, fans also spotted Sunny Marquis, which indicated the filming of Below Deck season 12 was truly underway . Still, there haven't been any official announcements about when Below Deck season 12 will premiere, but the debut will definitely take some time, considering the crew is currently filming. However, with several Below Deck spin-offs lined up to premiere during the coming months, fans might have to wait till early 2025 before the OG show returns to the screens.

What Happened To Below Deck Adventure?

Below deck adventure might be getting the axe.

Below Deck Adventure premiered in 2022, promising to be another standout spin-off; however, the show failed to meet the high expectations both fans and the producers had set for it. For one, the show's cast hugely underperformed, with deckhand Kyle Dickard being fired after just three episodes. Meanwhile, Chief Stew Faye was criticized for being too bossy , and fans found Chef Jessica Condy's drama with crew mates unnecessary. Due to how unimpressive the first couple of episodes were, ratings for Below Deck Adventure plummeted and didn't recover for the rest of the season.

Since the season 1 finale, no new information has been released about Below Deck Adventure, and there are signs the show might not be getting another season.

Since the season 1 finale, no new information has been released about Below Deck Adventure , and there are signs the show might not be getting another season. Captain Kerry Titheradge, one of the standouts of the debut season, has been moved on to the OG Below Deck show. While other shows in the franchise have aired at least once, there has been no space for Below Deck Adventure in the yearly TV schedule , and it looks like it might be the first show in the franchise to be canceled.

Below Deck airs Monday at 9 p.m. EDT on Bravo, then streams the following day on Peacock.

Sources: Premiere Date , Yahoo!

Below Deck is a popular reality TV franchise that focuses on a group of crew members as they work on luxurious yachts and cater to their client's needs. After the original series proved to be a success, Bravo developed a handful of spinoff shows including Below Deck Selling Yacht, Below Deck Adventure, Below Deck Down Under, and Below Deck Mediterranean.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht (2020)

Read up on the latest Below Deck Sailing Yacht News, Reviews and Features from the team at Collider.

Below Deck Sailing Yacht

In a reality TV series, a crew aboard a luxury sailing yacht navigates the challenges of providing five-star service to affluent guests while managing personal dynamics and the unpredictable nature of the sea. Each episode reveals a blend of high-seas adventure and behind-the-scenes drama among the crew members.

‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht' Season 1 Almost Sank the Series

The first season of 'BDSY' traveled some rough seas.

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Sybaris: How Perini Navi brought a yachting dream to life

Art-loving, sailing-obsessed yacht owner Bill Duker has poured his life’s passions into Sybaris . Marilyn Mower tours this ground-breaking and life-changing 70 metre ketch

“When my son, West, was about seven years old, I bought a Palmer Johnson sailing yacht named Shanakee . We would go sailing and imagine what our perfect yacht would be like. With friends who helped us refine the dream over 20 years, the boat became our daily conversation. So more than the creating of a high performance yacht, more than the creation of a work of art, it’s been the thing that’s bonded me and my son.”

These words are from Bill Duker’s address to the guests assembled in Viareggio to celebrate the completion of Sybaris , Duker’s Perini Navi ketch, which, at 70 metres, is the largest sailing yacht launched in Italy to date. It is not a coincidence that the yacht’s name is the same as that ancient Italian city-state known for wealth and a lifestyle of extreme luxury and pleasure seeking. “I have three passions — art, poetry and sailing. This boat combines all three,” he says.

Take a closer look at the 70 metre sailing superyacht Sybaris . Photos: Giuliano Sargentini

Duker is a softly spoken, amiable man who likes projects and enticing people to be creative and thorough. Witness his push for R&D at Perini Navi. As Burak Akgül, managing director of sales, marketing and design, says: “We began talking to the client in 2010 at about the time we had committed to move from the 56 metre to the 60 metre model. We developed this fully custom all aluminium hull interpretation of the 60 especially for him. It has serious performance capability, compared with other recent launches. On a scale of Seahawk to P2 , it’s more like P2 .”

So determined was he to wring every bit of performance out of Perini, Duker brought naval architect Philippe Briand into the mix to evaluate and fine tune the builder’s design work. “The design of the yacht existed, the GA existed and the initial naval architectural plans had been drawn,” says Briand. “The specifications, the main dimensions, the displacement, the centres of gravity and the height of the masts, as well as draught, [had been] defined and approved by the owner. For the final stages, we worked on the hull lines, the appendages and the sailplan. It is a bigger intellectual challenge to [re]design the existing [hull] for tomorrow as opposed to start from scratch.”

In 2012, Briand’s office conducted CFD tests of the hull lines and made 37 changes, including modifying the waterline length and wetted surface and redrawing the bow and stern shapes. The swing keel and single rudder were optimised, as was the vessel’s stability versus overall weight.

Calling the owner a forward-thinking man with very modern tastes, Perini design chief Franco Romani said the brief for Sybaris challenged his team “to create a new interpretation of their design language. The near vertical bow combined with the low profile superstructure has resulted in a new look for Perini.”

Perhaps the biggest change was moving the mizzen mast back 3.3 metres to improve airflow over the mizzen sail for more driving force and to create space for a mizzen staysail. This sail, flown in apparent winds of 50 to 100 degrees, adds 0.6 knots of speed. “It wasn’t our intention to design a racing yacht,” says Briand, “but we can guarantee Sybaris is a cruising yacht with the potential of sailing excitement.”

In its turn, Perini upped the performance of its electric furling drums and captive sheeting winches, delivering speeds beyond those of its previous benchmark, Seahawk . The powerful sailplan on Sybaris uses North Sails’ 3Di technology and relies on two carbon fibre masts stretching 71.59 metres and 60.96 metres above the water, supplied by Rondal, with Carbolink composite stays and Kevlar running rigging. Controlled by Perini’s latest generation electric winches and software, the system allows the yacht to be sailed entirely from the cockpit consoles.

Sybaris is also breaking new ground for the builder in terms of power management. Two variable speed generators supply electrical power via a DC bus to the vessel’s main electrical grid with the potential to store excess power in a 137kWh lithium polymer battery pack that provides two to three hours of silent operation capability, according to Akgül.

Repositioning the mizzen mast also improves the flow of the main and flybridge deck layouts as it shifts the bottom of the mizzen spar away from the aft glass doors of the main saloon, allowing a large, round dining table to take pride of place under the flybridge overhang. The table is milled from titanium, its base looking like a geared drum and its top scribing a rose petal pattern matched in the overhead — a nod to Duker’s estate, Rosehill, near Albany, New York.

In fact, nearly all the exposed metal on Sybaris is bead-blasted titanium or a smoky bronze. “We chose titanium for the way it looks against the natural American ash millwork, and because the owner wanted something fresh and different,” says Peter Hawrylewicz of PH Design . Although this Miami-based architect and designer is new to yacht design, Sybaris is his 12th project for Duker. Yet she didn’t start out as his project.

“We knew he was interviewing designers and, because it was a yacht, we didn’t consider that he would consider us. One night he took my partner and me to dinner and asked what we thought about taking on the Sybaris project. It was a big surprise. The interior company, Genesis Yachtline , had already been given the contract for the joinery and built-ins,” Hawrylewicz recalls. “Knowing how long Bill had been thinking of this boat was daunting.”

The brief was fairly simple: a neutral path. “Even though we didn’t know all the works of art yet, we knew the interior of Sybaris would be lavished with art from the owner’s contemporary collection and this set the theme,” said the architect. “That also ramped up the pressure on developing the lighting plan. We began developing that plan from the first sketches,” Hawrylewicz says, “selecting the amount and type of lighting we wanted first.”

Aside from major statement fixtures such as chandeliers and sconces, which were designed by Lindsey Adelman, Hawrylewicz developed the fixtures such as the wall washers and down lights that fit in architectural recesses next to each door. By directing light away from the intersection of surfaces butting against walls or ceilings, for example, and by leaving tiny gaps instead, he’s created a sensation of even more space, as if there is something behind the gap that you can’t see.

“The team at Perini was an amazing mentor to us,” says Ken Lieber of PH Design. Interestingly, it was Genesis Yachtline’s first Perini project as well. All furniture and surfaces were built offsite and finished before being taken to the yacht for assembly.

Sybaris updates strong features of the Perini Navi design DNA both inside and out. On deck, for example, the recessed cockpit aft of the saloon is still an engaging outdoor living/dining space, but the sweep of terraced steps to it flows beautifully and emphasises the luxury of space that the extra 10 metres delivers. All the furniture, including the bronze end tables with slab marble tops, are from the team at PH Design.

The saloon is open plan, with no structural supports blocking the views. This is no mean feat since there is the load of an 18 metre superyacht sundeck above and the torque of the mainsheet to defuse. The forward bulkhead divides the guest areas from the superyacht wheelhouse , butler’s pantry and the crew stairs to the galley and their quarters.

There are no built-in cabinets in the saloon on Sybaris . Instead four groupings of bureaus, looking like steampunk versions of Louis Vuitton steamer trunks covered in alligator hide, are attached to the walls by titanium straps. The drawers hold glassware and crockery. For handrails around the room, teak batons within titanium turnbuckles add a vintage nautical theme. A dining table is anchored by an ambitious Adelman chandelier and a Ron English Guernica-esque painting commissioned by Duker. Wool and silk carpets by SHIIR of Chicago appear as mirror images in their soft grey and bronze pattern.

The overheads throughout Sybaris are soft matt titanium. Because the cambered overheads on the main deck are 2.1 metres high at window level, the darker material does not cramp the room. It softly reflects and diffuses light and adds a certain liveliness.

“Titanium was entirely Bill’s idea,” says Hawrylewicz. “He said ‘I want to do metal ceilings’ and I thought he meant a thin sheet of painted material, but no, he meant real titanium sheets.” These are rendered in large squares with nearly seamless joints. Titanium, for all its fireproofness and anti-corrosion capability, proved to be a tough material for the yard.

Welded joints tend to leave keloid scars and in the end there was only one subcontractor who could finish the work, from deck rails to the tiny piercings of the overheads for speakers, to both the builder’s and owner’s satisfaction. “If you can dream it, Perini will find a way to build it,” says Duker. “To me, that challenge is why you build a boat.”

Perini Navi aficionados will recall that a superyacht staircase amidships on centreline is the typical access from the saloon to the accommodation for owner and guests. There have been versions with landings, versions with multiple access points and even a spiral. Sybaris delivers a straight fore and aft run of steps but, like the IM Pei pyramid at the Louvre, the staircase is also the way that light — and in this case an epic amount of it — is ushered below to the accommodation lobby, from where all the cabins are entered through very hip titanium-clad submarine doors, with the logo of the bull of Sybaris in the centre of the opening mechanism.

Enormous sheets of laminated tempered glass form the “walls” of the stair column. Hawrylewicz had originally drawn them as a single piece, but no sources yet exist for tempering such large panels of glass. Each of the staircase walls weighs 600 kilograms and they are elastically anchored to the decks above and below. Massive floating oak steps, suspended from the glass with titanium pins, usher guests below.

There are six cabins on the lower deck of Sybaris , including a master suite that takes advantage of the yacht’s full 13 metre beam to create a space to spoil the owner in surroundings of American ash. A superyacht office is situated to starboard with the king-sized bed offset to port. Lindsey Adelman bronze and porcelain sconces above the bed flank an art feature of layers of wood relief that looks a bit topographical. The element was a deliberate contrast to the machined look of many of the pieces in the room and the titanium overhead.

Four pieces of contemporary art dominate the owner’s cabin, which Duker refers to as the poetic centre of Sybaris . Colourful pieces by Roberto Matta, Bäast and Rafa Macarrón contrast with the simple décor while Invisible Domain by Mars-1 opposite his desk seems particularly appropriate.

The bed surround showcases another of the design features in the boat, the mortise and tenon style joinery details that are left exposed. It continues in the full-beam his and hers bathrooms, with their simple palette of ash, stone and titanium. “The simpler the palette, the larger the space,” shares Hawrylewicz. “My goal at the end of the day was to create a yacht that is comfortable, beautiful and perhaps even memorable.”

Or, as the owner wrote in a poem he dashed off on his iPhone thanking his designer:

The ability to conceive the idea To place it in the spot exactly where To light it as if it were in a dream And make it all so simple seem

First published in the June 2017 edition of Boat International

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Best of the Best: Q & A With PH Design Founder Peter Hawrylewicz

The designer discusses the work he did on the perini navi sybaris., michael verdon, michael verdon's most recent stories.

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The founder of PH Design talks with Robb Report contributor Michael Verdon about the interior of ‘Sybaris,’ his first yacht project.

How did Bill Duker, the owner of ‘Sybaris,’ find you? Bill has been a client for 25 years. He first hired me to design his home on Miami Beach when I was working on Gianni Versace’s home. We have developed a great relationship since then.

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This was your first yacht project? Yes, and I did not want to blow it, partly because of my friendship with Bill. Also, there are only so many yacht commissions in the world, so it is a scarce pearl to squander. Bill told me that if I can think it, they will build it. In other words, he was granting me the artistic freedom to exceed my expectations and to meet his.

What was the initial concept? He wanted a state-of-the-art yacht with an interior to show his modern-art collection to its greatest advantage. I wanted the interior to be modern, warm, and personal, depleted of clutter and embellishments, yet rich in detail. Bill inspires people naturally. I wanted his boat to do the same.

How did you choose titanium as a base material? We used it throughout the boat, in the ceilings, furniture, hardware, and railings. I like the titanium ceilings. They provide a muted reflective surface for the interior volumes that I find compelling. Almost all of the furniture on board was designed by me for ‘Sybaris.’ Many pieces have components cast in bronze or titanium. There are challenges with titanium. The material is strong and resilient but can be difficult to work with.

Were you happy with the results? Whether the titanium was welded, cut, cast, or folded, Genesis Yachtline and Perini Navi supervised the work excellently. They were successful at every turn.

Your favorite feature? The large cockpit table on the aft deck. It is made of concentric titanium rings and is mimicked in a tempered reflection in the titanium ceiling above. The design is based on an unfurling rose, a meaningful emblem for the Duker family.

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By SuperyachtNews 18 May 2016

The Pursuit of Pleasure

As perini navi’s largest sailing yacht since the maltese falcon, the presentation of 70m sybaris was a significant event for the italian boat builder.….

As Perini Navi’s largest sailing yacht since The Maltese Falcon , the presentation earlier this month of 70m Sybaris at the Picchiotti yard in La Spezia was a significant event for the Italian boat builder. A collaboration between Perini Navi's in-house team and the French naval architect Philippe Briand, Sybaris represents an innovative evolution in the company’s drive for design and engineering excellence at a difficult time for the super sailing yacht market.

From the left, Milena Perini, Bill Duker, Fabio Perini, Burak Akgul, Fabio Boschi  

The presentation coincided with the appointment of Luca Boldrini (formerly with the Ferretti Group) as sales director of Picchiotti. In January, a meeting of the Group’s shareholders under the chairmanship of Fabio Boschi announced a share capital increase of 15 million euros, and in February naval architect Stèphane Leveel (formerly with Tripp Design) was welcomed to the Perini Navi design team.

Sybaris features a Sealium alloy hull with a variable-draught centreboard keel for enhanced sailing performance and access into shallow bays or marinas. The exterior profile is noticeably sleeker than previous models with a less pronounced sheerline and a more vertical bow. The restyled superstructure is topped with an expansive flying bridge of 18m in length — reportedly the largest of any sailing yacht afloat.

  Sybaris

The powerful sail plan of more than 5,800sqm relies on two carbon fibre masts supplied by Rondal with composite stays and Kevlar running rigging. Equipped with the latest sail handling technology controlled by Perini’s new electric captive winches and software, the system means the yacht can be sailed entirely from the cockpit consoles. 

Arguably the most decisive technical step forward is the power management system. Comprising two variable-speed generators supplying electrical power via a DC bus to the vessel’s main electrical grid with the potential to store excess power in lithium polymer batteries, the set-up improves efficiency, reduces emissions and provides a silent anchor mode at night or in protected areas with the generators switched off.

“ Sybaris raised numerous technical and aesthetic challenges,” says Burak Akgul, managing director of sales, marketing and design at Perini Navi. “But where there’s a will there’s a way, and the result is a uniquely beautiful sailing yacht that pushes the boundaries of design in every conceivable way.”

At 850gt and named after the ancient Greek settlement in southern Italy whose population was renowned for its pursuit of life’s pleasures, Sybaris provided Miami-based PH Design with an ample template for the interior styling. Working on his first yacht project, studio founder Peter Hawrylewicz has created the serenely sophisticated interior the owner desired. Exquisite materials and details abound. Instead of built-in credenzas, for example, the 151-sqm main salon features sculpted pillars milled from solid titanium to support ‘floating’ Louis Vuitton-style travel trunks clad with alligator skin.

Peter Hawrylewicz (image by Justin Ratcliffe)  

“The effect is modern with a remote reminiscence of Old World travel,” says the designer. “The allure lies in the confluence of these two temperaments.”  

Following her presentation, Sybaris will go through intensive sea trails prior to delivery, scheduled for this summer and keenly anticipated by her owner. 

  Bill Duker (image by Justin Ratcliffe)

“This is obviously an exciting time for us,” said American owner Bill Duker in La Spezia. “ Sybaris is a project that started a very long time ago when my son and I would sit in the aft cockpit of the boat we then had, Shanakee , and talk about the boat of our dreams. Over the past 20 years that dream has matured a great deal, and what it became was a dream about collaboration and synergy to create a masterpiece of beauty and performance.”  

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Step aboard 230-foot sailing superyacht Sybaris, owned by William Duker

The same owner as the newly listed $65M Apogee penthouse

The reason William Duker just listed his Apogee penthouse (for $65 million) in Miami Beach is to travel around the world on his marvelous sailing superyacht.

Meet the 230-foot Sybaris, which is currently docked near the Miami Beach Marina off Terminal Isle. Launched in May, it is one of the largest sailing yachts on earth, and came to life after Duker beat cancer, per Boat International .

He set out to build a statement vessel.

“The boat kept growing in order to bring the lines down and make it look as sleek as it does. We thought it’d be a 56 metre, but then I started thinking that it had to be special, it had to be different. And there are already 10 or 11 or so 56 metres; I didn’t want hull number 12. I wanted something people could see from half a mile away and say, ‘Hey, there’s Sybaris ’,” Duker says.

Check out Duker’s favorite features.

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A Year in Focus: Sybaris Takes the World by Storm

By Ben Roberts

In May, Perini Navi launched the 70-metre sailing yacht Sybaris . We continue our look in to 2016 by capturing the rise of Sybaris, one man’s search for the perfect sailing experience that took the year by storm and marked a new era for the Italian master-craftsmen.

After being invited to step on board shortly after her launch in May, Superyachts.com witnessed an early glance into a project which represented a 20-year dream in the making for owner Bill Duker.

From the days of sitting with his son on the aft of their first boat and drawing their dream vessel to the celebrations surrounding its launch, Sybaris is much more than just Italy’s largest sailing yacht.

The most advanced large-scale Perini Navi project since the creation of The Maltese Falcon – which was launched at the builder’s Turkish facilities – and with well-documented performance ability, Sybaris is a marriage of art and technology.

“We wanted to build a boat that combined great art in the interior, put it in a setting that the interior of the boat itself was a piece of art, and then set that interior within a superyacht that was also a masterpiece. Not only a masterpiece of beauty, but a masterpiece of performance.”  Explains Sybaris Owner Bill Duker during the launch ceremony in May.

Superyachts.com caught up with Perini Navi and Sybaris at the Monaco Yacht Show to get a closer look at the stunning interiors by PH Design on camera (above).

Taking numerous awards over 2016 - including ‘Best Interior’ at the Monaco Yacht Show Gala - this is a yacht with an acclaim worthy of the 20-year journey it took from paper to port.

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A glimpse of the S/Y Sybaris – the 70m sailing yacht with the Best Interior this year

Inside S/Y Sybaris – the 70m sailing yacht with the Best Interior this year.

Perini Navi 70m S/Y Sybaris won “Best Interior Award” at 2016 Monaco Yacht Show. From 28 September to 1 October 2016, the 26th Monaco Yacht Show celebrated the best that Superyachts have on offer with 34,000 participants from around the world.

Delivered to her owner, American Bill Duker, earlier this month Sybaris sailing yacht is the latest addition to Perini Navi’s fleet of 61 superyachts . Designed and built by Perini Navi, with input from Philippe Briand on the hull lines and sail plan, the 70m ketch is the largest sailing yacht ever built in Italy (877 GT) and second in the Perini Navi fleet to the iconic Maltese Falcon (88m).

Combining Perini Navi’s continuous research into new technical solutions, the original design was thoroughly revisited and has resulted in an extraordinary yacht, one which captures the advanced engineering and styling that define a Perini Navi. The 70m S/Y Sybaris was presented with the ‘Best Interior’ award for her stunning interiors masterminded by PH Design of Miami.

The brand new sailing yacht built by the Italian shipyard was awarded for the design and bespoke work made on her interior areas made by the yacht designers Peter Hawrylewicz and Ken Lieber. The award was given on stage to her owner Bill Duker.

“A Perini is not only a yacht, it is a style of life and Sybaris proves this,” commented Fabio Boschi, President of Perini Navi on the occasion of the press presentation onboard Sybaris.

Perini Navi also showcased the 38m S/Y Dahlak. Both Sybaris and Dahlak feature Perini Navi’s latest generation sail handling and stored power systems.

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The Haves and the Have-Yachts

By Evan Osnos

In the Victorian era, it was said that the length of a man’s boat, in feet, should match his age, in years. The Victorians would have had some questions at the fortieth annual Palm Beach International Boat Show, which convened this March on Florida’s Gold Coast. A typical offering: a two-hundred-and-three-foot superyacht named Sea Owl, selling secondhand for ninety million dollars. The owner, Robert Mercer, the hedge-fund tycoon and Republican donor, was throwing in furniture and accessories, including several auxiliary boats, a Steinway piano, a variety of frescoes, and a security system that requires fingerprint recognition. Nevertheless, Mercer’s package was a modest one; the largest superyachts are more than five hundred feet, on a scale with naval destroyers, and cost six or seven times what he was asking.

For the small, tight-lipped community around the world’s biggest yachts, the Palm Beach show has the promising air of spring training. On the cusp of the summer season, it affords brokers and builders and owners (or attendants from their family offices) a chance to huddle over the latest merchandise and to gather intelligence: Who’s getting in? Who’s getting out? And, most pressingly, who’s ogling a bigger boat?

On the docks, brokers parse the crowd according to a taxonomy of potential. Guests asking for tours face a gantlet of greeters, trained to distinguish “superrich clients” from “ineligible visitors,” in the words of Emma Spence, a former greeter at the Palm Beach show. Spence looked for promising clues (the right shoes, jewelry, pets) as well as for red flags (cameras, ornate business cards, clothes with pop-culture references). For greeters from elsewhere, Palm Beach is a challenging assignment. Unlike in Europe, where money can still produce some visible tells—Hunter Wellies, a Barbour jacket—the habits of wealth in Florida offer little that’s reliable. One colleague resorted to binoculars, to spot a passerby with a hundred-thousand-dollar watch. According to Spence, people judged to have insufficient buying power are quietly marked for “dissuasion.”

For the uninitiated, a pleasure boat the length of a football field can be bewildering. Andy Cohen, the talk-show host, recalled his first visit to a superyacht owned by the media mogul Barry Diller: “I was like the Beverly Hillbillies.” The boats have grown so vast that some owners place unique works of art outside the elevator on each deck, so that lost guests don’t barge into the wrong stateroom.

At the Palm Beach show, I lingered in front of a gracious vessel called Namasté, until I was dissuaded by a wooden placard: “Private yacht, no boarding, no paparazzi.” In a nearby berth was a two-hundred-and-eighty-foot superyacht called Bold, which was styled like a warship, with its own helicopter hangar, three Sea-Doos, two sailboats, and a color scheme of gunmetal gray. The rugged look is a trend; “explorer” vessels, equipped to handle remote journeys, are the sport-utility vehicles of yachting.

If you hail from the realm of ineligible visitors, you may not be aware that we are living through the “greatest boom in the yacht business that’s ever existed,” as Bob Denison—whose firm, Denison Yachting, is one of the world’s largest brokers—told me. “Every broker, every builder, up and down the docks, is having some of the best years they’ve ever experienced.” In 2021, the industry sold a record eight hundred and eighty-seven superyachts worldwide, nearly twice the previous year’s total. With more than a thousand new superyachts on order, shipyards are so backed up that clients unaccustomed to being told no have been shunted to waiting lists.

One reason for the increased demand for yachts is the pandemic. Some buyers invoke social distancing; others, an existential awakening. John Staluppi, of Palm Beach Gardens, who made a fortune from car dealerships, is looking to upgrade from his current, sixty-million-dollar yacht. “When you’re forty or fifty years old, you say, ‘I’ve got plenty of time,’ ” he told me. But, at seventy-five, he is ready to throw in an extra fifteen million if it will spare him three years of waiting. “Is your life worth five million dollars a year? I think so,” he said. A deeper reason for the demand is the widening imbalance of wealth. Since 1990, the United States’ supply of billionaires has increased from sixty-six to more than seven hundred, even as the median hourly wage has risen only twenty per cent. In that time, the number of truly giant yachts—those longer than two hundred and fifty feet—has climbed from less than ten to more than a hundred and seventy. Raphael Sauleau, the C.E.O. of Fraser Yachts, told me bluntly, “ COVID and wealth—a perfect storm for us.”

And yet the marina in Palm Beach was thrumming with anxiety. Ever since the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, launched his assault on Ukraine, the superyacht world has come under scrutiny. At a port in Spain, a Ukrainian engineer named Taras Ostapchuk, working aboard a ship that he said was owned by a Russian arms dealer, threw open the sea valves and tried to sink it to the bottom of the harbor. Under arrest, he told a judge, “I would do it again.” Then he returned to Ukraine and joined the military. Western allies, in the hope of pressuring Putin to withdraw, have sought to cut off Russian oligarchs from businesses and luxuries abroad. “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains,” President Joe Biden declared, in his State of the Union address.

Nobody can say precisely how many of Putin’s associates own superyachts—known to professionals as “white boats”—because the white-boat world is notoriously opaque. Owners tend to hide behind shell companies, registered in obscure tax havens, attended by private bankers and lawyers. But, with unusual alacrity, authorities have used subpoenas and police powers to freeze boats suspected of having links to the Russian élite. In Spain, the government detained a hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar yacht associated with Sergei Chemezov, the head of the conglomerate Rostec, whose bond with Putin reaches back to their time as K.G.B. officers in East Germany. (As in many cases, the boat is not registered to Chemezov; the official owner is a shell company connected to his stepdaughter, a teacher whose salary is likely about twenty-two hundred dollars a month.) In Germany, authorities impounded the world’s most voluminous yacht, Dilbar, for its ties to the mining-and-telecom tycoon Alisher Usmanov. And in Italy police have grabbed a veritable armada, including a boat owned by one of Russia’s richest men, Alexei Mordashov, and a colossus suspected of belonging to Putin himself, the four-hundred-and-fifty-nine-foot Scheherazade.

In Palm Beach, the yachting community worried that the same scrutiny might be applied to them. “Say your superyacht is in Asia, and there’s some big conflict where China invades Taiwan,” Denison told me. “China could spin it as ‘Look at these American oligarchs!’ ” He wondered if the seizures of superyachts marked a growing political animus toward the very rich. “Whenever things are economically or politically disruptive,” he said, “it’s hard to justify taking an insane amount of money and just putting it into something that costs a lot to maintain, depreciates, and is only used for having a good time.”

Nobody pretends that a superyacht is a productive place to stash your wealth. In a column this spring headlined “ A SUPERYACHT IS A TERRIBLE ASSET ,” the Financial Times observed, “Owning a superyacht is like owning a stack of 10 Van Goghs, only you are holding them over your head as you tread water, trying to keep them dry.”

Not so long ago, status transactions among the élite were denominated in Old Masters and in the sculptures of the Italian Renaissance. Joseph Duveen, the dominant art dealer of the early twentieth century, kept the oligarchs of his day—Andrew Mellon, Jules Bache, J. P. Morgan—jockeying over Donatellos and Van Dycks. “When you pay high for the priceless,” he liked to say, “you’re getting it cheap.”

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In the nineteen-fifties, the height of aspirational style was fine French furniture—F.F.F., as it became known in certain precincts of Fifth Avenue and Palm Beach. Before long, more and more money was going airborne. Hugh Hefner, a pioneer in the private-jet era, decked out a plane he called Big Bunny, where he entertained Elvis Presley, Raquel Welch, and James Caan. The oil baron Armand Hammer circled the globe on his Boeing 727, paying bribes and recording evidence on microphones hidden in his cufflinks. But, once it seemed that every plutocrat had a plane, the thrill was gone.

In any case, an airplane is just transportation. A big ship is a floating manse, with a hierarchy written right into the nomenclature. If it has a crew working aboard, it’s a yacht. If it’s more than ninety-eight feet, it’s a superyacht. After that, definitions are debated, but people generally agree that anything more than two hundred and thirty feet is a megayacht, and more than two hundred and ninety-five is a gigayacht. The world contains about fifty-four hundred superyachts, and about a hundred gigayachts.

For the moment, a gigayacht is the most expensive item that our species has figured out how to own. In 2019, the hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin bought a quadruplex on Central Park South for two hundred and forty million dollars, the highest price ever paid for a home in America. In May, an unknown buyer spent about a hundred and ninety-five million on an Andy Warhol silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe. In luxury-yacht terms, those are ordinary numbers. “There are a lot of boats in build well over two hundred and fifty million dollars,” Jamie Edmiston, a broker in Monaco and London, told me. His buyers are getting younger and more inclined to spend long stretches at sea. “High-speed Internet, telephony, modern communications have made working easier,” he said. “Plus, people made a lot more money earlier in life.”

A Silicon Valley C.E.O. told me that one appeal of boats is that they can “absorb the most excess capital.” He explained, “Rationally, it would seem to make sense for people to spend half a billion dollars on their house and then fifty million on the boat that they’re on for two weeks a year, right? But it’s gone the other way. People don’t want to live in a hundred-thousand-square-foot house. Optically, it’s weird. But a half-billion-dollar boat, actually, is quite nice.” Staluppi, of Palm Beach Gardens, is content to spend three or four times as much on his yachts as on his homes. Part of the appeal is flexibility. “If you’re on your boat and you don’t like your neighbor, you tell the captain, ‘Let’s go to a different place,’ ” he said. On land, escaping a bad neighbor requires more work: “You got to try and buy him out or make it uncomfortable or something.” The preference for sea-based investment has altered the proportions of taste. Until recently, the Silicon Valley C.E.O. said, “a fifty-metre boat was considered a good-sized boat. Now that would be a little bit embarrassing.” In the past twenty years, the length of the average luxury yacht has grown by a third, to a hundred and sixty feet.

Thorstein Veblen, the economist who published “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” in 1899, argued that the power of “conspicuous consumption” sprang not from artful finery but from sheer needlessness. “In order to be reputable,” he wrote, “it must be wasteful.” In the yachting world, stories circulate about exotic deliveries by helicopter or seaplane: Dom Pérignon, bagels from Zabar’s, sex workers, a rare melon from the island of Hokkaido. The industry excels at selling you things that you didn’t know you needed. When you flip through the yachting press, it’s easy to wonder how you’ve gone this long without a personal submarine, or a cryosauna that “blasts you with cold” down to minus one hundred and ten degrees Celsius, or the full menagerie of “exclusive leathers,” such as eel and stingray.

But these shrines to excess capital exist in a conditional state of visibility: they are meant to be unmistakable to a slender stratum of society—and all but unseen by everyone else. Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the yachting community was straining to manage its reputation as a gusher of carbon emissions (one well-stocked diesel yacht is estimated to produce as much greenhouse gas as fifteen hundred passenger cars), not to mention the fact that the world of white boats is overwhelmingly white. In a candid aside to a French documentarian, the American yachtsman Bill Duker said, “If the rest of the world learns what it’s like to live on a yacht like this, they’re gonna bring back the guillotine.” The Dutch press recently reported that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, was building a sailing yacht so tall that the city of Rotterdam might temporarily dismantle a bridge that had survived the Nazis in order to let the boat pass to the open sea. Rotterdammers were not pleased. On Facebook, a local man urged people to “take a box of rotten eggs with you and let’s throw them en masse at Jeff’s superyacht when it sails through.” At least thirteen thousand people expressed interest. Amid the uproar, a deputy mayor announced that the dismantling plan had been abandoned “for the time being.” (Bezos modelled his yacht partly on one owned by his friend Barry Diller, who has hosted him many times. The appreciation eventually extended to personnel, and Bezos hired one of Diller’s captains.)

As social media has heightened the scrutiny of extraordinary wealth, some of the very people who created those platforms have sought less observable places to spend it. But they occasionally indulge in some coded provocation. In 2006, when the venture capitalist Tom Perkins unveiled his boat in Istanbul, most passersby saw it adorned in colorful flags, but people who could read semaphore were able to make out a message: “Rarely does one have the privilege to witness vulgar ostentation displayed on such a scale.” As a longtime owner told me, “If you don’t have some guilt about it, you’re a rat.”

Alex Finley, a former C.I.A. officer who has seen yachts proliferate near her home in Barcelona, has weighed the superyacht era and its discontents in writings and on Twitter, using the hashtag #YachtWatch. “To me, the yachts are not just yachts,” she told me. “In Russia’s case, these are the embodiment of oligarchs helping a dictator destabilize our democracy while utilizing our democracy to their benefit.” But, Finley added, it’s a mistake to think the toxic symbolism applies only to Russia. “The yachts tell a whole story about a Faustian capitalism—this idea that we’re ready to sell democracy for short-term profit,” she said. “They’re registered offshore. They use every loophole that we’ve put in place for illicit money and tax havens. So they play a role in this battle, writ large, between autocracy and democracy.”

After a morning on the docks at the Palm Beach show, I headed to a more secluded marina nearby, which had been set aside for what an attendant called “the really big hardware.” It felt less like a trade show than like a boutique resort, with a swimming pool and a terrace restaurant. Kevin Merrigan, a relaxed Californian with horn-rimmed glasses and a high forehead pinked by the sun, was waiting for me at the stern of Unbridled, a superyacht with a brilliant blue hull that gave it the feel of a personal cruise ship. He invited me to the bridge deck, where a giant screen showed silent video of dolphins at play.

Merrigan is the chairman of the brokerage Northrop & Johnson, which has ridden the tide of growing boats and wealth since 1949. Lounging on a sofa mounded with throw pillows, he projected a nearly postcoital level of contentment. He had recently sold the boat we were on, accepted an offer for a behemoth beside us, and begun negotiating the sale of yet another. “This client owns three big yachts,” he said. “It’s a hobby for him. We’re at a hundred and ninety-one feet now, and last night he said, ‘You know, what do you think about getting a two hundred and fifty?’ ” Merrigan laughed. “And I was, like, ‘Can’t you just have dinner?’ ”

Among yacht owners, there are some unwritten rules of stratification: a Dutch-built boat will hold its value better than an Italian; a custom design will likely get more respect than a “series yacht”; and, if you want to disparage another man’s boat, say that it looks like a wedding cake. But, in the end, nothing says as much about a yacht, or its owner, as the delicate matter of L.O.A.—length over all.

The imperative is not usually length for length’s sake (though the longtime owner told me that at times there is an aspect of “phallic sizing”). “L.O.A.” is a byword for grandeur. In most cases, pleasure yachts are permitted to carry no more than twelve passengers, a rule set by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, which was conceived after the sinking of the Titanic. But those limits do not apply to crew. “So, you might have anything between twelve and fifty crew looking after those twelve guests,” Edmiston, the broker, said. “It’s a level of service you cannot really contemplate until you’ve been fortunate enough to experience it.”

As yachts have grown more capacious, and the limits on passengers have not, more and more space on board has been devoted to staff and to novelties. The latest fashions include IMAX theatres, hospital equipment that tests for dozens of pathogens, and ski rooms where guests can suit up for a helicopter trip to a mountaintop. The longtime owner, who had returned the previous day from his yacht, told me, “No one today—except for assholes and ridiculous people—lives on land in what you would call a deep and broad luxe life. Yes, people have nice houses and all of that, but it’s unlikely that the ratio of staff to them is what it is on a boat.” After a moment, he added, “Boats are the last place that I think you can get away with it.”

Even among the truly rich, there is a gap between the haves and the have-yachts. One boating guest told me about a conversation with a famous friend who keeps one of the world’s largest yachts. “He said, ‘The boat is the last vestige of what real wealth can do.’ What he meant is, You have a chef, and I have a chef. You have a driver, and I have a driver. You can fly privately, and I fly privately. So, the one place where I can make clear to the world that I am in a different fucking category than you is the boat.”

After Merrigan and I took a tour of Unbridled, he led me out to a waiting tender, staffed by a crew member with an earpiece on a coil. The tender, Merrigan said, would ferry me back to the busy main dock of the Palm Beach show. We bounced across the waves under a pristine sky, and pulled into the marina, where my fellow-gawkers were still trying to talk their way past the greeters. As I walked back into the scrum, Namasté was still there, but it looked smaller than I remembered.

For owners and their guests, a white boat provides a discreet marketplace for the exchange of trust, patronage, and validation. To diagram the precise workings of that trade—the customs and anxieties, strategies and slights—I talked to Brendan O’Shannassy, a veteran captain who is a curator of white-boat lore. Raised in Western Australia, O’Shannassy joined the Navy as a young man, and eventually found his way to skippering some of the world’s biggest yachts. He has worked for Paul Allen, the late co-founder of Microsoft, along with a few other billionaires he declines to name. Now in his early fifties, with patient green eyes and tufts of curly brown hair, O’Shannassy has had a vantage from which to monitor the social traffic. “It’s all gracious, and everyone’s kiss-kiss,” he said. “But there’s a lot going on in the background.”

O’Shannassy once worked for an owner who limited the number of newspapers on board, so that he could watch his guests wait and squirm. “It was a mind game amongst the billionaires. There were six couples, and three newspapers,” he said, adding, “They were ranking themselves constantly.” On some boats, O’Shannassy has found himself playing host in the awkward minutes after guests arrive. “A lot of them are savants, but some are very un-socially aware,” he said. “They need someone to be social and charming for them.” Once everyone settles in, O’Shannassy has learned, there is often a subtle shift, when a mogul or a politician or a pop star starts to loosen up in ways that are rarely possible on land. “Your security is relaxed—they’re not on your hip,” he said. “You’re not worried about paparazzi. So you’ve got all this extra space, both mental and physical.”

O’Shannassy has come to see big boats as a space where powerful “solar systems” converge and combine. “It is implicit in every interaction that their sharing of information will benefit both parties; it is an obsession with billionaires to do favours for each other. A referral, an introduction, an insight—it all matters,” he wrote in “Superyacht Captain,” a new memoir. A guest told O’Shannassy that, after a lavish display of hospitality, he finally understood the business case for buying a boat. “One deal secured on board will pay it all back many times over,” the guest said, “and it is pretty hard to say no after your kids have been hosted so well for a week.”

Take the case of David Geffen, the former music and film executive. He is long retired, but he hosts friends (and potential friends) on the four-hundred-and-fifty-four-foot Rising Sun, which has a double-height cinema, a spa and salon, and a staff of fifty-seven. In 2017, shortly after Barack and Michelle Obama departed the White House, they were photographed on Geffen’s boat in French Polynesia, accompanied by Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and Rita Wilson. For Geffen, the boat keeps him connected to the upper echelons of power. There are wealthier Americans, but not many of them have a boat so delectable that it can induce both a Democratic President and the workingman’s crooner to risk the aroma of hypocrisy.

The binding effect pays dividends for guests, too. Once people reach a certain level of fame, they tend to conclude that its greatest advantage is access. Spend a week at sea together, lingering over meals, observing one another floundering on a paddleboard, and you have something of value for years to come. Call to ask for an investment, an introduction, an internship for a wayward nephew, and you’ll at least get the call returned. It’s a mutually reinforcing circle of validation: she’s here, I’m here, we’re here.

But, if you want to get invited back, you are wise to remember your part of the bargain. If you work with movie stars, bring fresh gossip. If you’re on Wall Street, bring an insight or two. Don’t make the transaction obvious, but don’t forget why you’re there. “When I see the guest list,” O’Shannassy wrote, “I am aware, even if not all names are familiar, that all have been chosen for a purpose.”

For O’Shannassy, there is something comforting about the status anxieties of people who have everything. He recalled a visit to the Italian island of Sardinia, where his employer asked him for a tour of the boats nearby. Riding together on a tender, they passed one colossus after another, some twice the size of the owner’s superyacht. Eventually, the man cut the excursion short. “Take me back to my yacht, please,” he said. They motored in silence for a while. “There was a time when my yacht was the most beautiful in the bay,” he said at last. “How do I keep up with this new money?”

The summer season in the Mediterranean cranks up in May, when the really big hardware heads east from Florida and the Caribbean to escape the coming hurricanes, and reconvenes along the coasts of France, Italy, and Spain. At the center is the Principality of Monaco, the sun-washed tax haven that calls itself the “world’s capital of advanced yachting.” In Monaco, which is among the richest countries on earth, superyachts bob in the marina like bath toys.

The nearest hotel room at a price that would not get me fired was an Airbnb over the border with France. But an acquaintance put me on the phone with the Yacht Club de Monaco, a members-only establishment created by the late monarch His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III, whom the Web site describes as “a true visionary in every respect.” The club occasionally rents rooms—“cabins,” as they’re called—to visitors in town on yacht-related matters. Claudia Batthyany, the elegant director of special projects, showed me to my cabin and later explained that the club does not aspire to be a hotel. “We are an association ,” she said. “Otherwise, it becomes”—she gave a gentle wince—“not that exclusive.”

Inside my cabin, I quickly came to understand that I would never be fully satisfied anywhere else again. The space was silent and aromatically upscale, bathed in soft sunlight that swept through a wall of glass overlooking the water. If I was getting a sudden rush of the onboard experience, that was no accident. The clubhouse was designed by the British architect Lord Norman Foster to evoke the opulent indulgence of ocean liners of the interwar years, like the Queen Mary. I found a handwritten welcome note, on embossed club stationery, set alongside an orchid and an assemblage of chocolate truffles: “The whole team remains at your entire disposal to make your stay a wonderful experience. Yours sincerely, Service Members.” I saluted the nameless Service Members, toiling for the comfort of their guests. Looking out at the water, I thought, intrusively, of a line from Santiago, Hemingway’s old man of the sea. “Do not think about sin,” he told himself. “It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it.”

I had been assured that the Service Members would cheerfully bring dinner, as they might on board, but I was eager to see more of my surroundings. I consulted the club’s summer dress code. It called for white trousers and a blue blazer, and it discouraged improvisation: “No pocket handkerchief is to be worn above the top breast-pocket bearing the Club’s coat of arms.” The handkerchief rule seemed navigable, but I did not possess white trousers, so I skirted the lobby and took refuge in the bar. At a table behind me, a man with flushed cheeks and a British accent had a head start. “You’re a shitty negotiator,” he told another man, with a laugh. “Maybe sales is not your game.” A few seats away, an American woman was explaining to a foreign friend how to talk with conservatives: “If they say, ‘The earth is flat,’ you say, ‘Well, I’ve sailed around it, so I’m not so sure about that.’ ”

In the morning, I had an appointment for coffee with Gaëlle Tallarida, the managing director of the Monaco Yacht Show, which the Daily Mail has called the “most shamelessly ostentatious display of yachts in the world.” Tallarida was not born to that milieu; she grew up on the French side of the border, swimming at public beaches with a view of boats sailing from the marina. But she had a knack for highly organized spectacle. While getting a business degree, she worked on a student theatre festival and found it thrilling. Afterward, she got a job in corporate events, and in 1998 she was hired at the yacht show as a trainee.

With this year’s show five months off, Tallarida was already getting calls about what she described as “the most complex part of my work”: deciding which owners get the most desirable spots in the marina. “As you can imagine, they’ve got very big egos,” she said. “On top of that, I’m a woman. They are sometimes arriving and saying”—she pointed into the distance, pantomiming a decree—“ ‘O.K., I want that!  ’ ”

Just about everyone wants his superyacht to be viewed from the side, so that its full splendor is visible. Most harbors, however, have a limited number of berths with a side view; in Monaco, there are only twelve, with prime spots arrayed along a concrete dike across from the club. “We reserve the dike for the biggest yachts,” Tallarida said. But try telling that to a man who blew his fortune on a small superyacht.

Whenever possible, Tallarida presents her verdicts as a matter of safety: the layout must insure that “in case of an emergency, any boat can go out.” If owners insist on preferential placement, she encourages a yachting version of the Golden Rule: “What if, next year, I do that to you? Against you?”

Does that work? I asked. She shrugged. “They say, ‘Eh.’ ” Some would gladly risk being a victim next year in order to be a victor now. In the most awful moment of her career, she said, a man who was unhappy with his berth berated her face to face. “I was in the office, feeling like a little girl, with my daddy shouting at me. I said, ‘O.K., O.K., I’m going to give you the spot.’ ”

Securing just the right place, it must be said, carries value. Back at the yacht club, I was on my terrace, enjoying the latest delivery by the Service Members—an airy French omelette and a glass of preternaturally fresh orange juice. I thought guiltily of my wife, at home with our kids, who had sent a text overnight alerting me to a maintenance issue that she described as “a toilet debacle.”

Then I was distracted by the sight of a man on a yacht in the marina below. He was staring up at me. I went back to my brunch, but, when I looked again, there he was—a middle-aged man, on a mid-tier yacht, juiceless, on a greige banquette, staring up at my perfect terrace. A surprising sensation started in my chest and moved outward like a warm glow: the unmistakable pang of superiority.

That afternoon, I made my way to the bar, to meet the yacht club’s general secretary, Bernard d’Alessandri, for a history lesson. The general secretary was up to code: white trousers, blue blazer, club crest over the heart. He has silver hair, black eyebrows, and a tan that evokes high-end leather. “I was a sailing teacher before this,” he said, and gestured toward the marina. “It was not like this. It was a village.”

Before there were yacht clubs, there were jachten , from the Dutch word for “hunt.” In the seventeenth century, wealthy residents of Amsterdam created fast-moving boats to meet incoming cargo ships before they hit port, in order to check out the merchandise. Soon, the Dutch owners were racing one another, and yachting spread across Europe. After a visit to Holland in 1697, Peter the Great returned to Russia with a zeal for pleasure craft, and he later opened Nevsky Flot, one of the world’s first yacht clubs, in St. Petersburg.

For a while, many of the biggest yachts were symbols of state power. In 1863, the viceroy of Egypt, Isma’il Pasha, ordered up a steel leviathan called El Mahrousa, which was the world’s longest yacht for a remarkable hundred and nineteen years, until the title was claimed by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt received guests aboard the U.S.S. Potomac, which had a false smokestack containing a hidden elevator, so that the President could move by wheelchair between decks.

But yachts were finding new patrons outside politics. In 1954, the Greek shipping baron Aristotle Onassis bought a Canadian Navy frigate and spent four million dollars turning it into Christina O, which served as his home for months on end—and, at various times, as a home to his companions Maria Callas, Greta Garbo, and Jacqueline Kennedy. Christina O had its flourishes—a Renoir in the master suite, a swimming pool with a mosaic bottom that rose to become a dance floor—but none were more distinctive than the appointments in the bar, which included whales’ teeth carved into pornographic scenes from the Odyssey and stools upholstered in whale foreskins.

For Onassis, the extraordinary investments in Christina O were part of an epic tit for tat with his archrival, Stavros Niarchos, a fellow shipping tycoon, which was so entrenched that it continued even after Onassis’s death, in 1975. Six years later, Niarchos launched a yacht fifty-five feet longer than Christina O: Atlantis II, which featured a swimming pool on a gyroscope so that the water would not slosh in heavy seas. Atlantis II, now moored in Monaco, sat before the general secretary and me as we talked.

Over the years, d’Alessandri had watched waves of new buyers arrive from one industry after another. “First, it was the oil. After, it was the telecommunications. Now, they are making money with crypto,” he said. “And, each time, it’s another size of the boat, another design.” What began as symbols of state power had come to represent more diffuse aristocracies—the fortunes built on carbon, capital, and data that migrated across borders. As early as 1908, the English writer G. K. Chesterton wondered what the big boats foretold of a nation’s fabric. “The poor man really has a stake in the country,” he wrote. “The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht.”

Each iteration of fortune left its imprint on the industry. Sheikhs, who tend to cruise in the world’s hottest places, wanted baroque indoor spaces and were uninterested in sundecks. Silicon Valley favored acres of beige, more Sonoma than Saudi. And buyers from Eastern Europe became so abundant that shipyards perfected the onboard banya , a traditional Russian sauna stocked with birch and eucalyptus. The collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, had minted a generation of new billionaires, whose approach to money inspired a popular Russian joke: One oligarch brags to another, “Look at this new tie. It cost me two hundred bucks!” To which the other replies, “You moron. You could’ve bought the same one for a thousand!”

In 1998, around the time that the Russian economy imploded, the young tycoon Roman Abramovich reportedly bought a secondhand yacht called Sussurro—Italian for “whisper”—which had been so carefully engineered for speed that each individual screw was weighed before installation. Soon, Russians were competing to own the costliest ships. “If the most expensive yacht in the world was small, they would still want it,” Maria Pevchikh, a Russian investigator who helps lead the Anti-Corruption Foundation, told me.

In 2008, a thirty-six-year-old industrialist named Andrey Melnichenko spent some three hundred million dollars on Motor Yacht A, a radical experiment conceived by the French designer Philippe Starck, with a dagger-shaped hull and a bulbous tower topped by a master bedroom set on a turntable that pivots to capture the best view. The shape was ridiculed as “a giant finger pointing at you” and “one of the most hideous vessels ever to sail,” but it marked a new prominence for Russian money at sea. Today, post-Soviet élites are thought to own a fifth of the world’s gigayachts.

Even Putin has signalled his appreciation, being photographed on yachts in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. In an explosive report in 2012, Boris Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Minister, accused Putin of amassing a storehouse of outrageous luxuries, including four yachts, twenty homes, and dozens of private aircraft. Less than three years later, Nemtsov was fatally shot while crossing a bridge near the Kremlin. The Russian government, which officially reports that Putin collects a salary of about a hundred and forty thousand dollars and possesses a modest apartment in Moscow, denied any involvement.

Many of the largest, most flamboyant gigayachts are designed in Monaco, at a sleek waterfront studio occupied by the naval architect Espen Øino. At sixty, Øino has a boyish mop and the mild countenance of a country parson. He grew up in a small town in Norway, the heir to a humble maritime tradition. “My forefathers built wooden rowing boats for four generations,” he told me. In the late eighties, he was designing sailboats when his firm won a commission to design a megayacht for Emilio Azcárraga, the autocratic Mexican who built Televisa into the world’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster. Azcárraga was nicknamed El Tigre, for his streak of white hair and his comfort with confrontation; he kept a chair in his office that was unusually high off the ground, so that visitors’ feet dangled like children’s.

In early meetings, Øino recalled, Azcárraga grew frustrated that the ideas were not dazzling enough. “You must understand,” he said. “I don’t go to port very often with my boats, but, when I do, I want my presence to be felt.”

The final design was suitably arresting; after the boat was completed, Øino had no shortage of commissions. In 1998, he was approached by Paul Allen, of Microsoft, to build a yacht that opened the way for the Goliaths that followed. The result, called Octopus, was so large that it contained a submarine marina in its belly, as well as a helicopter hangar that could be converted into an outdoor performance space. Mick Jagger and Bono played on occasion. I asked Øino why owners obsessed with secrecy seem determined to build the world’s most conspicuous machines. He compared it to a luxury car with tinted windows. “People can’t see you, but you’re still in that expensive, impressive thing,” he said. “We all need to feel that we’re important in one way or another.”

In recent months, Øino has seen some of his creations detained by governments in the sanctions campaign. When we spoke, he condemned the news coverage. “Yacht equals Russian equals evil equals money,” he said disdainfully. “It’s a bit tragic, because the yachts have become synonymous with the bad guys in a James Bond movie.”

What about Scheherazade, the giant yacht that U.S. officials have alleged is held by a Russian businessman for Putin’s use? Øino, who designed the ship, rejected the idea. “We have designed two yachts for heads of state, and I can tell you that they’re completely different, in terms of the layout and everything, from Scheherazade.” He meant that the details said plutocrat, not autocrat.

For the time being, Scheherazade and other Øino creations under detention across Europe have entered a strange legal purgatory. As lawyers for the owners battle to keep the ships from being permanently confiscated, local governments are duty-bound to maintain them until a resolution is reached. In a comment recorded by a hot mike in June, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national-security adviser, marvelled that “people are basically being paid to maintain Russian superyachts on behalf of the United States government.” (It usually costs about ten per cent of a yacht’s construction price to keep it afloat each year. In May, officials in Fiji complained that a detained yacht was costing them more than a hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars a day.)

Stranger still are the Russian yachts on the lam. Among them is Melnichenko’s much maligned Motor Yacht A. On March 9th, Melnichenko was sanctioned by the European Union, and although he denied having close ties to Russia’s leadership, Italy seized one of his yachts—a six-hundred-million-dollar sailboat. But Motor Yacht A slipped away before anyone could grab it. Then the boat turned off the transponder required by international maritime rules, so that its location could no longer be tracked. The last ping was somewhere near the Maldives, before it went dark on the high seas.

The very largest yachts come from Dutch and German shipyards, which have experience in naval vessels, known as “gray boats.” But the majority of superyachts are built in Italy, partly because owners prefer to visit the Mediterranean during construction. (A British designer advises those who are weighing their choices to take the geography seriously, “unless you like schnitzel.”)

In the past twenty-two years, nobody has built more superyachts than the Vitellis, an Italian family whose patriarch, Paolo Vitelli, got his start in the seventies, manufacturing smaller boats near a lake in the mountains. By 1985, their company, Azimut, had grown large enough to buy the Benetti shipyards, which had been building enormous yachts since the nineteenth century. Today, the combined company builds its largest boats near the sea, but the family still works in the hill town of Avigliana, where a medieval monastery towers above a valley. When I visited in April, Giovanna Vitelli, the vice-president and the founder’s daughter, led me through the experience of customizing a yacht.

“We’re using more and more virtual reality,” she said, and a staffer fitted me with a headset. When the screen blinked on, I was inside a 3-D mockup of a yacht that is not yet on the market. I wandered around my suite for a while, checking out swivel chairs, a modish sideboard, blond wood panelling on the walls. It was convincing enough that I collided with a real-life desk.

After we finished with the headset, it was time to pick the décor. The industry encourages an introspective evaluation: What do you want your yacht to say about you? I was handed a vibrant selection of wood, marble, leather, and carpet. The choices felt suddenly grave. Was I cut out for the chiselled look of Cream Vesuvio, or should I accept that I’m a gray Cardoso Stone? For carpets, I liked the idea of Chablis Corn White—Paris and the prairie, together at last. But, for extra seating, was it worth splurging for the V.I.P. Vanity Pouf?

Some designs revolve around a single piece of art. The most expensive painting ever sold, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” reportedly was hung on the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s four-hundred-and-thirty-nine-foot yacht Serene, after the Louvre rejected a Saudi demand that it hang next to the “Mona Lisa.” Art conservators blanched at the risks that excess humidity and fluctuating temperatures could pose to a five-hundred-year-old painting. Often, collectors who want to display masterpieces at sea commission replicas.

If you’ve just put half a billion dollars into a boat, you may have qualms about the truism that material things bring less happiness than experiences do. But this, too, can be finessed. Andrew Grant Super, a co-founder of the “experiential yachting” firm Berkeley Rand, told me that he served a uniquely overstimulated clientele: “We call them the bored billionaires.” He outlined a few of his experience products. “We can plot half of the Pacific Ocean with coördinates, to map out the Battle of Midway,” he said. “We re-create the full-blown battles of the giant ships from America and Japan. The kids have haptic guns and haptic vests. We put the smell of cordite and cannon fire on board, pumping around them.” For those who aren’t soothed by the scent of cordite, Super offered an alternative. “We fly 3-D-printed, architectural freestanding restaurants into the middle of the Maldives, on a sand shelf that can only last another eight hours before it disappears.”

For some, the thrill lies in the engineering. Staluppi, born in Brooklyn, was an auto mechanic who had no experience with the sea until his boss asked him to soup up a boat. “I took the six-cylinder engines out and put V-8 engines in,” he recalled. Once he started commissioning boats of his own, he built scale models to conduct tests in water tanks. “I knew I could never have the biggest boat in the world, so I says, ‘You know what? I want to build the fastest yacht in the world.’ The Aga Khan had the fastest yacht, and we just blew right by him.”

In Italy, after decking out my notional yacht, I headed south along the coast, to Tuscan shipyards that have evolved with each turn in the country’s history. Close to the Carrara quarries, which yielded the marble that Michelangelo turned into David, ships were constructed in the nineteenth century, to transport giant blocks of stone. Down the coast, the yards in Livorno made warships under the Fascists, until they were bombed by the Allies. Later, they began making and refitting luxury yachts. Inside the front gate of a Benetti shipyard in Livorno, a set of models depicted the firm’s famous modern creations. Most notable was the megayacht Nabila, built in 1980 for the high-living arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, with a hundred rooms and a disco that was the site of legendary decadence. (Khashoggi’s budget for prostitution was so extravagant that a French prosecutor later estimated he paid at least half a million dollars to a single madam in a single year.)

In 1987, shortly before Khashoggi was indicted for mail fraud and obstruction of justice (he was eventually acquitted), the yacht was sold to the real-estate developer Donald Trump, who renamed it Trump Princess. Trump was never comfortable on a boat—“Couldn’t get off fast enough,” he once said—but he liked to impress people with his yacht’s splendor. In 1991, while three billion dollars in debt, Trump ceded the vessel to creditors. Later in life, though, he discovered enthusiastic support among what he called “our beautiful boaters,” and he came to see quality watercraft as a mark of virtue—a way of beating the so-called élite. “We got better houses, apartments, we got nicer boats, we’re smarter than they are,” he told a crowd in Fargo, North Dakota. “Let’s call ourselves, from now on, the super-élite.”

In the age of oversharing, yachts are a final sanctum of secrecy, even for some of the world’s most inveterate talkers. Oprah, after returning from her sojourn with the Obamas, rebuffed questions from reporters. “What happens on the boat stays on the boat,” she said. “We talked, and everybody else did a lot of paddleboarding.”

I interviewed six American superyacht owners at length, and almost all insisted on anonymity or held forth with stupefying blandness. “Great family time,” one said. Another confessed, “It’s really hard to talk about it without being ridiculed.” None needed to be reminded of David Geffen’s misadventure during the early weeks of the pandemic, when he Instagrammed a photo of his yacht in the Grenadines and posted that he was “avoiding the virus” and “hoping everybody is staying safe.” It drew thousands of responses, many marked #EatTheRich, others summoning a range of nautical menaces: “At least the pirates have his location now.”

The yachts extend a tradition of seclusion as the ultimate luxury. The Medici, in sixteenth-century Florence, built elevated passageways, or corridoi , high over the city to escape what a scholar called the “clash of classes, the randomness, the smells and confusions” of pedestrian life below. More recently, owners of prized town houses in London have headed in the other direction, building three-story basements so vast that their construction can require mining engineers—a trend that researchers in the United Kingdom named “luxified troglodytism.”

Water conveys a particular autonomy, whether it’s ringing the foot of a castle or separating a private island from the mainland. Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, gave startup funding to the Seasteading Institute, a nonprofit group co-founded by Milton Friedman’s grandson, which seeks to create floating mini-states—an endeavor that Thiel considered part of his libertarian project to “escape from politics in all its forms.” Until that fantasy is realized, a white boat can provide a start. A recent feature in Boat International , a glossy trade magazine, noted that the new hundred-and-twenty-five-million-dollar megayacht Victorious has four generators and “six months’ autonomy” at sea. The builder, Vural Ak, explained, “In case of emergency, god forbid, you can live in open water without going to shore and keep your food stored, make your water from the sea.”

Much of the time, superyachts dwell beyond the reach of ordinary law enforcement. They cruise in international waters, and, when they dock, local cops tend to give them a wide berth; the boats often have private security, and their owners may well be friends with the Prime Minister. According to leaked documents known as the Paradise Papers, handlers proposed that the Saudi crown prince take delivery of a four-hundred-and-twenty-million-dollar yacht in “international waters in the western Mediterranean,” where the sale could avoid taxes.

Builders and designers rarely advertise beyond the trade press, and they scrupulously avoid leaks. At Lürssen, a German shipbuilding firm, projects are described internally strictly by reference number and code name. “We are not in the business for the glory,” Peter Lürssen, the C.E.O., told a reporter. The closest thing to an encyclopedia of yacht ownership is a site called SuperYachtFan, run by a longtime researcher who identifies himself only as Peter, with a disclaimer that he relies partly on “rumors” but makes efforts to confirm them. In an e-mail, he told me that he studies shell companies, navigation routes, paparazzi photos, and local media in various languages to maintain a database with more than thirteen hundred supposed owners. Some ask him to remove their names, but he thinks that members of that economic echelon should regard the attention as a “fact of life.”

To work in the industry, staff must adhere to the culture of secrecy, often enforced by N.D.A.s. On one yacht, O’Shannassy, the captain, learned to communicate in code with the helicopter pilot who regularly flew the owner from Switzerland to the Mediterranean. Before takeoff, the pilot would call with a cryptic report on whether the party included the presence of a Pomeranian. If any guest happened to overhear, their cover story was that a customs declaration required details about pets. In fact, the lapdog was a constant companion of the owner’s wife; if the Pomeranian was in the helicopter, so was she. “If no dog was in the helicopter,” O’Shannassy recalled, the owner was bringing “somebody else.” It was the captain’s duty to rebroadcast the news across the yacht’s internal radio: “Helicopter launched, no dog, I repeat no dog today”—the signal for the crew to ready the main cabin for the mistress, instead of the wife. They swapped out dresses, family photos, bathroom supplies, favored drinks in the fridge. On one occasion, the code got garbled, and the helicopter landed with an unanticipated Pomeranian. Afterward, the owner summoned O’Shannassy and said, “Brendan, I hope you never have such a situation, but if you do I recommend making sure the correct dresses are hanging when your wife comes into your room.”

In the hierarchy on board a yacht, the most delicate duties tend to trickle down to the least powerful. Yacht crew—yachties, as they’re known—trade manual labor and obedience for cash and adventure. On a well-staffed boat, the “interior team” operates at a forensic level of detail: they’ll use Q-tips to polish the rim of your toilet, tweezers to lift your fried-chicken crumbs from the teak, a toothbrush to clean the treads of your staircase.

Many are English-speaking twentysomethings, who find work by doing the “dock walk,” passing out résumés at marinas. The deals can be alluring: thirty-five hundred dollars a month for deckhands; fifty thousand dollars in tips for a decent summer in the Med. For captains, the size of the boat matters—they tend to earn about a thousand dollars per foot per year.

Yachties are an attractive lot, a community of the toned and chipper, which does not happen by chance; their résumés circulate with head shots. Before Andy Cohen was a talk-show host, he was the head of production and development at Bravo, where he green-lighted a reality show about a yacht crew: “It’s a total pressure cooker, and they’re actually living together while they’re working. Oh, and by the way, half of them are having sex with each other. What’s not going to be a hit about that?” The result, the gleefully seamy “Below Deck,” has been among the network’s top-rated shows for nearly a decade.

To stay in the business, captains and crew must absorb varying degrees of petty tyranny. An owner once gave O’Shannassy “a verbal beating” for failing to negotiate a lower price on champagne flutes etched with the yacht’s logo. In such moments, the captain responds with a deferential mantra: “There is no excuse. Your instruction was clear. I can only endeavor to make it better for next time.”

The job comes with perilously little protection. A big yacht is effectively a corporation with a rigid hierarchy and no H.R. department. In recent years, the industry has fielded increasingly outspoken complaints about sexual abuse, toxic impunity, and a disregard for mental health. A 2018 survey by the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network found that more than half of the women who work as yacht crew had experienced harassment, discrimination, or bullying on board. More than four-fifths of the men and women surveyed reported low morale.

Karine Rayson worked on yachts for four years, rising to the position of “chief stew,” or stewardess. Eventually, she found herself “thinking of business ideas while vacuuming,” and tiring of the culture of entitlement. She recalled an episode in the Maldives when “a guest took a Jet Ski and smashed into a marine reserve. That damaged the coral, and broke his Jet Ski, so he had to clamber over the rocks and find his way to the shore. It was a private hotel, and the security got him and said, ‘Look, there’s a large fine, you have to pay.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, the boat will pay for it.’ ” Rayson went back to school and became a psychotherapist. After a period of counselling inmates in maximum-security prisons, she now works with yacht crew, who meet with her online from around the world.

Rayson’s clients report a range of scenarios beyond the boundaries of ordinary employment: guests who did so much cocaine that they had no appetite for a chef’s meals; armed men who raided a boat offshore and threatened to take crew members to another country; owners who vowed that if a young stew told anyone about abuse she suffered on board they’d call in the Mafia and “skin me alive.” Bound by N.D.A.s, crew at sea have little recourse.“We were paranoid that our e-mails were being reviewed, or we were getting bugged,” Rayson said.

She runs an “exit strategy” course to help crew find jobs when they’re back on land. The adjustment isn’t easy, she said: “You’re getting paid good money to clean a toilet. So, when you take your C.V. to land-based employers, they might question your skill set.” Despite the stresses of yachting work, Rayson said, “a lot of them struggle with integration into land-based life, because they have all their bills paid for them, so they don’t pay for food. They don’t pay for rent. It’s a huge shock.”

It doesn’t take long at sea to learn that nothing is too rich to rust. The ocean air tarnishes metal ten times as fast as on land; saltwater infiltrates from below. Left untouched, a single corroding ulcer will puncture tanks, seize a motor, even collapse a hull. There are tricks, of course—shield sensitive parts with resin, have your staff buff away blemishes—but you can insulate a machine from its surroundings for only so long.

Hang around the superyacht world for a while and you see the metaphor everywhere. Four months after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the war had eaten a hole in his myths of competence. The Western campaign to isolate him and his oligarchs was proving more durable than most had predicted. Even if the seizures of yachts were mired in legal disputes, Finley, the former C.I.A. officer, saw them as a vital “pressure point.” She said, “The oligarchs supported Putin because he provided stable authoritarianism, and he can no longer guarantee that stability. And that’s when you start to have cracks.”

For all its profits from Russian clients, the yachting industry was unsentimental. Brokers stripped photos of Russian yachts from their Web sites; Lürssen, the German builder, sent questionnaires to clients asking who, exactly, they were. Business was roaring, and, if some Russians were cast out of the have-yachts, other buyers would replace them.

On a cloudless morning in Viareggio, a Tuscan town that builds almost a fifth of the world’s superyachts, a family of first-time owners from Tel Aviv made the final, fraught preparations. Down by the docks, their new boat was suspended above the water on slings, ready to be lowered for its official launch. The scene was set for a ceremony: white flags in the wind, a plexiglass lectern. It felt like the obverse of the dockside scrum at the Palm Beach show; by this point in the buying process, nobody was getting vetted through binoculars. Waitresses handed out glasses of wine. The yacht venders were in suits, but the new owners were in upscale Euro casual: untucked linen, tight jeans, twelve-hundred-dollar Prada sneakers. The family declined to speak to me (and the company declined to identify them). They had come asking for a smaller boat, but the sales staff had talked them up to a hundred and eleven feet. The Victorians would have been impressed.

The C.E.O. of Azimut Benetti, Marco Valle, was in a buoyant mood. “Sun. Breeze. Perfect day to launch a boat, right?” he told the owners. He applauded them for taking the “first step up the big staircase.” The selling of the next vessel had already begun.

Hanging aloft, their yacht looked like an artifact in the making; it was easy to imagine a future civilization sifting the sediment and discovering that an earlier society had engaged in a building spree of sumptuous arks, with accommodations for dozens of servants but only a few lucky passengers, plus the occasional Pomeranian.

We approached the hull, where a bottle of spumante hung from a ribbon in Italian colors. Two members of the family pulled back the bottle and slung it against the yacht. It bounced off and failed to shatter. “Oh, that’s bad luck,” a woman murmured beside me. Tales of that unhappy omen abound. In one memorable case, the bottle failed to break on Zaca, a schooner that belonged to Errol Flynn. In the years that followed, the crew mutinied and the boat sank; after being re-floated, it became the setting for Flynn’s descent into cocaine, alcohol, orgies, and drug smuggling. When Flynn died, new owners brought in an archdeacon for an onboard exorcism.

In the present case, the bottle broke on the second hit, and confetti rained down. As the family crowded around their yacht for photos, I asked Valle, the C.E.O., about the shortage of new boats. “Twenty-six years I’ve been in the nautical business—never been like this,” he said. He couldn’t hire enough welders and carpenters. “I don’t know for how long it will last, but we’ll try to get the profits right now.”

Whatever comes, the white-boat world is preparing to insure future profits, too. In recent years, big builders and brokers have sponsored a rebranding campaign dedicated to “improving the perception of superyachting.” (Among its recommendations: fewer ads with girls in bikinis and high heels.) The goal is partly to defuse #EatTheRich, but mostly it is to soothe skittish buyers. Even the dramatic increase in yacht ownership has not kept up with forecasts of the global growth in billionaires—a disparity that represents the “one dark cloud we can see on the horizon,” as Øino, the naval architect, said during an industry talk in Norway. He warned his colleagues that they needed to reach those “potential yacht owners who, for some reason, have decided not to step up to the plate.”

But, to a certain kind of yacht buyer, even aggressive scrutiny can feel like an advertisement—a reminder that, with enough access and cash, you can ride out almost any storm. In April, weeks after the fugitive Motor Yacht A went silent, it was rediscovered in physical form, buffed to a shine and moored along a creek in the United Arab Emirates. The owner, Melnichenko, had been sanctioned by the E.U., Switzerland, Australia, and the U.K. Yet the Emirates had rejected requests to join those sanctions and had become a favored wartime haven for Russian money. Motor Yacht A was once again arrayed in almost plain sight, like semaphore flags in the wind. ♦

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Real time world map for tracking yachts and all other vessels like speed boats, cargo or tankers! Tracking yachts and other vessels was never so easy!

Bill Duker Luxury Yacht – Sybaris

Luxury Sailing Yacht Sybaris is a 70 m / 229′8″ sailing vessel. She was built by Perini Navi in 2016.

With a beam of 13.24 m and a draft of 4.54 m, she has an aluminium hull and aluminium superstructure. She is powered by MTU engines of 1930 hp each. The sailing yacht can accommodate guests in cabins and an exterior design by Philippe Briand.

Commissioned for serial yacht owner Bill Duker, Sybaris is one of the largest yachts built by Italian yard Perini Navi to date, second only to the 88 metre Maltese Falcon.

Luxury Sailing Yacht Sybaris Awards

Monaco Yacht Show 2016 – Best Interior

Show Boats Design Awards Best Interior Layout & Design

Show Boats Design Awards Best Lighting Design

Show Boats Design Awards Newcomer of the Year PH Design

Her carbon-fiber rig includes two masts, which measure 72 and 62 metre’s respectively. Naval architecture, exterior design and sail plan optimization are all by Philippe Briand, while her interiors were styled by PH Design. Accommodation is for 12 guests, split across six cabins, and her total interior volume of 870 gross tonne’s also allows for a crew of up to 11.

Luxury Sailing Yacht Sybaris Interior

The subtle nature of Sybaris, even with her imposing 72 and 61 metre main and mizzen masts, is astounding. The performance under sail has the makings of a cutting-edge classic, and the resounding core of her creation is to house art, while becoming a masterpiece herself.

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Interiors notebook: Peter Hawrylewicz on designing Sybaris

As first yacht interior design commissions go, 70 metre sailing yacht Sybaris is quite the debut performance. Peter Hawrylewicz, co-founder of PH Design , takes us inside the creation of Bill Duker's beautiful yacht and expands on his design ethos.

I was shocked when Bill Duker asked us to design his Perini Sybaris . He’d been a client for years but we’d never done a yacht and there were others far more qualified. He tasked us with creating a floating gallery: the result is warm, modern, subtle interiors which let the art stand out.

I’ve always taken a “bones first, bonnets later” approach to land-based interiors and Sybaris was no different. We did have the advantage of starting with a blank piece of paper, though, which we rarely do on land.

One of the most beautiful sights in the world is a boat glowing alone on a dark sea. The direction of natural light on a boat is unpredictable so good lighting design is imperative on yachts. It’s a great way of creating intimacy or making spaces feel bigger.

I appreciate the enthusiasm designers bring to their superyacht projects but I don’t always like the outcome. Yachts that take a more-is-more approach can leave one wanting. Restraint adds clarity.

Yachts are all about economy of space. Guest cabins should be like Japanese mystery boxes where surfaces slide, swing and part to reveal compartments beneath. The trick is making it look effortless.

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The largest yachts owned by tech billionaires, from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos

• Megayachts have become a status symbol for the richest of the rich.
• In recent years, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have splurged on enormous boats.
• These are the biggest yachts owned by tech billionaires.

The average Joe celebrating a personal renaissance after, say, the end of a long-term relationship or when approaching a fresh decade might commemorate it with an ankle tattoo or a sports car. But if you're a billionaire, you may instead spend hundreds of millions on a yacht .

A few years after he and his wife divorced, Jeff Bezos shelled out on a megayacht. Last year, Bezos debuted the 127-meter vessel "Koru," a Māori symbol that signifies a fresh start — perhaps referring to that with his fiancée Lauren Sanchez.

Earlier this year, just before his 40th birthday, Mark Zuckerberg became the rumored owner of a yacht originally built for a Russian oligarch.

Superyachts have increasingly become ultrawealthy status symbols , providing highly secluded leisure and networking sites. They are — even more so than real estate — the single most expensive asset you can own.

"It's a bit of a celebration of your success in life, of wealth," Giovanna Vitelli, the chair of the Azimut Benetti Group, the world's biggest producer of superyachts, told Business Insider.

While many tech billionaires have bought yachts, the richest of the rich, like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, have gone bigger. Their boats are virtual palaces at sea, decked with amenities like gyms, spas, pools, nightclubs, and movie theaters.

A look at these megayachts — broadly defined as over 70 meters long, mostly custom-built, and often costing nine figures — offers a glimpse into how the .00001% lives. It's something few others will ever get to experience. Even chartering a yacht of this size for a week typically costs upwards of $1 million.

One major thing that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy is privacy. There are likely yachts that have not been publicly recorded or registered — for example, Evan Spiegel is rumored to own the 94-meter megayacht Bliss. In an industry ruled by discretion , deciphering who owns what is typically an exercise in stringing together many clues.

Here are the largest yachts owned by tech billionaires, listed in order of length.

Jeff Bezos: Koru and Abeona

Amazon founder Bezos' $500 million megayacht, the 127-meter Koru, made a splash last year as she crisscrossed the Mediterranean in her first summer at sea, with her 75-meter support vessel Abeona in tow.

The sailing yacht, which is hard to miss thanks to her massive size and unique design, was host to Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez's famous friends . The couple held an engagement party on board, which reportedly drew guests including Bill Gates, Ari Emanuel, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Just a week later, they were seen on the streets of Dubrovnik, Croatia, with Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry, and Usher.

Even before her completion, Koru made headlines. She drew the ire of some Dutch people, who vowed to hurl eggs after she was announced a historic bridge in Rotterdam might be taken apart to allow the Oceanco boat through. Luckily, the shipyard made alternative plans, and an egg crisis was averted.

Among yacht world insiders , Koru is widely praised for her craftsmanship.

"I heard back in 2018 or something that somebody had ordered a classic sailing yacht," one superyacht expert told BI. "You order 125 meters, that's not really going to be classic. But it is. I think it's pretty cool."

Mark Zuckerberg: Launchpad

Earlier this year, the yacht world was rife with rumors that Zuckerberg purchased Launchpad, a 118-meter superyacht originally designed for a sanctioned Russian businessman.

The ship made her maiden voyage in March, going from Gibraltar to St. Maarten and mooring in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Little is known about her interior, but photos show a large swimming pool and helipad. Her price, too, has been kept under wraps but is said to be nine figures.

Eric Schmidt: Whisper

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt made waves last year when he agreed to buy the Alfa Nero , the yacht of a sanctioned Russian oligarch, for $67 million in an auction conducted by Antigua and Barbuda. But he backed out of the deal following legal issues over her true owner. He quietly purchased Kismet instead. The 95-meter-long Lürssen-built boat was formerly owned by the Jacksonville Jaguar's billionaire owner Shahid Khan . Schmidt renamed her Whisper.

The ship can fit 12 guests and a crew of 28, according to Moran Yacht & Ship, which oversaw her construction. She features a master deck with a private jacuzzi, full-service spa, lap pool, movie theater, and outdoor fireplace.

While her final sale price was not public, she was listed for 149 million euros (about $161 million at current exchange rates), and at a charity auction in January, one week aboard the ship went for $2.4 million, according to industry outlet Yacht Charter Fleet.

Barry Diller: Eos

Barry Diller , the chairman of digital media company IAC, co-owns the megayacht Eos with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg , who is immortalized by a figurehead sculpture by Anh Duong.

One of the largest private sailing yachts in the world, the three-masted Lürssen schooner measures 93 meters long. She took three years to be built before being delivered to Diller in 2009, and since then, little has come to light about her interior and features.

The power couple has hosted many celebrities on the Eos, which spends her summers crisscrossing the Mediterranean and New Year ' s Eve in St. Barts . Over the years, guests have included Oprah Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Anderson Cooper, and Bezos, leading some to believe she provided inspiration for his Koru.

Jim Clark: Athena

Netscape founder Jim Clark purchased the 90-meter sailing yacht Athena in 2004.

"I could easily have built a 50- or 60-meter motor yacht that would have had the same space as Athena, but I was never really interested in building a motor yacht," he told Boat International in 2016. "To my eye, she's one of the most gorgeous large sailing yachts, maybe the most gorgeous large sailing yacht in the world."

Athena has room for 10 guests and 21 crewmembers, and the only change Clark says he'd make in her design is adding more space for his kids.

"If I was forced to change something, I would convert the office on the lower deck into a children's room," he said.

The former Stanford professor tried to sell her at various points — listing her for $95 million in 2012 , $69 million in 2016, and $59 million in 2017 — but she has yet to change hands.

Larry Ellison: Musashi

Oracle founder Larry Ellison has owned several superyachts over the years, including the Katana, the Ronin, and the Rising Sun — which he sold to fellow billionaire David Geffen .

He purchased his current boat, Musashi, in 2011 for a reported $160 million from custom-yacht giant Feadship.

Named after a famous samurai warrior, the 88-meter-long yacht has both Japanese and Art Deco-inspired design elements. She also boasts amenities including an elevator, swimming pool, beauty salon, gym, and basketball court.

Ellison is known for his extravagant spending — private islands, jets, a tennis tournament — and yachting is among his favorite and most expensive hobbies. He took up racing them in the 1990s and financed the America's Cup-winning BMW Oracle Racing team .

Laurene Powell Jobs: Venus

Steve Jobs' wife, investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, inherited a nearly finished 78-meter yacht named Venus when the Apple cofounder died in 2011.

After spending years vacationing on Ellison's yachts, Jobs wanted one for himself. He designed Venus with French starchitect and decorator Philippe Starck , and she was worth $130 million at completion.

"Venus comes from the philosophy of minimum," Starck said of her design. "The elegance of the minimum, approaching dematerialization."

Jobs and Starck began working together in 2007, the designer told Vanity Fair , and held monthly meetings over four years. Venus was delivered in 2012 to Jobs' specification: six identical cabins, a design to ensure spaces of absolute silence, and the most up-to-date technology.

"There will never again be a boat of that quality again. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task," Starck told the magazine. "It was not a yacht that Steve and I were constructing, we were embarked on a philosophical action, implemented according to a quasi-religious process. We formed a single brain with four lobes."

Charles Simonyi: Norn

Early Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi has purchased two megayachts from the German shipyard Lürssen: the 90-meter Norn and 71-meter Skat.

Delivered in 2023, Norn is full of luxe features, including an outdoor cinema and a pool floor that lifts to become a light-up dancefloor. She shares a militaristic style with Skat , which Simonyi sold in 2021.

Skats's name is derived from the Danish word for treasure, and she had a listing price of 56.5 million euros and was launched in 2002.

"The yacht is to be home away from my home in Seattle, and its style should match the style of the house, adapted for the practicalities of the sea," Simonyi once said .

Sergey Brin: Dragonfly

Google cofounder Sergey Brin has built a flotilla of yachts, boats, and toys known as the "Fly Fleet."

Named after a once-secret Google product , the largest of Brin's armada is the sleek Dragonfly , which boasts a movie theater and a helipad. The 73-meter-long vessel was built by the Australian shipyard Silver Yachts and can fit up to 18 guests and 16 crew members, according to SuperYacht Times.

Also in his fleet is the superyacht Butterfly, a mere 38 meters long. Often moored in the Bay Area, her crewmembers spend their downtime kitesurfing and giving swimming lessons to local kids.

The rest of his marine lineup includes a smaller boat called Firefly, as well as Jet Skis, foilboards, dinghies, and kiteboards. She takes a team of 50 full-time employees to manage, steer, and maintain the entire operation.

Sindhu Sundar contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Correction: May 6, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Giovanna Vitelli's title. She is the chair of the Azimut Benetti Group, not a vice president.

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Killer whales attack and sink 50-foot yacht in Strait of Gibraltar: Spanish officials

A pod of killer whales attacked and sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco, officials confirmed to ABC News.

Two people were on board the vessel when the incident occurred Sunday at 9 a.m. local time, according to Spain's maritime authority.

The nearly 50-foot yacht, named The Alboran Cognac, was 15 miles from Cabo Espartel in Morocco when an unknown number of orcas began ramming it.

The couple alerted Spanish authorities and a rescue team arrived to extricate them from the vessel an hour after the attack, though officials were unable to salvage the sinking boat.

There have been approximately 700 orca attacks since 2020, according to GT Orca Atlantica, a conservation group, and officials believe there are more than 37 orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar.

The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, separating Europe from Africa.

"During the summer and autumn of 2020, interaction events began to occur between several specimens of this species and vessels, mainly sailboats, both in the Strait of Gibraltar and in the waters of the Galician coast," according to Spanish government officials. "These interactions have ranged from persistent approaches to ships, to ramming the hull and rudder, causing various types of damage, which continue today."

It's unclear whyorcasattack boats, though experts hypothesize the marine mammals could be targeting vessels for sport or they feel threatened.

According to a study in Biological Conservation , a peer-reviewed journal, "sophisticated learning abilities" have been found to exist in orcas.

In June 2023, racing yachts in the Strait of Gibraltar had a close encounter with a pod oforcas, race officials said at the time.

Crew members aboard a rival pair of 65-foot yachts were on the final leg of The Ocean Race, a global sailing competition, when they reported being intercepted by killer whales as their boats approached the Strait of Gibraltar.

No fatalities were reported in the incident, according to officials.

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Up, Up and Not OK: Letting Go of Balloons Could Soon Be Illegal in Florida

In an effort to curb microplastics and marine pollution, state lawmakers voted to ban intentional releases.

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By Cara Buckley

Balloons released in the sky don’t go to heaven. They often end up in oceans and waterways, where they’re 32 times more likely to kill seabirds than other types of plastic debris. Despite this, humans like to release them en masse, be it to celebrate a loved one’s life or a wedding, or to reveal the gender of a baby.

The practice is on the verge of becoming illegal in Florida, where the legislature has joined a growing number of states to ban the intentional release of balloons outdoors. The Florida ban is expected to be signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and would take effect July 1.

Florida is at the forefront of a dizzying and contentious array of statewide bans, outlawing lab grown meat , certain books from school libraries and classrooms, and most abortions after six weeks . But the balloon ban is rare for garnering widespread bipartisan support. It was championed by environmentalists and sponsored by two Republican lawmakers from the Tampa Bay area, Linda Chaney, a state representative and Nick DiCeglie, a state senator.

“Balloons contribute to the increase in microplastic pollution which is harmful to every living thing including humans, polluting our air and drinking water,” Ms. Chaney wrote in an email.

“My hope is that this bill changes the culture, making people more aware of litter in general, including balloons,” she said.

Ms. Chaney said she first heard about the perils of balloon debris in 2020. Aquatic animals often mistake balloons for jellyfish and feel full after eating them, essentially starving from the inside out. Ribbons affixed to balloons entangle turtles and manatees. Balloons also pose a threat to land animals. In her research, Ms. Chaney learned about a pregnant cow that died after ingesting a balloon while grazing. The unborn calf died too.

The bill closes a loophole in an existing Florida law that allowed for the outdoor release of up to nine balloons per person in any 24-hour period, a provision that critics say didn’t achieve the goal of reducing marine trash.

The new legislation makes it clear that balloons can pose an environmental hazard, supporters say. It equates intentionally releasing a balloon filled with a gas lighter than air with littering, a noncriminal offense that carries a fine of $150. The ban also applies to outdoor releases of any balloons described by manufacturers as biodegradable.

The ban does not restrict the sale of balloons by party suppliers or manufacturers; they could still be used indoors or as decorations outdoors if properly secured.

Balloons released by a government agency or for government sanctioned scientific purposes would be exempt from the new law. Hot air balloons recovered after launch or balloons released by children aged 6 and younger would also be exempt.

The bill counts among its supporters the Florida Retail Association as well as the Coalition for Responsible Celebration, a trade association for balloon distributors and party stores, which in a statement said it recognized “the importance of promoting responsible balloon usage and ensuring safe access to these joy-inspiring products.”

The legislation marks a win for environmentalists hamstrung by Florida legislation known as the “ban on bans,” which prohibits counties and local municipalities from regulating single use plastics and plastic bags.

Jon Paul “J. P.” Brooker, director of Florida conservation for the nonprofit group Ocean Conservancy, said that increased concern about the health of beaches, a major driver of tourism, helped conservationists and lawmakers find common ground.

“Florida is its beaches,” Mr. Brooker said, “People are not going to flock by millions to them if they’re trashed and there’s dead animals and plastic and trash all over.”

Mr. Brooker said while it remains to be seen how vigorously police will enforce the ban, the fact that they will be able to issue tickets was a good thing. “More than anything,” he added,” it gives us in the environmental community an opportunity to educate the public as to why it’s bad.”

Public sentiment in Florida against balloon releases has been growing. Earlier this year, the city of Miami Beach adopted an ordinance banning party balloons from public marinas, marine facilities, parks and public beaches. This followed the arrest of two people in 2022 who were filmed popping balloons aboard a chartered yacht and letting the remnants fall into Biscayne Bay.

The balloon release ban follows another environmental win in the state. For more than 30 years, Mr. Brooker said cigarettes were the number one form of trash found on the state’s beaches. Then in 2022, the state passed a law allowing local governments to restrict cigarette smoking and vaping on public beaches and parks. More than 50 counties and municipalities, accounting for more than 500 miles of the state’s 1,350 miles of coastline, have since outlawed smoking and vaping on beaches, Mr. Brooker said.

“This isn’t just the bailiwick of progressives, and it’s certainly not something that draws the enmity of conservatives,” Mr. Brooker said. “It’s all Floridians banding together to protect Florida’s beaches that are the backbone of our economy and the underpinning of our cultural identity.”

According to Emma Haydocy, Florida policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation, seven other states have cracked down on outdoor balloon releases. And just last week, lawmakers in North Carolina filed their version of the Florida legislation.

In lieu of releasing balloons, conservationists are urging people to instead plant a tree or toss flower petals into the water.

“There are so many other ways of celebrating that are not detrimental,” Ms. Haydocy said.

Cara Buckley is a reporter on the climate team at The Times who focuses on people working toward climate solutions. More about Cara Buckley

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To celebrate _Sybaris _being named Sailing Yacht of the Year at the World Superyacht Awards 2017, we bring you this interview from our archive, in which Duker gave us the inside story on the build of the Perini Navi yacht. Superyacht owner Bill Duker was always the man with a plan - until, as he tells Stewart Campbell and Sacha Bonsor, a health scare forced his life philosophy to change.

Bill Duker, owner of the newly launched 70m sailing yacht Sybaris, discusses his original vision for the project as well as his favourite features on board.F...

To celebrate _Sybaris _being named Sailing Yacht of the Year at the World Superyacht Awards 2017, we bring you this interview from our archive, in which Duker gave us the inside story on the build of the Perini Navi yacht. Superyacht owner Bill Duker was always the man with a plan - until, as he tells Stewart Campbell and Sacha Bonsor, a health scare forced his life philosophy to change....

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In May, Perini Navi launched the 70-metre sailing yacht

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