Words: Violet
Traditionally, tech and water don’t make a good mix, but it turns out the tech giants – the brains behind the gizmos – are proving otherwise. As their pockets get bigger so do their yachts so we thought we’d turn our binoculars onto the seven seas and see who is sailing and what they are floating on.
Larry Page, Google
In 2011, Google’s CEO Larry Page joined the billionaire boat club and splashed out $45 million on super-yacht Senses from Sir David Myers, a New Zealand business man, giving the mogul a helipad, Jacuzzi, gym, multiple sun-decks, and ten luxurious suites to play with. The centrepiece of the vessel is a spacious owners’ suite with a dressing room which spans the full beam of the yacht. Just imagine the views he’s seen while suiting up in the morning.
Larry Ellison, Oracle
Music mogul David Geffen acquired the 454 foot Rising Sun from Larry Ellison, taking on the 8th largest yacht in the world.
Oracle’s Ellison, meanwhile, down-graded (if you can call it that) by 166 feet to the 288 feet long Feadship Musashi to charter around his Hawaiian island, Lanai, which he bought for $300 million in 2012.
More recently, Ellison’s Oracle sailing team emerged victorious in the America’s Cup race, closely beating the Emirates New Zealand team by 45 seconds. Ellison has put all his efforts into the last year to change sailing into something both more dangerous and telegenic than historical yacht races, spending almost $100 on research and development for making boats stronger and lighter.
As the Oracle founder said in a recent documentary when commenting on this expense he has spared, “it’s certainly not worth $100 million to lose the America’s Cup!”
Paul Allen, Microsoft
The 60 year-old co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, owns the 11th biggest yacht in the world, the 414-foot Octopus, and the 35th biggest, the 303-foot Tatoosh. With two helipads, a swimming pool, nightclub, a basketball court, a cinema, two submarines and a recording studio, Octopus is the King of extravagance and proof that the tech giant knows the meaning of splashing out (pun fully intended).
Octopus is renowned for its star-studded parties, having played host to some of the world’s glitziest showbiz events, namely around the London 2013 Olympic Games. Artists including RnB dynamo Usher, the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, U2 and Johnny Cash have all played on board for the tech giant who is reportedly a huge rock fan.
By Emma Corbett
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