Technobabble

How Big Is Bill Gates' Yacht?

Posted by on May 21, 2007 | 7 Comments

According to Reuters, Bill has a big yacht… a really big yacht. How big, you ask? Try 177 feet and see how it fits. Common folk might dream about chartering a yacht to cruise Mediterranean and Caribbean waters. But Bill and Melinda have succumbed to the charms of Phuket, Thailand, where the locals are planning to build the most elite of retreats… a man-made island to play host to just a few dozen ultra-plush tropical homes, a hotel, and a marina to dock the grandest of the grand charter yachts.

If you want to dock your mega charter yacht at the existing Royal Phuket Marina, you’re out of luck (even if you remember to bring both your Visa and American Express cards). At low tide, you’ll beach that luxury cruiser like a whale out of water. That’s why they’re planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build the new island… to cater to the ultra-rich and their ultra-large yachts.

You and I don’t have that problem, of course. The charter yachts of our dreams sail in less exotic locales and might not even run Vista. I’d gladly settle for a 41 foot ocean yacht, tied up at the Trump Marina in Atlantic City. But if the Donald is reading, please send someone to captain the ship for me, lest I run it aground…

[tags]charter yacht[/tags]

  • http://www.revs.org Matt Williams

    My friend works at Microsoft in the UK and said that one of his colleagues tried to strike up a conversation with Bill Gates. He asked what time his flight back to the States would be. The answer – “when I tell them”.

  • http://www.jeff-barr.com Jeff Barr

    Actually, 177 feet isn’t considered a big yacht at all (I know, my heart bleeds too). To even be considered for biggest it looks like you need to get up to around 420 or 450 feet.

    There’s a somewhat dated list at http://powerandmotoryacht.com/megayachts/0804top100/, and another picture-heavy page at http://www.agent4stars.com/yachts1.htm .

    Based on way too much searching this morning, it looks like the newest contender for biggest is under construction, with more information at http://www.atabeyki.com/ .

  • http://rireoupleurer.be Lou

    C’est une HONTE
    comment peut-on laisser faire une chose pareille ?
    Il y a dans ce monde de nombreuses personnes souffrant de la faim, il vaudrait mieux se préoccuper d’eux plutôt que de polluer comme un fou
    HONTE à BILL !

    SHAME ON YOU BILL
    SHAME !!!
    SHAME !!!

  • http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com Diane M. Byrne

    Don’t believe everything you read, folks: Bill Gates doesn’t own that yacht (or any other yacht in that stratosphere). He was a guest aboard.
    Second, too bad Jeff Barr didn’t take more time to look at our Web site–that “dated” list is published annually, so “The World’s 100 Largest Yachts” was also published in 2005 and 2006 and of course included on our Web site. The 2007 edition is coming out in a few weeks.

  • aly Khan

    Bill Gates has every right to buy a yatch,

    it’s his own hard work and money. He is paying taxes and giving much of his hard earned money to charity.

    And majority of you if you had it you would buy it too eventhough u say now that you dont.

    dont curb peoples ambitions to work. people work 18 hours a day trying to live their dreams, and one day when the wake up, make their dreams come true, idiots tell them oh no u should give to charity. we are no one to tell what others should do with their money.

    • http://www.geekbooks.com/ Dan Gray

      Bill’s the man!

  • J

    Sure Bill has the right to buy anything he wants. But I think he’s more mature than that. I don’t think goal was to become rich from when he was a child. His goal was to contribute and own a successful enterprise, which he does. So, I think it would be counter-intuitive to Bill’s mission to splurge on multi million (billion) dollar items just because he knows he’s the only one who can. Someone that powerful better well be mature about his responsibility to society or else he’d make no money.