Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

[Kittrick]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

He probably has some serious guns on board or maybe the ship transforms into like a robot fighter or something heh. You never know with him. Mike Holgren, coach of the Seahawks, has said in interviews that when Paul hires someone to do a job, he goes and gets the best and it may be a really long time before you see him again as long as you do your job because he's a pretty hands off type of boss. It's hard to believe that that ship has a 10 person submarine on board with remote control vehicle.

He paid like $160 million of Qwest Field's $460 million cost out of his pocket to build it and saved NFL football in Seattle when the previous owner wanted to move the team to California.

I'm sure this boat is just a drop in the bucket compared to the big picture as to his wealth. Steve Jobs couldn't outspend Paul Allen, I'm pretty sure of that.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

He probably has some serious guns on board or maybe the ship transforms into like a robot fighter or something heh. You never know with him. Mike Holgren, coach of the Seahawks, has said in interviews that when Paul hires someone to do a job, he goes and gets the best and it may be a really long time before you see him again as long as you do your job because he's a pretty hands off type of boss. It's hard to believe that that ship has a 10 person submarine on board with remote control vehicle.

He paid like $160 million of Qwest Field's $460 million cost out of his pocket to build it and saved NFL football in Seattle when the previous owner wanted to move the team to California.

I'm sure this boat is just a drop in the bucket compared to the big picture as to his wealth. Steve Jobs couldn't outspend Paul Allen, I'm pretty sure of that.

Well if you want an intimidating group of people to defend your boat, heck the defensive line of any NFL football team would suffice. Put guns instead of footballs in their hands and let's see how far pirates get on board. Hey wait a minute he does own a football team...hmmm...

If I were the owner of that boat and I hated pirates but loved a good game, I'd tell my boys, "Lets go fishing for some pirates" and load up with the best armament money can buy in the free world and slowly reduce their threat one boat at a time.

[LikaNui]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

we are headed out for a morning kayak ride to see the big boat in the bay. Hope she is still there.

Well? Any luck, Tim?
The boat yacht ship is back in Honolulu Harbor today. I saw it about an hour ago. Took some photos which I'll post here later this afternoon.

I saw the submarine behind it yesterday. Yellow submarine even.

Allen gets points for having a good sense of humor!

Saw the "tender" too on the Fair Wind Mooring. Damn big boat to be a tender.

Description, please? Sportfisher, or ... ?
As a comparison, at the bottom of this post is a photo of one of my former boats, a 50' Grand Banks. It weighed 59,300 pounds. And the tender you saw is 15' bigger than this, and it gets carried inside Octopus!
When I post photos later, you'll see that the entire 2-story transom of Octopus opens up to create a gigantic 'garage' for the toys, including the submarine and the 65' tender and the other 5 boats it carries plus jet skis, etc.

I wonder what kind of armament is on there - or do they just stay away from pirate infested waters?

As you can imagine, Octopus has awesome electronic security systems. Dozens of cameras (including underwater), motion sensors (including underwater), thermal imaging, and much much more high tech gadgets. And I'm sure that 60-person crew includes an armed security team.

I'm sure this boat is just a drop in the bucket compared to the big picture as to his wealth.

According to Forbes Magazine, Allen is the 5th richest American, and he's worth about $16 billion. $200 million to build the boat was chump change (relatively), and the $20 million per year in maintenance costs is well under one month's interest income, without ever touching the $16 billion principal.

Here's that photo of my former 50-footer (15' smaller than the tender from Octopus):

[nachodaddy]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

50 Foot Grand Banks..... a very proper boat.......see a lot of them up here.....I have been around boats all my life, have an expired Coast Guard license.....seen some heavy stuff bobbing around.

With regard to security, a friend of a friend (I know....), informed me that the security personnel are all ex Navy Seals. Rumor, maybe. With Paul's salary, very possible. Dude can afford the best in a repel boarders scenario.

[LikaNui]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

With regard to security, a friend of a friend (I know....), informed me that the security personnel are all ex Navy Seals. Rumor, maybe.

It's a fact, not rumor, according to various sources on the internet.

Do a Google on "Paul+Allen+Octopus" and there are 867 links. I only looked at the first two so far.
There's an incredible powerpoint presentation at this link, and I was able to view it as individual photos without running PowerPoint, too.
It includes that 63' tender. Wow! And you can see what I was describing in my last post about the whole transom opening up, with some shots of that tender coming out of there, and the yellow submarine stored in front of it.
The photos at that link are just mind-numbing, even for folks who don't care about boats.
Not sure if I should even bother posting my own photos after that.

Some more interesting data. Octopus can carry 224,400 gallons of fuel. Even assuming they pay a bulk rate, it costs more than $250,000 each time they fill 'er up. Possibly closer to $500,000.
Her engineroom has eight Mercedes Benz diesels, at 2,400 horsepower each.
When she was built in 2003, she was the world's largest private yacht. Bigger ones have been built since then.
Can you say "conspicuous consumption" boys and girls? I knew you could!

[Kittrick]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Looking at the powerpoint slideshow, Octopus has a few child ships that fit inside and the two helicopters which would require a lot of fuel, as from other postings I've seen she sails a lot and often.

I seriously chuckled at the pics of the side doors of the ship that fold out to reveal the hot tub and bar and a boat launch should Paul Allen ever want to take a boat out or swim in the ocean or be in the hot tub and or enjoy an alcoholic beverage at sea level. That's so crazy!

I'm thinking he must rent these ships out to really rich folks when he's not using them, as they seem to travel a lot.

[LikaNui]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

I seriously chuckled at the pics of the side doors of the ship that fold out to reveal the hot tub and bar and a boat launch should Paul Allen ever want to take a boat out or swim in the ocean or be in the hot tub and or enjoy an alcoholic beverage at sea level. That's so crazy!

That was one of my favorite shots too. Then again, all those photos are just jaw-dropping outrageous. People on the boat look so darned tiny!

I'm thinking he must rent these ships out to really rich folks when he's not using them, as they seem to travel a lot.

Are you talking about the tenders? He certainly doesn't charter Octopus itself. Yachts around 135' can charter for rates around $150,000... per WEEK. And that's the base rate, and doesn't include food, fuel and other expenses.
Since that's for a boat less than 1/3 as long as Octopus, she'd clearly bring in well over $1 million per week.
Kind of a small market for that.
Besides, Allen doesn't need the money from chartering his boat, and he doesn't want people using his toothbrush either.
But wait.
Allen's Octopus is 416', but the world's largest private yacht is 525' and belongs to the Crown Prince of Dubai. Check it out at this link, with about a dozen photos.
Rumored to cost well over $300 million. (And one source says that Octopus' actual final cost was $254 million.)
We probably could've found a cure for cancer just for the cost of those two boats.

[LikaNui]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Well, my 16 photos can't match the ones on that PowerPoint, but. You can see the slideshow at this link, if you'd like.
Again, I urge you folks to get down to Pier 38 just to see something you'll likely never see again. Maybe have lunch at Nico's while you're there. Octopus is over at Pier 34, but from the area by Nico's you can drive around the parking lot to Pier 35 and see it, then go back out onto Nimitz, turn right, then turn into the next road to get to Pier 34 and the barbed wire spot.
I'd love to see what you folks with good cameras could do!
Of my photos, I like the last few shots, taken through a fence. Having the barbed wire in the photos is pretty cool. Like this:

[TATTRAT]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Any word on where it is registered out of? As a Bermuda native, that SURE looks like a BDA Flag blowing in the wind there!


I love the pic too! That damn barbed wire, that(and a few X Seals) is all that is restricting us from grand theft boat...I guess we could distravt the Seals with some beach balls and a few sardines?









bad, horrible joke, sorry...

[timkona]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

From what I've heard, seals are best distracted by ice cold beer, and loose women. Like moths to a flame.

[LikaNui]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Any word on where it is registered out of? As a Bermuda native, that SURE looks like a BDA Flag blowing in the wind there!

Like most megayachts, she's flagged out of Georgetown in the Cayman Islands.

From what I've heard, seals are best distracted by ice cold beer, and loose women.

Oh, heck. I've had it backward all this time. I seem to find loose beer and ice cold women.
Maybe I should also rethink my investment strategy of "buy high, sell low."

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Yowza!

A few years ago, I briefly set foot on ex-MS bigwig Nathan Myrvold's yacht, while it was being restocked for a trip (as I was close to one of his employees at the time). I'm sorry that I don't have any of the details on its size/capacity/design; it was huge, as you can imagine - but not as huge as the one this thread is about.

[Kittrick]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

She's ported @ Pier 11 Aloha Tower this morning!

[Kittrick]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Pics of the octopus @ aloha tower today. Not as good as the ones in the powerpoint, but it's amazing how large one man's ship can be. The second pic has that door on the waterline open with the people at the bar and the jacuzzi. (a look inside the waterline door is in the powerpoint slide).

[LikaNui]

Re: Billionaire's yacht cruising Hawaii

Well done, Kittrick. Thanks for the updates and for the photos!
Appreciate any updates from anyone near Aloha Tower on whether Octopus is still there, as a few boating friends want to go see it.