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The Country That Wants to ‘Be Average’ vs. Jeff Bezos and His $500 Million Yacht

Why did Rotterdam stand between one of the world’s richest men and his boat? The furious response is rooted in Dutch values.

By David Segal

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

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

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

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

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

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

In late June, the city’s vice mayor reported that Oceanco had withdrawn its request to dismantle the Hef, a retreat that was portrayed as a victory of the masses over a billionaire, though it was much more than that.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

The first problem was the astounding wealth of Mr. Bezos.

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

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

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

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

Building the earth’s biggest sailing yacht and taking apart a city’s beloved landmark? That’s the devil’s all-you-can-eat buffet.

The streak of austerity in Dutch culture can be traced to Calvinism, say residents, the most popular religious branch of Protestantism here for hundreds of years. It emphasizes virtues like self-discipline, frugality and conscientiousness. Polls suggest that most people in the Netherlands today are not churchgoers, but the norms are embedded, as evidenced by Dutch attitudes toward wealth.

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

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

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

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

Chip in. Blend in. Help others. These are among the highest ideals of the Netherlands. Does this sound like a country eager to cut some slack to a man with $140 billion and a $500 million boat?

It didn’t help that Dutch critics of Mr. Bezos believe that employees at Amazon are underpaid, which, given his fortune, strikes them as not just grotesquely unfair but immoral. “He doesn’t pay his taxes,” is a common refrain in this city, and it doesn’t mean that Mr. Bezos is considered a tax cheat. It means that he isn’t fighting inequality by sharing his money, an obligation that transcends the tax code.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Emotions are important,” he said. “The council didn’t grasp that, which is incredibly stupid.”

The issue wasn’t just this particular billionaire and this particular yacht. It was this particular bridge. To outsiders, the Hef looks like an ungainly industrial workhorse that no longer works.

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

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

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

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

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

David Segal is a Business section reporter based in London. More about David Segal

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Jeff Bezos gets a historic Dutch bridge dismantled so his $500 million yacht can pass

The rich are different from you and me, as the writer Scott Fitzgerald once said. More proof (if any is needed) is a deal struck between Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos and officials in the Dutch city of Rotterdam to dismantle a historical landmark, so he can move his brand-new superyacht from the shipyard to the open sea.

In negotiations revealed this week, Rotterdam officials agreed to take apart (and later reassemble) the steel Koningshaven bridge that spans Europe’s busiest cargo port, and which has stood in place since 1927. That is in order for Bezos’s new 412-foot vessel—one of the biggest private yachts on the planet —to leave its construction site and set sail. The bridge is one of Rotterdam’s best-known local landmarks, called a “must-see” by one tourist on Tripadvisor.

It is a “must-remove” for Bezos, however. His vessel—estimated to cost about $500 million to build— includes three 229-foot masts , too tall to sail under the bridge, which has the height of a 13-story building and a clearance of 131 feet.

That meant the bridge, which locals affectionately call “De Hef,” or “the lever,” has to be temporarily taken apart sometime this summer and then reconstructed once Bezos’s yacht leaves town.

“On the one hand, economic importance, employment, due to the construction of this ship. On the other hand, our concern for De Hef,” Rotterdam spokeswoman Frances van Heijst told the Washington Post (which is owned by Bezos), to explain the thinking behind the decision. “We attach great importance to preserving employment,” she said, adding that the city would not cover the costs of removing and reassembling the bridge.

That was hardly reassuring to some politicians.

“This man has earned his money by structurally cutting staff, evading taxes, avoiding regulations, and now we have to tear down our beautiful national monument?” Stephan Leewis, a member of the Rotterdam council from the environmental party GroenLinks , told the local broadcaster Rijnmond, which broke the news on Wednesday. “That is really a bridge too far,” he said.

The deal also sparked anger among preservationists. “Jobs are important,” Ton Wesselink of Rotterdam’s historical society Historisch Genootschap Roterodamum told Rijnmond . “But there are limits with what you can and should do with our industrial heritage.”

Yet there are few limits, it seems, to what can be negotiated by a tech titan like Bezos, whose wealth grew by $5 billion last year to $195 billion, making him the world’s second richest individual after Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Last September, Bezos committed $1 billion to climate projects—including those focused on restoring the oceans.

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Jeff Bezos to dismantle historic Dutch bridge for $450 million yacht

The koningshaven bridge was built in 1878 and repaired after bombing in world war ii.

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Jeff Bezos will pay for Rotterdam to partially dismantle a nearly 145-year-old bridge so he can sail his $485 million super yacht out after finishing construction on the vessel. 

The Oceanco shipyard in Alblasserdam near Rotterdam has nearly completed the construction of Y721 , the former Amazon CEO’s yacht, but the vessel is too big to sail out with the bridge as it is. The builders asked the local council to remove the bridge’s central section so the yacht can pass. 

Jeff Bezos' superyacht in the Oceanco shipyard. The $485 million vessel will have a height over 130 feet.  (Courtesy Tom van Oossanen/IG: @tomvanoossanen)

"It's the only route to the sea," a spokesman for the mayor of Rotterdam told AFP , adding that billionaire Bezos, 57, would pay for the operation. The super yacht, which will be the largest boat built in Oceanco and one of the largest ever built, requires a 130-foot clearance, at least, to pass through. 

SHIRTLESS JEFF BEZOS COZIES UP TO GIRLFRIEND LAUREN SANCHEZ ON YACHT DURING ST. BARTS GETAWAY

The Koningshaven Bridge, known to locals as De Hef, dates from 1878 but was rebuilt after the Nazis bombed it in 1940 during World War II. The local council replaced the original swing bridge design after several traffic jams and collisions, changing it to a lifting bridge. 

The local council completed a major repair on the bridge in 2017 and promised not to dismantle the bridge again. 

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The shipbuilders dismissed suggestions that they sail a partially-finished vessel down the river and finish it elsewhere. Marcel Walravens, who managed the renovation, said it would prove impractical. 

"If you carry out a big job somewhere, you want all your tools in that place," Walravens told Rijnmond . "Otherwise you have to go back and forth constantly."

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Walravens noted that the municipality considers the project "very important." 

"Rotterdam has also been declared the maritime capital of Europe," he explained. "Shipbuilding and activity within that sector are therefore an important pillar for the municipality."

Rotterdam Now Won't Dismantle a Historic Bridge for Jeff Bezos's Superyacht

The Amazon founder's new sailing yacht is too tall to pass under the historic Koningshaven bridge.

Update 8/11/22 : Rotterdam now won't dismantle the Koningshaven Bridge for Jeff Bezos's boat. After backlash, the ship's builder Oceano decided to not move forward with a request to alter the bridge to sail the yacht. According to a Rotterdam deputy mayor , Oceano will "for the time being not request the environmental permit for the removal of the bridge."

"We’re happy it’s not happening," Marvin Biljoen, a councilman for GroenLinks, the Dutch Green Party, told the New York Times . "T he bridge is a national monument, which shouldn’t be altered too much. That you could still do that with money anyway bothers us."

Last week, Oceano quietly towed the yacht up the river in the early hours of the morning to a different shipyard, and now, Bezos's boat is nearly completed. The YouTube channel Dutch Yachting shared a video of the boat, and it has three large masts completed:

Expect the superyacht to be on the open seas soon.

Original 2/7/22 : The European port of Rotterdam will dismantle part of its iconic Koningshaven bridge for Jeff Bezos. The billionaire's new yacht is being built in Alblasserdam, in the western Netherlands, and will be too tall to pass under the bridge.

"It's the only route to the sea," a spokesperson for the mayor of Rotterdam told AFP , confirming the news of the bridge's dismantling. According to Dutch news , ship builder Oceanco convinced the city to dismantle part of the bridge. The Rotterdam mayor's spokesperson also confirmed that Bezos would pay for the dismantling and rebuilding of the bridge.

In November, Oceano's chairman, Omani businessman Dr. Mohammed Al Barwani, spoke of the 127 meter (416 feet) sailing yacht the company was working on without mentioning Bezos. Later, Boat International identified the 127m yacht as the one commissioned by the Amazon founder.

The Koningshaven bridge, known locally as the De Hef bridge , was built in 1877. During World War II, the bridge was significantly damaged and rebuilt, subsequently recognized as a historic monument. Between 2014 and 2017, the bridge underwent a restoration, and officials promised it would not be dismantled again.

"From an economic perspective and maintaining employment, the municipality considers this a very important project," Marcel Walravens, the leader of the proposed dismantling project, told Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond . "Rotterdam has also been declared the maritime capital of Europe. Shipbuilding and activity within that sector are therefore an important pillar for the municipality." Walravens says the project will likely take place sometime this summer.

Dennis Tak, a Labor Party city councilor, said he was OK with the dismantling of the Koningshaven bridge because Bezos is paying for it, and it would create jobs. "As a city, this is a great way to take some of his money," Tak told the New York Times .

Dutch residents are not happy, however; they plan to throw rotten eggs at Jeff Bezos's superyacht as it passes through the Rotterdam harbor. Business Insider reports Rotterdam locals are planning an event called "Throwing eggs at Jeff Bezos' superyacht" in protest.

"Calling all Rotterdammers, take a box of rotten eggs with you and let's throw them en masse at Jeff's superyacht when it sails through the Hef in Rotterdam," the event description reads on Facebook. "Rotterdam was built from the rubble by the people of Rotterdam, and we don't just take that apart for the phallic symbol of a megalomaniac billionaire. Not without a fight!" 3,300 people have RSVP'd as going, and 11,600 are interested in the event.

When Bezos's yacht, known as Y721, is delivered later this year—after the bridge is dismantled—the boat will become the world's largest sailing yacht, a title that has been held for nearly a century by American socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post's 1931 boat Sea Cloud .

Along with making history as the largest sailing yacht, Bezos's Y271 is the longest yacht to have ever been built in the Netherlands, and Oceano's largest ever superyacht. It is also rumored to come with a "support yacht," also called a shadow vessel. The superyacht likely cost more than $500 million to build, per Bloomberg .

Bezos is also reportedly the owner of the Flying Fox, a $400 million megayacht.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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• Netherlands

Jeff Bezos’s New Superyacht to Force Dismantling of Dutch Bridge

J eff Bezos’s massive new superyacht is nearing completion, but getting it to its owner will require taking out a bridge.

The 417-foot-long sailing yacht, code-named Y721, is being built by Alblasserdam, Netherlands-based Oceanco. For the boat to reach the ocean, it will have to pass through Rotterdam, and navigate a landmark steel bridge known as De Hef. A lift bridge, De Hef’s central span can be raised more than 130 feet into the air, but that’s still not high enough to accommodate the yacht’s three giant masts.

So the city has agreed to temporarily take apart the bridge’s central section this summer for Bezos’s yacht to pass through, according to Frances van Heijst, a Rotterdam spokeswoman. The NL Times reported the bridge plan earlier Wednesday.

The Y721 will be one of the largest sailing yachts ever built in the Netherlands, the unofficial capital of boat building for the very wealthy. Rotterdam council project leader Marcel Walravens defended the city’s decision to allow the bridge to be dismantled, telling local broadcaster Rijnmond it was the “only alternative” to complete what the municipality considers “a very important project” economically.

Oceanco, and not the city, will foot the cost of the bridge demolition, van Heijst said. It’s likely some of those costs will be passed on to Bezos, the world’s second-richest person with a net worth of $175.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

De Hef is considered an icon of Rotterdam’s industrial heritage as a shipbuilding hub, and news of its partial demolition has caused a stir among locals.

“This man has earned his money by structurally cutting staff, evading taxes, avoiding regulations and now we have to tear down our beautiful national monument?” Rotterdam politician Stephan Leewis wrote on Twitter. “That is really going a bridge too far.”

It’s not the first headache caused by Y721’s tall masts. The enormity of the yacht’s sails will make it unsafe to land a helicopter onboard, so Bezos has commissioned a support yacht equipped with a helipad to trail alongside.

Surging levels of personal wealth pushed superyacht sales to record levels last year. A total of 887 such ships were sold in 2021, a 77% jump from a year earlier and more than double the number in 2019, according to a report from maritime data firm VesselsValue. Boat builder Burgess reported more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in superyacht sales last year.

—With assistance from Brad Stone.

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Jeff Bezos’s $500m yacht stealthily towed out of Dutch shipyard after bridge dismantling controversy

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Jeff Bezos ’s yacht was quietly towed out of a Dutch shipyard this week, German magazine Der Spiegel reports . The ship previously attracted boatloads of controversy after its manufacturer asked the city of Rotterdam to dismantle a historic bridge to let it through.

The yachting firm, Oceanco, eventually withdrew the request, and hauled the Amazon billionaire’s 417-foot vessel to the Greenport shipyard early Tuesday morning, taking a more obscure route outside the city center that didn’t require passing under the bridge in question.

Hanco Bol, a local yachting enthusiast, spotted the transport in progress around 3am and posted a detailed video of the three-hour journey on YouTube.

He speculated that the alternate route was chosen “to keep the launch and transport under wraps”.

"We never saw a transport going that fast," he wrote in the caption of his YouTube video

The Independent has contacted Oceanco for comment.

The yacht, dubbed Y721 and reportedly worth $500m, may have left its original docking in Alblasserdam, Netherlands, but it leaves a checkered reputation behind.

The project came in for a storm of criticism when the shipbuilder asked Rotterdam in February to temporarily take apart the Koningshaven Bridge, a nearly 100-year-old local landmark, to allow the massive, three-mast vessel to pass underneath it.

“There’s a principle at stake,” Stefan Lewis, a former City Council member, told The New York Times , describing the outrage from Rotterdammers. “What can you buy if you have unlimited cash? Can you bend every rule? Can you take apart monuments?”

Locals even planned to egg the yacht as it sailed to its next port.

In July, the Dutch newspaper Trouw reported that Oceanco withdrew its request to dismantle the bridge

"As a result of the reports, shipyard employees feel threatened and the company fears vandalism," Trouw reported, according to public records it uncovered.

Mr Bezos has positioned himself as a leading climate philanthropist, and plans to give away $10bn through his Bezos Earth Fund, but he also lives an extremely high-carbon lifestyle.

The former Amazon CEO is one of the biggest landholders in the US .

Superyachts like the Y721 emit about 1,500 times more carbon than a typical family car per year.

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Rotterdam to dismantle part of historic bridge so Jeff Bezos’s massive yacht can pass through

Rotterdam has agreed to temporarily dismantle part of its historic Koningshaven Bridge so that Jeff Bezos’s 417-foot-long , three-mast yacht can pass through the waterway sometime this summer, according to a spokeswoman for the city.

The Dutch company Oceano has been building the massive vessel for an estimated $500 million in the nearby city of Alblasserdam. Once completed this year, the ship, known as Y721, will be the world’s largest sailing yacht, according to Boat International .

But to reach the open seas it must first pass through Rotterdam — considered the maritime capital of Europe — and the city’s historic steel bridge, locally known as De Hef, which has a clearance of just over 131 feet.

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Originally built in 1927, De Hef was a railway bridge and the first of its kind in Western Europe, with a central span that could be lifted to allow ship traffic to pass underneath. It was decommissioned in 1994 after being replaced by a tunnel, but later declared a national monument. The bridge underwent a major restoration from 2014 to 2017, after which the city said it would not be dismantled again, according to the Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond , which first reported on the yacht agreement.

Although the exact plans, timetable and costs have not been set, Oceano and Bezos will pay to dismantle the bridge, Rijnmond reported.

Frances van Heijst, the Rotterdam municipality spokeswoman, confirmed by phone that the city would not be footing the bill. She said the shipbuilder bears the cost of hiring a company to carry out the bridge’s deconstruction and reassembly, but that she could not provide an estimate or breakdown of the cost as “a lot of details need to be worked out.”

Representatives for Bezos and Oceano did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bezos, estimated to be one of the world’s richest people, owns The Washington Post. Last year, he stepped down as chief executive of Amazon, the online retail giant he founded.

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Van Heijst said by email that the city agreed to remove the middle part of the bridge after receiving the request and weighing the economic costs and benefits.

“On the one hand, [there is] the economic importance / employment due to the construction of this ship,” she said. “On the other hand, our concern for De Hef.”

Were permission to dismantle the bridge not provided, Oceano would likely have to sail a half-finished yacht under De Hef and then complete construction elsewhere.

“From an economic perspective, we attach great importance to preserving employment,” van Heijst said.

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Marcel Walravens, a municipality official working on De Hef related issues, told Rijnmond that he considered the removal of the middle part “maintenance” as afterward the bridge would be restored to its original form.

Others are more concerned.

“Jobs are important, but there are limits with what you can and should do with our industrial heritage,” Ton Wesselink, the head of a local history society, Historisch Genootschap Roterodamum, told the website Dutch News .

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Bezos Didn't Even Need to Dismantle Bridge to Move Yacht

Turns out, there were plenty of options for moving the world's largest yacht that didn't involve taking apart the koningshaven bridge in rotterdam..

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ big fancy new boat slipped silently from its berth at a Dutch shipyard in the wee hours of Tuesday morning without needing to dismantle any major historical pieces of infrastructure. Instead, the mega super yacht was towed a little out of its way to another shipyard without its mast.

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Apparently, that was always an option.

The vessel, with the catchy name Y721, has been under construction for years and still has many months to go before it’s in the hands of one of history’s wealthiest individuals. Built by Oceanco at a shipyard in Alblasserdam, Netherlands, the company originally announced the masts of the yacht would be too tall to fit under the almost 100-year-old Koningshaven Bridge, which caused quite the controversy in the Netherlands . Oceanco applied for a permit to dismantle the bridge and reassemble it once the Y721 had passed through downtown Rotterdam, all at Bezos’ expense.

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Known to locals as De Hef, the former railway bridge is a national heritage site. It was heavily damaged by Luftwaffe bombing during WWII. During renovations in 2017, Rotterdam’s city council promised residents the bridge would never again be dismantled. When Oceanco applied for the permit to do exactly that, the Dutch reacted with anger and a promise to lob eggs at the megayacht as it passed through their city, which over 3,000 people signed up on a Facebook group to do. Some went even further, threatening the company with violence should the bridge be dismantled, according to the German publication Der Spiegel . Rotterdam eventually denied the Oceanco the permit to dismantle De Hef.

Instead, the Y721 slipped out of its original shipyard around 3 a.m. Tuesday morning without its three towering masts and under the power of several tugs to head three hours to the Greenport shipyard in Rotterdam. Footage of the Y721 making its way to its new home was captured by Dutch Yachting :

It took three hours for the yacht to make it to Greenport, a trip that usually takes vessels twice as long under tow. The yacht even took a longer, more complicated route to avoid the bridge altogether, even though without its masts it could have slipped beneath the De Her undeterred. At Greenport, the masts will be installed and the ship will be tested at sea. The testing phase provided another wrinkle in the plan to dismantle the De Hef: After initial testing in open water, yachts often have to return to shipyards for improvements and repairs, which would have required even more bridge dismantling.

The 417-foot superyacht cost Bezos an estimated half-a-billion dollars to build and, when finally underway, will earn the title of largest sailing vessel in the world. Oceanco specializes in “green” sailing yacht and motorized vessels.

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Watch: Jeff Bezos’s Polarizing 417-Foot Megayacht Just Made a Stealth Escape Into a Dutch Port

No bridges were harmed during the making of this video., rachel cormack.

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After causing quite the controversy, Jeff Bezos ’s multimillion-dollar megaycht just made a very quiet escape.

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Koninginnebrug Bridge in the Netherlands will, thankfully, remain in tact.  Wikimedia Commons

Suffice it to say, Rotterdam locals were none too pleased about the idea. Thousands of residents even went so far as committing to egg the billionaire’s schooner in protest. Following the public outcry, Oceanco withdrew its request to dismantle the bridge. Lo and behold, Y271 has still managed to escape.

Local yachting enthusiast Hanco Bol witnessed the yacht’s stealthy departure at 3 am on August 2 and subsequently posted a video of the three-hour journey on YouTube. Bol speculated that Oceanco opted for an alternate route (we’re guessing one with fewer bridges) to keep the launch and transport under wraps. The yacht reportedly hit an average speed of 8 knots and arrived at the Port of Rotterdam at 6 am. By Bol’s account, it was a quiet and quick getaway.

“We never saw a transport going that fast,” the YouTube post reads.

Oceanco has been tightlipped about the gigayacht and did not immediately respond to Robb Report ‘s request for a comment. Upon completion, Y271 will not only be Holland’s largest superyacht to date, but it will also be the world’s biggest sailing yacht. It just might be the most controversial, too.

Rachel Cormack is a digital editor at Robb Report. She cut her teeth writing for HuffPost, Concrete Playground, and several other online publications in Australia, before moving to New York at the…

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Historic Dutch Bridge Being Temporarily Dismantled to Accommodate Jeff Bezos' Yacht

Once completed, the 417-foot-long ship will reportedly be the largest sailing yacht in the world

In order to make room for Jeff Bezos ' new yacht, some temporary changes will need to be made to a historic bridge in the Netherlands.

The city of Rotterdam — a major port city — has agreed to temporarily dismantle part of the Koningshaven Bridge in order to accommodate the yacht, a city spokeswoman told the Washington Post . (Bezos purchased the Post in 2013, but newspaper staff has said they have editorial independence .)

Once completed, the 417-foot-long yacht — which is currently being built in the nearby city of Alblasserdam — will be the largest sailing yacht in the world, per Boat International . The ship is expected to be finished sometime this summer.

Bloomberg previously reported that the ship will likely cost more than $500 million.

As is, the yacht is too tall to pass through the bridge, which has a clearance of just over 13 feet, per the Post .

The 58-year-old billionaire and the company building the yacht will reportedly cover the cost, according to the Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond .

A rep for Bezos did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

A Rotterdam spokesperson, who confirmed to the Post that the city will not be paying for the middle section of the bridge to be dismantled and then reassembled, was not able to provide an estimate of how much the project will cost.

"A lot of details need to be worked out," Frances van Heijst told the newspaper.

Originally built in 1927, the bridge was declared a national monument after being decommissioned in 1994, per the Post .

Following a major restoration, city officials said in 2017 the bridge would be kept intact moving forward, Rijnmond reported.

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While the decision has caused some controversy, city officials said that they decided to agree to it for economic reasons.

"From an economic perspective, we attach great importance to preserving employment," van Heijst told the Post .

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Watch CBS News

Mayor denies Dutch city will dismantle historic bridge for Jeff Bezos' yacht

By Megan Cerullo

February 4, 2022 / 2:05 PM EST / MoneyWatch

A Dutch city has not agreed to temporarily disassemble a bridge built in 1927 to make room for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ' mega-yacht, CBS MoneyWatch has learned.

A spokesperson for the mayor — and the city — on Friday told CBS MoneyWatch that Dutch press reports that Rotterdam would disassemble an historic bridge to make room for Bezos' boat were false, and that it has not received, or approved any such request. 

If Bezos or custom yacht-builder Oceanco asks for an accommodation, the city will consider it.

"The company that built the ship didn't yet ask for a permit so there is not an issue at this moment. When they ask for the permit, then we have to make a decision if we allow it or not, and how, and things like that," the spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch.

Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb also denied earlier press reports, telling Dutch paper Algemeen Dagblad that "No decision has been made yet," noting that neither Bezos nor his yacht's maker have applied for a permit to take down part of the bridge. 

The Amazon founder's $500 million boat, built by Netherlands-based Oceanco and scheduled to be completed soon, measures 417 feet long and must pass through Rotterdam, under its landmark bridge, to reach its owner, NL Times reported . The problem? The Koninginnebrug bridge, a steel bridge nicknamed De Hef, isn't tall enough to accommodate the ship's three masts, which exceed the 130 feet of clearance the bridge offers.   

Dutch press reports said that the city would remove the central section of the bridge to make way for the yacht, the largest ever built in the Netherlands. 

At this point in time, city officials in Rotterdam, who have been in contact with Oceanco regarding the construction of the superyacht, only know that "there is a big ship that has to go through the ocean some day," a spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch, adding that they anticipate receiving a request to make room for the boat to pass under the bridge. 

The spokesperson noted that the city has in the past had to deconstruct parts of the bridge to accommodate large vessels. 

"This is not the first time we have to do something about this bridge so that a big ship can go through. Once every few years a big ship has to go through to the other side," the spokesperson said. "So it's not unusual, in a way."

Rotterdam officials were said to have yielded to the billionaire, the world's  second-richest person , given the significance of the project to the local economy. Rotterdam council project leader Marcel Walravens called the construction of the superyacht "a very important project" economically, according to local broadcaster Rijnmond . Dismantling the bridge was the "only alternative," he said. 

Oceanco had agreed to pay for the cost of dismantling operation, Rotterdam spokesperson Frances Van Heijst told the NL Times. It's unclear if Bezos, who is worth roughly $176 billion , would pay for any of the disassembly cost.

The shipbuilder did not respond to a request for comment from CBS MoneyWatch. 

Aboutaleb, the mayor, said the controversial undertaking remains under consideration, but that Bezos still lacks the official approval to move forward. He also said Bezos' wealth and status will not influence his decision. 

"That has absolutely nothing do with this decision. It's about the facts. I want to know them first," Aboutaleb told the Dutch language newspaper.

"It's not an issue of what is going through the bridge," the city spokesperson reiterated. "It's not like if it's a ship for Mr. Bezos all of a sudden the rules are changing. But if there is a call for a permit, we will make a decision based on facts and not emotions. But we are not at that stage at this moment," the spokesperson said.

Some locals oppose altering the bridge on behalf of one of the richest people on the planet. Protesters have organized an event on Facebook at which they vowed to gather to throw eggs at Bezos' yacht when it passes under the bridge, scheduled for June. 

"Rotterdam was built from the rubble by the people of Rotterdam, and we don't just take that apart for the phallic symbol of a megalomaniac billionaire. Not without a fight!!" event organizers wrote on Facebook. 

• Netherlands

Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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Jeff Bezos' megayacht was quietly towed from a Dutch shipyard after the company building it scrapped a request to dismantle a historic bridge to let it pass — watch the video

• Bezos' yacht was moved from a Dutch shipyard before dawn Tuesday, likely to avoid local attention.
• After public outcry from locals, it did not involve the dismantling of a historic bridge.
• Watch Bezos' yacht make its journey.

Jeff Bezos' megayacht has quietly left the Dutch shipyard where it was built, sans a bridge dismantling and crowds of spectators.

The 417-foot vessel , known as Y721 and estimated to cost $500 million, has been under construction by the shipbuilding company Oceanco in a shipyard in Alblasserdam, Netherlands. It was towed to the Greenport shipyard in Rotterdam in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel .

The controversy surrounding Bezos' yacht began in February, when Oceanco requested the city of Rotterdam dismantle the Koningshaven Bridge to allow the vessel to pass through the city. Known colloquially as De Hef, the beloved bridge is considered something of a landmark by locals. It's nearly 100 years old. Upon completion, the yacht will have three masts too tall for the bridge's clearance, which is about 131 feet.

Dutch residents were outraged and planned an event to throw eggs at Bezos' yacht if it required the bridge to be dismantled for its passage. Within days, Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said no decision had been made to dismantle the bridge and that Bezos or Oceanco might need to foot the bill if it happened.

Earlier this month, Oceanco withdrew its request for the dismantling after the public outcry.

Hanco Bol, a local yachting enthusiast from the yacht fan club Dutch Yachting, saw and recorded a video of Tuesday's relocation, which he posted on YouTube, Der Spiegel reported. He said preparations for the move started about 1 a.m. and the yacht departed at 3 a.m.

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Bol speculated Oceanco "tried to keep the launch and transport under wraps" because the vessel took a route that was longer than necessary but avoided going through the city center and past the Koningshaven Bridge.

"We never saw a transport going that fast," he wrote in the caption of his YouTube video, adding that Bezos' yacht arrived at the Greenport shipyard three hours and 24 miles later.

On its voyage Tuesday morning, Bezos' yacht was towed without its masts, which will be installed later, Der Spiegel reported.

Watch the video of Bezos' yacht moving shipyards here:

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• Nation & World

Bezos’ too-tall $500 million superyacht finally at sea

Jeff Bezos should have his new superyacht in time for the summer.

The 417-foot Koru left a shipyard in the Netherlands last week and anchored Wednesday off the coast of Spain near Mallorca, where it’s undergoing tests.  

The Koru’s excursion is part of the sea trials where an owner puts the boat through its paces to make sure everything is working properly, according to a person familiar with its travels, who requested anonymity discussing private matters. It could return to the shipyard for final tweaks before being delivered.

The three-masted superyacht is estimated to have cost the Amazon founder more than $500 million. Bezos, 59, is the world’s third-richest person with a fortune of $126.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Related More on the Maritime Industry

• Yacht reportedly built for Jeff Bezos too big for Dutch bridge (February 2022)
• The country that wants to ‘be average’ vs. Jeff Bezos and his $500 million yacht (July 2022)
• Rotterdam will not dismantle bridge to allow Bezos’ superyacht through (July 2022)

Previously known as Y721, the ship is now registered as Koru and is flying under a Cayman Islands flag. It’s the largest sailing yacht afloat, according to Boat International, and one of the biggest to be built by Alblasserdam, Netherlands-based Oceanco.

An Amazon spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The superyacht’s size has caused a number of headaches for Bezos and its builders. The height of its masts was originally going to force the city of Rotterdam to dismantle a historic steel bridge, De Hef, for the boat to be able to make it to the ocean. 

City officials initially agreed to temporarily take apart the bridge’s central section, but Oceanco ended up retracting the request amid public outcry. The shipbuilder eventually towed the vessel out to sea without its masts. 

The size of the sails also meant that the yacht couldn’t have a helipad on board. Instead, Bezos and his helicopter pilot partner Lauren Sanchez will rely on a support boat, which is currently crossing the Atlantic with a destination of Gibraltar, according to vessel-tracking data.

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It costs $25 million a year to keep jeff bezos' $500 million luxury superyacht afloat — but he earns that in just 3 hours.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has made headlines for his business ventures and extravagant lifestyle.

One of the most notable symbols of his wealth is his superyacht, Koru, which costs around $500 million. This 417-foot luxury sailing yacht , built by Oceanco, features three towering masts and is the tallest sailing yacht in the world.

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Inside the Superyacht Koru

Koru's design is a marvel of modern engineering and luxury. The yacht boasts three decks, including one with a swimming pool, a gym, a spa, and a sauna. The interiors are crafted with the finest materials, providing unparalleled comfort and aesthetics.

Advanced technology enables Koru to be primarily powered by kinetic energy from its sails, reducing the need for a large crew and enhancing its environmental sustainability.

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Annual Operating Costs

Owning a superyacht like Koru involves significant annual expenses. The estimated cost to run and maintain Koru is about $25 million annually. Here's a breakdown of these costs:

Crew Salaries: The yacht accommodates up to 36 crew members. Given the high skill level required, annual crew salaries can be significant but specific figures are not disclosed in the sources.

Maintenance: General maintenance, including repairs and refits, can reach tens of millions. According to Luxury Launches, refits alone can cost up to $20 million.

Fuel: Refueling the yacht can cost upward of $500,000 due to its large fuel capacity.

Insurance: The annual insurance cost for a yacht like Koru is around $5 million.

Docking Fees: Docking fees in prime locations can be around $5,000 per night, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

Utilities and Amenities: Operating the onboard facilities and utilities, including electricity and entertainment systems, can potentially cost between $1 million and $3 million per year.

Security: Additional security measures for such a high-value vessel can cost several million dollars annually.

Luxury Maintenance: Maintaining the yacht's luxury interiors and furnishings can range from $2 million to $5 million annually.

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Koru is often seen cruising in various luxury destinations around the world. However, it is primarily kept in European waters, especially in the Mediterranean. The yacht has also been spotted in the Caribbean and along the coasts of the United States, particularly near Bezos's homes in Florida.

Bezos's Spending Spree and Florida Homes

Jeff Bezos's purchase of Koru is part of a broader pattern of high-value acquisitions. In addition to his superyacht, Bezos has been on a spending spree, acquiring multiple properties in recent years. He most recently invested in several luxurious homes in Florida's exclusive "Billionaire Bunker."

Bezos's Net Worth Surge

In early 2023, Jeff Bezos's net worth was $107 billion. By early 2024, it had surged to $177 billion, a $70 billion gain, according to Fortune. This translates to an increase of $191.8 million daily or about $8 million per hour. To put this into perspective, Bezos earns the equivalent of the median lifetime earnings of a typical U.S. worker ($1.7 million in 2023) in about 12.76 minutes.

Bezos' spending habits reflect his vast wealth and interest in maintaining a luxurious lifestyle while expanding his investments in various sectors.

Koru is a prime symbol of his wealth and taste for luxury. The costs associated with owning and operating such a vessel are substantial, but they are a mere fraction of his overall fortune. As Bezos continues to expand his real estate holdings and enjoy his time on Koru, his lifestyle remains a topic of fascination and envy.

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This article It Costs $25 Million A Year To Keep Jeff Bezos' $500 Million Luxury Superyacht Afloat — But He Earns That In Just 3 Hours originally appeared on Benzinga.com

© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Jeff Bezos' teure Hobbys: Von Super-Yacht bis Luxus-Privat-Jet

Jeff bezos‘ teure hobbys: von der super-yacht bis zum neuesten privat-jet.

Link kopiert!

Amazon-Gründer Jeff Bezos besitzt teure Immobilien, Flugzeuge und eine Megayacht.

Zu seinen jüngsten Erwerbungen gehören Villen auf einer Insel in Florida und der neueste Gulfstream-Jet.

Hier ist eine Übersicht über die teuersten Spielzeuge von Bezos.

Jeff Bezos ist einer der reichsten Menschen der Welt geworden, daher ist es keine Überraschung, dass er viele teure Spielzeuge gekauft hat – von einer Megayacht bis hin zu Häusern auf einer Privatinsel in Florida.

Bezos hat ein Vermögen von 192,3 Milliarden US-Dollar (rund 173 Milliarden Euro) und ist derzeit die zweitreichste Person der Welt, laut „ Forbes „.

Bezos investiert in andere Geschäftsbereiche

Bezos hat einen Teil des Geldes, das er seit der Gründung von Amazon im Jahr 1994 verdient hat, in andere Geschäftsbereiche investiert. So gründete er zum Beispiel im Jahr 2000 das Raketen- und Raumfahrtunternehmen Blue Origin. Und im Jahr 2013 erwarb er die Washington Post.

In diesem Jahr verkaufte er auch einige seiner Amazon-Aktien, um Day 1 Academies zu finanzieren, eine Kette von gemeinnützigen Vorschulen, die er gegründet hat.

Bezos gibt Hunderte Millionen für Flugzeuge, Yachten und Immobilien aus

Aber Bezos hat auch Hunderte von Millionen für Flugzeuge, eine Yacht, Häuser und andere Immobilien ausgegeben. Ein Vertreter von Bezos hat eine Anfrage um Stellungnahme von Business Insider nicht beantwortet.

Hier ist ein Blick auf die von Bezos besessenen Flugzeuge, Yachten und Häuser, von denen wir wissen:

Eine der neuesten Anschaffungen von Bezos scheint eine Gulfstream G700 zu sein

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Die Gulfstream wäre der vierte Jet von Bezos

Bezos hat auch eine Super-Yacht.

Bezos hat kürzlich drei Villen auf einer exklusiven Insel vor Miami gekauft

Er besitzt auch Immobilien in der Hauptstadt des Landes

Die Villen sind nur ein Teil des umfangreichen Immobilienbesitzes von Bezos

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