[bigpicture]

> It's truly a shame that so much money is poured into such utterly wasteful possessions

When the yachts are idle, which is the majority of the time, they are typically plugged into shore power and are thus just consuming electricity from the grid. The electrical systems of these things are typically far more efficient than your home because they must generate their own electricity when at sea.

As for the wasting of money, you'll note that most of the cost of building a yacht is labor because they are mostly one-off builds and can't take advantage of automation. The article mentions that they cost 10% of the purchase price per month in upkeep. The vast majority of those costs are labor.

These things are among the most efficient devices for transferring wealth from the rich to the middle class. I wouldn't discourage their use at all.

[iguy]

This all is true.

I also wonder how much of the yacht business is really about money laundering or tax-evasion. Like the art collecting world. If your company buys the boat in one country, reflags it to Panama, sells it in Monaco the next tax year... I don't know any details but I'm sure there's substantial room here to massage what numbers you present to various tax collectors.

[ehnto]

Given how short the ownership tends to last (~9 months according to an anecdote in this thread), I suspect moving or protecting money is probably part of it somewhere. I also imagine a lot of it really is just wealthy people spending for fun rather than profit.

[iguy]

Heh, my anecdote is famous already :)

Indeed, it's pretty hard to tell. Both seem entirely plausible and I just have no way to guess how such buyers think.

[seppin]

Staff on these boats work on them year round, if they are being used or not.