You know you’re rich when people have to dismantle a bridge just so they can fit your mega-yacht through.
This is the unusual situation facing Jeff Bezos, who is having a 417ft boat built for him at the not-so-modest price of £400 million.
When it’s completed, it’ll be the biggest sailing yacht in the world - which is no doubt an exciting prospect for the former Amazon boss. But it’s this detail that’s causing a few issues.
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You see, the boat - named the Y721 - is being built at the Oceano shipyard in Alblasserdam, in the Netherlands.
And in order to get it out to sea, it needs to pass under the historic Koningshavenbrug bridge in Rotterdam, also known as De Hef.
According to Dutch publication Rijnmond, the local council had pledged never to dismantle the iconic bridge again after it was renovated in 2017.
However, this promise is set to be broken in order to allow the three-masted yacht to pass through.
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Don’t worry, as Bezos is going to foot the bill - he must really want that boat. Although having pockets as deep as his certainly helps.
Even so, the Blue Origin founder has ruffled some feathers in the process, including Ton Wesselink of the local history society Historisch Genootschap Roterodamum who said: “Jobs are important, but there are limits with what you can and should do with our industrial heritage.”
On the other side of the fence, project leader Marcel Walravens took a more matter-of-fact approach, telling the publication: “This mainly concerns the passage of a ship with high masts through De Hef.
“At the Koninginnebrug we can press a button and it opens. That is not possible here, because De Hef has a maximum height. The only alternative is to take out the middle part.”
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As for the yacht itself, not a huge amount of information has been made available yet, but according to the MailOnline, it will have ‘three enormous masts and three decks’.
It’s being developed by custom yacht builder Oceano, and is believed to be based on the firm’s Black Pearl model - one of the largest and most ecological sailing yachts in the world.
Clearly the billionaire isn’t struggling for cash right now, despite the fact that he saw a $20 billion (£14 billion) dive in his fortune earlier this month.
According to Bloomberg, tech stocks and cryptocurrencies fell massively in what was the worst week since the pandemic began.
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But with plans to have an iconic bridge dismantled for a £400 million boat, it seems Bezos ain’t sweating it.
Topics: Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Daisy Phillipson