Billionaires and Their Superyachts Are Flocking to This Caribbean Island – Vanity Fair

Dashing away in quiet snowy seclusion is how some celebrities do it for the holidays. Others can make like Succession's Roy family and embark on enormous and, if you know where to look, trackable ships.

Superyachts, as they are called, are finite in number. Only 2,374 are floating around out there according to SuperYachtNews.com, and if anyone should know, it seems like it would be them. (The actual definition of what makes a superyacht remains slippery, suffice to say that the best way to know if you are on a superyacht is not having to ask.) When there is an uptick in superyacht movement, as there is from November to December, it becomes easier to assess which island is more enticing for a billionaire holiday retreat.

Shipspotters have returned with data and, as reported by Bloomberg, we have a clear champion this season in Sint Maarten, the Dutch bottom half of the island of Saint Martin. (The French have Saint-Martin on the top; jot that down, this may be on the pop quiz.)

Sint Maarten clocked a jump from 16 to 52 superyachts, including Eclipse owned by Roman Abramovich, head of Millhouse Capital and owner of the British Premiere Leagues Chelsea F.C. They came in 3rd place last year, which is fitting in that Eclipse is the third-largest superyacht out there on the seas. Hey, Roman, bubi, come on, lets try for some silver medals next year, huh? We believe in you!

For comparison, Eclipse is 533 feet and Solandge, the actual, rentable boat at the end of last seasons Succession, is a mere 279. (That charter will cost you 1 million for a week plus expenses, which converts to dollars as boatloads.)

After Sint Maarten the other big changes in superyacht appearances were off the coast of St. Barts, Antigua and Turkey. The ships were departing in largest numbers from Spain, The United States and Italy.

If any of you aqua-snoops would like to spend an entire afternoon looking for yachts owned by celebrities, check out the very addictive interactive map on MarineTraffic.com. Once you get familiar with who owns which vessel you might actually catch someone en route to a vacation destination. After a little poking around it appears that Seven Seas, owned by Steven Spielberg, is staying put off the coast of Florida, but Tiger Woods's ship is en route to a port in the Bahamas. We won't get into more detail than that, as the name of the ship is Privacy.

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Billionaires and Their Superyachts Are Flocking to This Caribbean Island - Vanity Fair

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