Inside Angle: Wannabe Yacht Vandals
Are superyachts the real villains? Angry activists, listen up.
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An American’s 361-foot superyacht was recently vandalized in Ibiza off the Spanish coast by two ignorant “climate activists” spraying paint on the transom. Of course, the only result of their action was immediate pollution of the harbor as the yacht’s crew dutifully washed the vandals’ wet paint into the sea.
One, the futility of this stunt by wannabe yacht vandals is obvious to any responsible thinking adult. Two, the benefits of the yachting industry are real and have a positive global reach no “climate activist” could ever hope to equal.
First, the futility. Today there are about 100,000 commercial ships plying the seven seas delivering food, energy, clothing, medicine and Barbie Corvettes to the four corners of the globe. But there are currently only 60 superyachts in the world measuring 100 meters (328 feet) in length or larger. The earth’s surface covers 197 million square miles, so there’s one really big superyacht for an area twenty times the size of California. Good luck trying to pollute much of anything with such a tiny global fleet of gin palaces. These things are rarer than the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise, for crying out loud. And with the world’s best maritime emissions tech, global superyacht pollution is utterly irrelevant by any objective analysis. It’s futile to protest a moot point. The juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. This uninformed “protest” smells more like envy.
The wannabe vandals also held a sign reading “you consume, others suffer” while they damaged private property. What really happens is, “you consume, others find happiness by profiting from the goods and services they provide you in a mutually beneficial transaction.” I guess it’s too much to expect these rebels without a clue to make that connection.
The wannabe vandals further expose their ignorance by “targeting the one percent and bringing awareness to their extravagant lifestyle.” Kiddos, the “one percent” of wage earners tows a shiny new 26-foot Malibu to a lake house in Tennessee behind a custom Ford F-450. They’re not landing a Eurocopter on a Feadship. That air is reserved for the top one-thousandth of one percent of “wage earners.” There simply aren’t enough ultra-wealthy people in the world to pollute the globe’s atmosphere via extravagant lifestyles. Put that spray paint down, junior. I still smell envy.
The benefits of the multibillion-dollar yachting industry are many for the hundreds of thousands of skilled blue collar and white collar workers and their families around the globe who weld, paint, varnish, engineer and manage these magnificent vessels. And superyachts are often among the first to deliver food and water to devastated coasts when storm victims are left with nothing.
The vandalized American yacht cost $300 million to build. Where do these wannabe vandals think those $300 million American dollars went, exactly? I’ll tell you where they went. They were voluntarily redistributed to those welders, painters, varnishers, engineers and managers around the world in about the coolest way imaginable; building an awesome superyacht. That owner could have kept the money locked up in T-bills or Chevron stock but decided to share the wealth instead.
By and large, superyacht owners give, and give, and give some more. I wrote in a previous column in these pages that the late superyacht owner Orin Edson and his wife donated more than $65 million to Arizona State University and helped fund the Mayo Clinic. One client of mine has donated over $500 million to hospitals and schools in the past decade.
And you, dear reader, do much the same thing on your own terms. The yachting industry serves as a conduit by which you voluntarily redistribute some of your wealth to hard-working people by having fun. Every time you have your 40-footer washed, serviced, insured, moored and hauled you ensure that the good deeds keep getting done. Thank you!
To the guy holding a paint can in his hand vandalizing the yacht in Ibiza: the problem is you. You’re the selfish, ignorant bastard in the equation, not the person you so envy on that shiny boat.
This article originally appeared in the January 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/column/inside-angle-wannabe-yacht-vandals
