Paul Allen's yacht destroyed 14,000 sq.ft of reef in the West Bay Caymans

Donating to MADD doesn't get one out of obeying traffic laws. If anything, this shows that Allen was well aware of how sensitive reefs are and so should have made sure his boat wasn't part of the problem.

Early studies suggest that not ripping up thousands of square feet of the coral reefs with your giant yacht correlates with increased health and survival of the coral reefs. As always, though, more research is needed. I can only assume that the recent incident is part of a randomized double-blind controlled trial to verify that hypothesis.

I am genuinely curious how anybody gets a pass for operating two massive private luxury yachts that are the antithesis of ocean conservation.

His operating costs on just the larger one are estimated at up 400k a WEEK. He spent 200m+ to build it.(1)

I admire his philanthropic efforts but buying goodwill like this is not a "carbon tax".

(1) http://www.businessinsider.com/crazy-facts-about-paul-allens...

Glad people got his permission to do what they wanted to do anyways.

Ah, he's rich and bribes excuse everything (they're for a good cause). I see. (Though in all likelihood it's the captain's fault, not his.)

The official who gave these instructions should also be fired. I find it interesting that the discussion centers around Allen. I'd argue that the official who supposedly gave the instructions is the person most responsible and yet I see less pitchforks for him/her than for Allen.

Doesn't mean Allen/the captain is innocent but it's odd how the focus of the debate is centered around them. Guess the "evil rich dude" narrative is more fun than the "incompetent official" one. I guess the headline "Incompetent official instructs ship to destroy reef." gets less clicks.

Do you think every captain has an onboard and up to date map of all the coral reefs in the area? cause I don't think they have those.

In fact, I think what a responsible captain should do is to ask the harbor master where the safest place to park their boat is, because he should know, it's his harbor.

Always? Even when under controlled areas of water like a Canal?

Also, the issue was not the safety and lawful operation of the vessel - the ship was safe, and the captain was following the law by anchoring in the designated area.

How does one ensure lawful operation if parking where the lawman tells you to park is unlawful. That's quite the conundrum!

Paul is a ship owner not a captain.

I agree that it doesn't add much to HN when stories like this are voted up on to the front page, but the implied alternative where stories like this are purposefully blocked from being on the front page by some mechanism is so much worse. It's far better to accept a little irrelevant gossip at the cost of the community than to start censoring what we can vote on and destroy the integrity on HN altogether.

It is interesting to follow this to see how he responds. It is a glimpse into his true character.

I'd guess that they're balancing levying fines against these entities and the tourism/money that they're bringing to the islands.

Link for the curious: http://www.seakeepers.org/

For me this doesn't seem to show up on the first page of Google results for "SeaKeeper". Instead there's a gyro roll-stabilizing device for yachts that goes by the same name. This made me question whether you had confused two devices on the yacht. But a more precise Googling did in fact find the society you mention.

While a shame, this sort of damage is not totally unnatural. Hurricanes have been decimating reefs for millions of years. A drifting tree trunk, at low tide in moderate surf, can do this much damage in a few minutes. The real manmade reef killers are chemical, not physical.

If you seen reefs at their pristine condition and see reef at most of the places nowadays, you'd be more indifferent to these news.

I saw a live reef several years back in Egypt and it was a astonishing, beautiful and alive. After this I've been few other places and while there were some fish, it was nothing like that. Everything I saw is like the 'destroyed' picture in the article. I think such damages don't do much impact on these reefs as they are effectively dead anyway.

This is really small compared to the systematic destruction of rain forests in the Amazon.

I don't think you should be sad about something that was caused by an unintentional error, like Paul Allen's crash.

What is right to be poignant about is all the intentional corruption-driven destruction caused by humans.

Paul Allen has pledged to give the majority of his fortune away[1][2], and has already founded the Allen Institutes for Brain Science and Cell Science, among other charitable endeavours (not that he's under any obligation to do either). So he spent a tiny fraction of his wealth on a yacht (which also employs people for what it's worth). Should he be putting 100% of his savings toward the benefit of mankind instead of only 99%?

[1] http://givingpledge.org/ [2] http://givingpledge.org/pdf/pledge-letters/Allen_Letter.pdf

I bet that reef was in need of disrupting. And government managed, too, with the threat of fines! Classic rent-seeking behavior. I for one am glad cruise liners and yachts are moving in like this; it can only lead to the creation of value. In fact, the remaining reef got more valuable automatically due to decreased supply of reef!

Good thing indeed. Paul Allen's vast contributions to science funding alone are of immense benefit to mankind. Not that he needs to justify his existence or wealth; his wealth doesn't need to be in the service of mankind, it simply makes Allen that much greater that he routinely does good things with his wealth.