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Comment by kentonv | Hacker News Reader

Hmmmmm.....

Just kidding. Gotta say I never understood the appeal of yachts. What does a yacht give you that a fancy house doesn't? It's on the water? So what? It's not like it goes fast enough to be a worthwhile form of transportation...

I do totally get private jets. They are fancy, but also get you somewhere. LAN party jet? That'd be a cool way to pass a long flight. Hey guys let's LAN party to Tokyo!

(I do not expect I'll ever have private jet money. Please don't eat me.)

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It's like your own villa that can sit in any party place you like. Ibiza, French Riviera, Crete, Barcelona.

And when you get bored with Europe, you pay someone to sail it to Caribbean and can fly there to party again.

And if you're poor and only have a few million dollar yaht next to your by the river apartment, then you can at least have a party on the yacht when it's parked, cos you don't want to get caught drunk & sailing.

Not that I ever thought about what it would be like to have a yacht. But once broke onto one and me and my 2 friends had a before party on it. We didn't damage anything or litter. We just didn't have any place to stay, because the last bus to the city arrived at 19:30 and clubs didn't open until 21 and it was cold.

Heh. Nothing else says, "I have so much money that I literally don't have to care about anything ever again," than spending millions on a big-ass boat to go partying on and snort everclear or whatever it is that the ultra-rich get up to these days.

I've lived aboard boats for about 17 years of my life, I feel more comfortable squished into a boat then living on land, the sounds and movement are somehow reassuring. When my family moved ashore I got my first PC and I would host LAN parties, I also enjoy cooking so I would prepare a bunch of casaroles, everyone would pitch in and then skip sleep for most of a long weekend. Sometimes I see some old big boat with large generators for sale and contemplate packing a lan party on board, being out in some quiet ancorage with your friends fragging away sounds like a dream to me! I've seen your house on here a couple of times I love your setup!

How big is your boat? I assume you have to make some sacrifices respect to showers, toilet, oven, fridge, etc, but it does sound appealing to me.

Do you actually drive it around or is it permanently moored?

I've had a few over the years, currently I have a 36’ steel sailboat, it has a lot of insulation so it's cosy in the winter. I live ashore at the moment, but for 1 person 36' is too big even. I can shower with hot water (propane on demand heater and a 12v water pump), the toilet is small, I also hit the local pool from time to time for a shower. My solar + 4 golf cart lead acid batteries runs a small compressor fridge and a loptop. I sail it around the coast (bc gulf islands), but mostly its parked in its spot.

You can go swimming anytime you want to. They are slow, but you get to choose when you leave and where you go.

Most yacht owners don't live on them full time. (they may have a paid crew that does) they take them for vacations. They are not really transportation even though they often will go to multiple close destinations.

I just feel like, the whole point of travelling is to experience different environments. Isn't it more fun to stay in a different fancy hotel every time, than to be in your same old yacht you've been in many times before?

I'm also confused about people who own many vacation houses. Why not just rent a different fancy house each time? Less expensive, less trouble, more variety, you can experience more places...

There are multiple ways to do things. If you are visiting a places for a short time you cannot go in depth of the full experience like you could if you stay longer - but by contrast if you spend a lot of time at one hotel you lose the ability to see all the other places you could have. There are more places to visit than I will have time to.

Staying in your own yacht means that you have all the things arranged like you like it. You can't repaint your hotel room. You can't control how firm the bed is in your hotel room. Most hotels give you a choice of pillows - but you have to do something with the ones you don't like without taking them out of your room. Your yacht/house is never booked when you want to go - which can be a big deal.

There is no reason someone with a yacht can't stay in a hotel. I suspect many with a yacht spend more nights in a hotel than all their houses/yachts combined.

At the level of wealth of owning one of these yachts, hotels will ensure they have the bed and pillows you want, and your PA will arrange it when booking the hotel.

yatch can get into international waters so anything goes? So in my mind if someone owns a yatch they are into weird an illegal stuff 99% of the time.

Like porn with midgets and donkeys?

You can have a lot of midgets on a yacht, but where would you keep the donkey?

That's what distinguishes super yachts from mere regular-sized yachts. The wide base of the hull increases stability on the water to the point that donkey husbandry becomes practical.

Or maybe it is just a legal way to escape taxes. Enough to be worth owning the yatch and paying for its crew and maintenance. Just that should give a hint to the low bar of the money amount involved.

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