The founder of Amazon (AMZN) has earned a reputation for being a fairly secretive person; his space exploration company Blue Origin has spent years quietly planning a launch to space while the 420-foot mega-yacht that Bezos has been building for himself has been kept under such tight wraps that, despite being finished in 2021, the first pictures have emerged nearly two years later.
Named by its owner as Koru (a Maori word for "loop" or "coil"), the $500 million superyacht was built by Netherlands-based shipbuilding company Oceano.
Last week, the superyacht that has its own helicopter landing pad and is taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza was spotted sailing through the North Sea between the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom after leaving the port of Rotterdam on Feb. 13.
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A Dutch ship watching website called Dutch Yachting was the first to post photos and video of the yacht -- based on what is seen, it has three masts, several stories and a separate "support vessel" for the helicopter landing pad.
The sail through the North Sea is, reportedly, a trial run through the water before the yacht is finally delivered to Amazon's founder. Construction took nearly five years and, when finalized, will make the Koru the largest yacht in the world.
It is not, however, the most expensive as a number of yachts have a higher price due to owners who deck it out with expensive art, rare artifacts and every amenity imaginable -- the "Eclipse" yacht owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is worth $1.5 billion.
It can accommodate 18 guests, 40 sailors and costs an estimated $25 million a year to maintain. Bezos has never commented publicly on the yacht but his commissioning of it is the world's worst-kept secret.
The Koru, which is also known by the building project code name Y721, has been generating a lot of controversy even before it set sail.
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Earlier this year, the port of Rotterdam temporarily announced plans to dismantle the historic Koningshaven bridge so that the yacht could pass from where it was being built in nearby Alblasserdam.
Local outcry over ruining a historic bridge for what some called "a billionaire's boredom project" ensued (some even threatened to throw eggs at the yacht if it tried to pass) and Oceano eventually decided to take the yacht through a different route.
The world of superyachts is, in general, an ultra-exclusive club that generate fascinates just as much as outrage over excessive wealth and ostentatious displays of it. Last fall, the Tatoosh yacht that late Microsoft (MSFT) founder Paul Allen bought from telecommunications magnate Craig McCaw in 2001 for $100 million was finally sold by Allen's estate.
"They’re too big, and there are too many of them," Allen said of his yachts years before his 2018 death.
Yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs have also sparked discussion over sanctions and the oligarchs' connection to Putin after the country's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In May, the government of Fiji seized the 348-foot Amadea yacht belonging to Suleiman Kerimov -- the oligarch worth over $14 billion had already been under sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department since 2018 but was subject to new ones due to his close Putin ties.
