Superyachts! They are super for all seasons and several reasons. From being floating palaces to five-star destinations of respite, these luxury vessels prove to be an opulent home away from home. Billionaires looking to live in their element away from prying eyes relax on these multi-deck paradises without a care in the world. The pandemic turned these vessels into a more permanent sort of abode for many who otherwise looked at the asset as a holiday home meant to be used for a few weeks in a year.
With the world readjusting its ways and acclimatizing to the new normal, superyachts have also turned into multi-million floating offices of the wealthy that don’t have to reach the office at 8 a.m. The pre-pandemic world was a different time when the words remote job and work from home didn’t exist or meant something entirely different. In COVID-19-ravaged 2020, billionaire superyacht owner David Geffen made full use of his $590 million megayacht Rising Sun and paved the new way for spending time on a superyacht.
Richard Lambert, head of sales at Burgess Yachts, told Fortune that the advent of remote work freed wealthy businessmen from mandatory in-person meetings, pushing them to spend more time on their megayachts than ever. Lambert said, “These are self-made successful business people who need to be able to turn around and actually run their businesses.”
He added, “We have clients spend up to four months a year on board and be able to actually effectively run their businesses.” Not only has the way of doing business changed, but thanks to Zoom calls and hi-tech communication systems on ships, with vastly improved internet access, owners have gotten accustomed to working on yachts in the middle of nowhere. Nearly every modern superyacht comes with a dedicated office space.
Case in point, Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis’ $150 million superyacht Artefact features a panoramic office on the owner’s deck. Joe Lewis’s stunning $250 million superyacht, Aviva, includes a sprawling office, as does the $200 million Here Comes the Sun Yacht. Living in a semi-permanent home like these lavish motoryachts helps billionaire businessmen to spend more time on board with their families, this feels like a vacation too. It is a true win-win as even schools can now be conducted online.
“It’s not necessarily about remote working, but I think we’ve seen a slight shift in design that makes it more appealing [from] a multigenerational standpoint,” Lambert pointed out. “A lot of the design is built around access to the water. Maybe younger generations are in the water doing water sports, [and] the area is very accommodating to the slightly older generations—maybe retired grandparents or the owners themselves.” The work-from-yacht trend is here to stay, especially if billionaires continue to rule the world and the high seas.
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