From the “let them eat cake, but we’re saving the planet” department comes a new level of hubris unmatched in modern times.
[Superyacht] owner Leonardo DeCaprio has nothing on this, and he probably wishes he’s said it. There’s an article in this glossy magazine testament to snobbery called Luxury London that cries out for a smackdown.
Turning The Tide: The Sustainable Future of Superyachts
Our vast oceans, their marine life and the shores surrounding them are in peril. Among those preparing a rescue mission is the superyacht industry, which is navigating an innovative journey towards sustainability
…
Feadshipās 83m Savannah (pictured below) is the first superyacht to use an eco-friendly hybrid propulsion platform encompassing propellers and azimuthing thrusters for power, electric motors and diesel engines for drive, and gensets and batteries for energy storage. The shipyardās new facility in Amsterdam is also designed with eco-friendly features, including more than 2,000 solar panels, LED lighting, a three-tier ventilation system and the innovative use of district heating, which harnesses excess energy from nearby factories.
And you think to yourself, gee, with all the caterwauling from the left about “carbon footprints” how could they possibly merge “sustainability” with a fuel consumption rate of more than 500 liters of diesel an hour?
Well, if you think that’s absurd, get a load of this quote from the article:
“Today’s superyacht owners are younger and more in tune with the climate change around us”
That’s comforting, and a totally off-the-rails disconnect from reality to be sipping your Dom Perignon from a beast that uses hundreds of times more energy and more emissions than 99% of every other single person on the planet.
But when you’re the 1%, you don’t need to worry about what those people think.
Anthony or CTM
“
Superyatch(Superyacht?) owner Leonardo DeCaprio”Or was this a play on words somehow ? (not enough coffee yet) lol
[Good find. Tank you. 8<) .mod]
The world’s largest super yacht, the Azzam, holds 1,000,000 L of diesel…..yes those zeros are the correct number. By comparison a 747 holds ~ 183,000 L….
Actually, the largest 747s carry 240,000 ltr of fuel.
With a s.g. of 0.8, or 192 metric tonnes.
Ralph
OK, soooooo, what does that have to do with my comment ?
No “tanks” necessary, I prefer A10 “Warthogs” ! Buuuuuurrrp…… : )
Total hypocracy, Virtue Signalling at it’s best.
” . . . . and our automatic life rafts, together with on-board life vests inflate using highly pressurised CO2 @ 146 psi – which is all wholly and entirely captured from all those surplus frothy little bubbles fermented at Veuve Cliquot’s Chateau de Champagne Estate.”
Sarc off.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFemw_6a-Tg
He donāt eat no meat!
EHS (Extreme hypocrisy syndrome)
Hmmm, what happened the last time one of the “elite” said “let them eat cake” ? lol
Could we possibly hope for repeat?
Be careful what you wish for. What follows may not be fun.
What happened was she lost a presidential election.
(Just an unbiased observation from a Canadian)
As a “half” fellow Canadian, your lack of historical knowledge is embarrassing, unless of course, you just forgot the “/Sarc” tag….Then it’s kinda funny……
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
Did Hillary really say that?
Ummm, I was referring to Marie Antoinette ! You know, the one who lost her head about it ! Sheesh ….
A-MA-ZING
I agree that these poeple would be more in tune with the ‘stated’ climate crisis. Not only do they see the need to deflect critism of their excess emitting lifestyles, many of these people are probably also receiving huge sums of money from the subsidies, carbon credit trading and RE infrastructure sales, to fund this lifestyle.
Watching a, “climate-crisis-tuned” young rich boy go and buy one of these is like watching a camel eat all that he can and more in order to be fat enough to pass through the hole in the needle xDDD
I wonder if they’re vegan? I have my doubts.
Now Now, don’t be envious. Remember the “”Trickle down”” effect we
her so much about.
And I am sure that the owner can arrange for a few hundred trees to be planted somewhere.
It looks to be a bit top heavy, perhaps GAIA will send a storm in its
direction, that is of course if it disapproves.
MJE VK5ELL
Michael
I had the same thought about the stability of the ship when I saw the picture. In any event, anyone prone to seasickness would probably not want to be on the top deck in rough seas. Being rich does not mean that one is smart.
I was looking at it wondering how heavy of seas it could take, looks like it’s made to cruise in nothing bigger than a large pond. I’m guessing you would have a hard time finding a captain willing to sail that across the Atlantic.
Just like those monstrous cruise ships that seem to be everywhere these days, and are equally top-heavy, modern communications and real-time satellite weather allows these yachts to avoid storms. They can use their powerful diesels to scoot into a nearby port and wait out the bad weather. The owners and their guests can patronize the local 5-star restaurants to avoid the tedium of waiting.
Actually, a lot of those ships aren’t sailed across. There are actually freighters that are designed to carry them across so their owners can be in the Med for the “season” don’t you know.
Agree, have lots of types of ships, boats, pirogues experience, wouldn’t trust this one. Following sea??
Michael
I have just been considering the concept of carbon offsetting i.e. specifically planting trees to absolve the wealthy like Elton John and the royal family from any responsibility for the ‘destruction’ of our planet.
Taking commercial flights alone, I believe there have been roughly 363m of them since 2009 (a convenient 10 year figure). If there are, say, on average 300 passengers per flight, and each of those people paid the cost of planting one tree each that would be, roughly, 109,000,000,000 trees.
So, planting those trees at 700 tree’s per acre (evidently the number a typical forest contains) would require roughly 156,000,000 acres which, as far as I can gather, is around 3 times the land area of the United Kingdom.
I haven’t included here the numbers associated with super yachts, or even modest yachts; private flights, factories, houses, trains, cars or industrial activities which, I imagine would be a lot higher.
But then I began thinking about the global greening caused by increased atmospheric CO2 over 35 years of satellite observations – according to NASA around 2 times the area of mainland USA. That’s natural greening, untouched by humans.
So instead of 10 years, lets say flights are calculated over 35 years, which I’m not going to bother doing as I think we know where this is all going. Something like nine times the total land area – well, less, because there were fewer flights 35 years ago, but there will be more 35 years hence – but for the sake of argument let’s just agree on nine times the UK.
So, I guess all we would need to do to salve our souls over flying is plant one tree, per passenger, per flight and we would plant what amounts to 600m acres of land in the USA (just for the sake of comparison) whilst the USA is around 2.3 billion acres, and nature is dealing with twice that area (4.6b) all on its lonesome thanks to increasing atmospheric CO2.
The Amazon is evidently being razed to the ground. But they have been telling us that for 40 years, I remember being first told about it when I was a young man, around the time I was being convinced global cooling was a problem.
But of those 1.4bn acres of rainforest, according to some popular commentaries 1.5 acres of them are being burned every second (yes, 1.5 acres per second) which, over the last 35 years represents 1,893,456,000 acres (Is that 1.8bn acres or is my arithmetic so bad I missed something?) which seems to amount to more than 1.4bn acres that should by now have been completely torched and barren.
I think Matt Ridley made the observation that as yet, not one single species known to man, in the Amazon rain forest, has gone extinct. Strange, as it’s all supposed to be gone.
Is my arithmetic so bad that I have this all backwards?
Comments, corrections, observations and trolling all welcome.
PS All numbers and estimates have been retrieved from the internet on the most casual basis, which is how most of the public go about constructing a case for anything, so I make no apology for being a layman.
Besides that, I’m half way through a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon, on a hot English summers evening (~30C is blistering here) so, accuracy be damned!
I like the math. The greening from CO2 is about twice as much as the offset claimed to be needed for flying an average flight.
As someone who takes ten to twenty flights a year internationally I feel good about increasing the greening of the planet to such an extent as a byproduct of the somewhat considerable cost.
As for the burning of the Amazon, it should be noted that:
A) the Amazon uses as much oxygen as it creates, rotting its vegetation – so much for “lungs of the world”.
B) the Amazon is clouded over by methane generated from the rotting forest floor covering. So much for “reducing greenhouse gases”.
C) the jungle isn’t burning, fields are, and
D) the same fields are burned every year;
E) deep in the forest, locals are slashing and burning growing patches for vegetables in a cycle of rotation, about seven years long. This is necessary.
Almost all the nutrients in the Amazon are locked up in trees and plants. After slashing and burning them, the minerals are available to the newly planted crops. Some of the biomass is charred and accumulates in the soil, helping to store and release water, as well as micronutrients. That’s how terra preta soil is formed.
The media are presently giving the impression that all fires are “forest fires” of the boreal forest type – actual jungle burning. When I was a kid living in Nigeria we had a hard time convincing the locals that a forest could burn at all. The idea of a green tropical forest catching on fire and burning is laughable to them!
Try it some time. Read Nawok! by Philip Temple, which describes his efforts to light a fire (let alone set fire to the jungle) in Papua New Guinea.
wow the ad man//group,that wrote this steming pile of spin…are so far from the realworld its hilarious how delusional they are.
wonder what the boat company paid to be made to look so up itself and foolish?
sure hope the EXReb mob read this and give them the praise they deserve…lol
hmm maybe glue themselves to the eco friendly luxury toy for added greenie points???
The boat looks like the ideal choice for Harry & Meghan. Itāll provide them and their A list friends with the privacy they deserve during their rare periods of spare time. In fact, they could have one each – his and hers virtue-signalling yachts.
We see these things all around the Caribbean. The typical owner rarely sees the boar. They are too busy engaged in the lifestyle required to pay for it. Most yachts are in charter service with clients and crew flying to and from. The operation entails weekly air travel for ten to twenty people and the conspicuous consumption of fuel to operate the vessel, water toys and tenders. The green eco-virtue here is laughable. These things are a business operated for tax deduction and depreciation. Frankly, they provide jobs for a lot of regular people through their total life cycle while the 1% look for ways to distribute their chump change.
Meanwhile, we cruise the Caribbean on our 1984 blow-boat. We fed it around 200 gallons of diesel and gas last year. We get street food in our Tupperware and carry reusable bags and containers in our back packs.
Right on, Mark!
We, too live aboard our sailboat, though I fear we use mire diesel than you do. BTW, the 500l/hr quoted in the above is STANDING STILL! Underway at any speed will consume lots more. These tubs use more fuel getting out of the Harbor than you & I do all year.
Hartley
S/V Atsa
I would say that it is merely a few lines of advertising blurb written by some lowly company employee, not the owner of the yacht. Everyone else in the world seems to be saying such stuff even though it is clearly impossible for them to believe it. Car manufacturers and manufacturers of fast food wrappings all recite the green mantra, so why not super yacht manufacturers too?
DeCaprio remains a bigger offender in my eyes because he talks the talk while actually doing the offending at the same time.
“I would say that it is merely a few lines of advertising blurb written by some lowly company employee, not the owner of the yacht.”
Its called dog-whistling Michael.
I believe you are correct. These seem like pretty impossible numbers
To carry a million liters of fuel, the displacement (full fuel) would have to be 4000+ long tons. Then to list a fuel burn of only 500L of fuel per hour. Even at a 30% improvement in fuel use, that would have to be one slow superyacht or one embellished story line .
Top heavy? not at that displacement.
This is actually quite brilliant. Imagine you are the owner of a company that makes superyachts. You are in the “money is no object” business. You are always struggling to conjure new ways to charge more money for your already wildly overpriced product. Because money is no object. Eureka! Just green it! But donāt do it half-arse with a few solar panels. Go full goose and redesign the propulsion system. Incorporate sustainable whatever into the hull composition. Think “max virtue signaling.” Try to imagine what the product pamphlet or web page will look like – lots of glossy photos of complicated-looking machinery, all stainless and shiny, curvy pipes going every which way. The young 0.0001 percenters will eat it up.
“You are in the ‘money is no object’ business.”
Your customers are driven to spend gobs of money so as to have their status recognized. It’s a win for them and it’s a win for you.
“ status recognized ”
Or maybe they don’t want to be recognized. Their status and wealth is already well known.
If I had gobs of money and if I was hounded by paparazzi, fans, and haters ā I would use some of that money to have a place where I could relax. Thus, owning a yacht, private plane, island, and/or penthouse seems understandable.
Also, these folks often give gobs of money to a cause, although you and I may not agree with them as to the goodness of that cause. Sometimes we do not learn of their contributions (or they are ignored**) until their death.
** Look up the Koch Family Foundations.
Michael Hart: Agreed. Advertisers spout green garbage (yes, I meant for that mental picture) everywhere. I despise and have extreme contempt for grocers and their *&!()&* organics. I want food, not virtue-signaling. My current grocer claims to be eliminating plastic, yet the case lot sale they start today has hundreds of boxes, aka cases, wrapped inā¦ā¦PLASTIC. What a stupid bunch of people. If the products are not sealed in cans or boxes, I’m afraid to buy because people this stupid obviously cannot be trusted. All advertising does is say “WE’RE STUPIDārun away”.
I only drop my excrement into the ocean using biodegradable plastic bags, and I gauge the arrival of my private jet with a solar powered watch.
Some of these celebrities are so strange.I remember a while back how actor Ben Affleck led his own crusade to save the blind Bats.What the fetch is that all about? You’d think he would do something of much more value like help the people who suffer from hunger and homelessness.
We should not begrudge the super rich for their possessions.
It is just they are the least deserving and justified people on earth to revel in their minuscule efforts to conserve what the other 99.9999999% of us would like very much to acquire and waste or waste not as we see fit.
Nobody is begrudging them their possessions.
We are ridiculing their hypocrisy. Preaching abstinence and low carbon lifestyles for the rest of us, while owning things like this.
MarkW
100%!
I’d like to be rich with possessions.
In fact, strike that. Judging by the truly poverty stricken I am rich with possessions like, running water, flushing toilets, electricity at the flick of a switch, internet, Democracy, law and order Etc. etc. etc.
This is a bit like, “We have a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money!” š
“and gensets and batteries for energy storage”. How do you place a genset on a yacht – or how do you avoid placing a genset on a yacht?
From the net ā¦
“A genset, or distributed generator system, is an electrical generator, such as a solar panel, gasoline powered generator, or windmill, located in proximity to the end-user rather than in a central location, like those utilized by commercial power providers. This system can be used as an augmentation to an existing electrical grid system or as an “off-grid” power source, depending upon the needs of the user. Gensets are often used by hospitals and other industries that rely upon a steady source of power, as well as in rural areas where there is no access to commercially generated electricity.”
The phrase āand gensets and batteries for energy storageā from the article conflicts with the net’s definition of a genset in that a genset is a device used for energy generation, not for energy storage.
FWIW.
I am a bit surprised over the batteries on this size of ship. But, I suppose the battery banks are there due to the many solar panels. Will they, in the long run, profit from the huge investment in PV-panels, inverters and batteries? – Personally I doubt it, but it look “green”.
You misunderstood. The yacht does not have lots of solar panels, the company that made the yacht does..
“Feadshipās 83m Savannah (pictured below) is the first superyacht to use an eco-friendly hybrid propulsion platform encompassing propellers and azimuthing thrusters for power, electric motors and diesel engines for drive, and gensets and batteries for energy storage. The shipyardās new facility in Amsterdam is also designed with eco-friendly features, including more than 2,000 solar panels, LED lighting, a three-tier ventilation system and the innovative use of district heating, which harnesses excess energy from nearby factories.”
When I win the lottery, I promise to name my yacht “Greta.”
I like “The S.S. Carbon”.
“Leo DeC02”
I think that advertisers usually know what they’re doing; they know how to stimulate the prospective purchaser’s brain to do what they desire, which is to make a buying decision. We all agree on the blatant contradictions of a ‘green’ super-yacht, so why did the boat builder present such an excellent fossil-fuel-industry-supporter in this way?
Well, it must then speak to the mentality of the purchaser. And that leaves only two possibilities: one, that the DeCaprio’s are brainlessly oblivious to their own hypocrisy; or two, that they are fully aware of it but consider that the observing public in general is just too unbelievably stupid and brainwashed to see the obviously naked emperor.
I recently watched a DeCaprio movie where he played a slave owner, and have to admit that his acting ability is incredibly good; the man is no dummy. And that unfortunately points straight at possibility two.
The coming elections this autumn in both the US and Canada will tell us a fair bit about those two possibilities.
There is a third possibility: The DiCaprios of the world are allowed a license to practice hypocrisy because this practice results in the forwarding of some “public good”. In the case of the public good being combating Climate Change the DiCaprios of the world are to be lauded for their sacrifice of time and money in order to save the planet.
A less-than-caring rich celebrity would selfishly keep to himself and thus allow for the Evil Forces to hold sway.
But that still points directly at possibility two, doesn’t it? People still have to be accepting of the philosophy that the DeCaprio’s are entitled to this yacht, while they are to be flogged for even thinking about a 9.9 Evinrude.
Roughly a quarter century ago, me and mine took a Caribbean cruise. Near the light switch of our cabin was a sign that in effect said “In effort to save our planet’s dwindling resources, please turn out the light when leaving your cabin.” Because that’s the #1 concern of people who run a ship that is suckling down thousands of gallons of diesel a day to schlep people about tropical islands on vacation.
“But when youāre the 1%, you donāt need to worry about what those people think.”
1% doesn’t get you superyacht money. That is more like 0.001%
How is having energy storage on a yacht justified in terms of weight if the ultimate source of the energy is still a diesel engine? This is downright silly.
Directly or indirectly, corruption such as the environmentalism scam is where these people get the money to afford superyachts. The builders naturally want to make them feel comfortable.
“the first superyacht to use an eco-friendly hybrid propulsion platform encompassing propellers and azimuthing thrusters for power, electric motors and diesel engines for drive, and gensets and batteries for energy storage.”
This is a bit confusing, to say the least. Propellers are OK for ahead or astern propulsion, and the most efficient way is to have them geared to the diesel engines. However, a normal situation if space constraints prohibit this is to have the diesel engine drive an alternator, and to locate motors in suitable places to drive the propellers. Azimuthing “thrusters” provide steering, though the term “thruster” is more normally related to a transversely mounted propeller in a tunnel at the bow. But this is not new at all. Readers are invited to view:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2#Power_plant_and_propulsion_system
where this system was used, though on a much larger scale.
Presumably the ‘gensets’ duplicate the main diesel engines – in most ships the main diesel engine (or one of them if there are more than one) can also provide the power required for the ‘hotel’ electrical services. Perhaps the main diesel engine was considered too big to be run in port? But why the batteries? Were the diesel engines considered too unreliable that back up batteries were needed, or was it determined that the owner did not want the noise of the genset running at night – too noisy and disturbed his sleep?
The batteries would most likely be for storing the solar generated energy.
The top of that yacht ought to be a good spot for some windmills, but I didn’t see any.
Nor sails. |It’s not really a yacht is it?
What is all this caterwaulling about the oceans? As the oceans rise, does this not give more room for our friendly fishes to frolic in?
Globull Warming, a fish friendly phenomenon!
I bet if you tried to serve Dom Perignon to a super yacht owner he’s smirk and throw the bottle overboard. You too if he was in a mood.
They only drink custom vintages from their private vineyards in places you have never heard of.
Nothing but lies and hate speech and hypocrisy and authoritarian snobbery and censorship and arrogance and propaganda oozes and flows from our leftist enemies.
They abuse every ounce of power they acquire. Near monopoly in the MSM… nothing but fake news. Monopoly in Academia…nothing but censorship and demotion and abuse of non-leftists.
No individual freedom is safe while these evil operators exist. Unfortunately, “these” have always existed and will always exist. “These” are the evil souls the US CONSTITUTION was crafted to impede.
I wonder what a “3 tier ventilating system” is; Full A/C for the mucky-mucks; windows for the passengers and sweat-bands for the crew.
What better way to demonstrate being “more in tune with the climate crisis around us” than discretionary trips aboard a 274-foot yacht equipped with four diesel engines capable of producing 5500 horsepower while guzzling 500 liters of fossil fuel every hour?
It may be that Marie Antoinette or other French Queen said let them eat Tourteau..
This can indicate Cattlecake as well as a kind of cheesecake. Also when used about seafood it can mean crab.
Cattlecake was used in times of famine. Peapods and husks of grains after winnowing,Isuppose.