Over the holidays Sneak was intrigued to read about the world's largest private yacht. Not a round-the-world, teeth-bared-in-the-wind sort of yacht, of course, but the gin-palace, I've-got-more-money-than-you variety of boat. Apparently the Crown Prince of Brunei is shortly to take delivery of the Platinum, a 525ft craft. That's 62ft longer than a Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer crewed by 300 sailors, by the way.
One person certain to be unimpressed by the Platinum is Larry Ellison, Oracle chief executive and owner of a 452ft yacht called Rising Sun. Apparently Ellison ordered his yacht stretched by 65ft during construction specifically to outdo a 414ft vessel being built by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
In the competitive world of erecting very tall buildings, it's commonplace for architects to add spires, masts and other tall pointy-bits to the top of their constructions in order to outdo a similarly-sized rival, so perhaps Ellison will be able to follow suit. Perhaps he will now buy a 78ft yacht, call it something like, say, PeopleSoft, and weld it onto the prow of the Rising Sun?

05 Jan 2005