
A Cruise Ship Called “The World” Is a Luxury Home at Sea for the Super Rich - jpatokal
https://skift.com/2017/12/09/a-cruise-ship-called-the-world-is-a-luxury-home-at-sea-for-the-super-rich/amp/
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hw
Wow, $15m for 3,300sqft [0], with a yearly upkeep of close to $1m. I guess
when you're that rich, the annual costs are just chump change

[0]:
[http://aboardtheworld.com/sites/default/files/Residence-1001...](http://aboardtheworld.com/sites/default/files/Residence-1001-Alexander.pdf)

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crooked-v
I actually expected it to be more expensive, at least up-front.

There are $2m condos near where I live, so consider something like a $45m
lifetime cost (if you buy in at 60, stay until you're 90, and somehow never
recover that sale price), and that's only a single order of magnitude
difference. That's way less than I had expected for something in such short
supply.

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srtjstjsj
A condo with $1m/yr _maintenance_ ?

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DuskStar
I wonder what advantages The World has over lines like Seabourn[0] or
Silversea?[1] I can't imagine it being cheaper with the upfront costs. Besides
the higher exclusivity and more consistent guests, I suppose. Then again, it
looks like the ship averages ~1/3 occupancy [2] which would be a huge plus.

[0] [https://www.seabourn.com/](https://www.seabourn.com/) [1]
[https://www.silversea.com/en.html](https://www.silversea.com/en.html) [2]
[http://aboardtheworld.com/sites/default/files/TheWorld-
FAQ.p...](http://aboardtheworld.com/sites/default/files/TheWorld-FAQ.pdf)

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crooked-v
> I wonder what advantages The World has over lines like Seabourn[0] or
> Silversea?[1]

Well, for a resident, you eliminate the cognitive load of changing residences.
Your home on the ship is literally a home (albeit a heavily-regulated one, in
the style of extreme HOAs), and you can treat it like one, rather than having
to slice everything into several-week increments because you might have to
leave or change cabins at short notice.

Of course, this comes with tremendous maintenance prices ($1m+ per residence
per year), but for some people it's worth that.

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cat199
> ($1m+ per residence per year)

probably cheaper than maintaining an equivalently sized yacht, and without
needing to hire someone competent to maintain your staff, etc.

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yufeng66
Reminded me of Jules Verne's Propeller Island, a city on a massive ship in the
Pacific Ocean, inhabited entirely by millionaires.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller_Island)

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sjg007
Ann Rand, sea steading.. same ideas

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m0llusk
Seasteading is an entirely different idea about making it possible for people,
any people, to live in communities on the water. Rich people were not
associated with the idea until Theil blew a bunch of money on a particular
effort which didn't go anywhere. Being able to cast things in political terms
isn't correct or an advantage.

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pier25
The emissions per capita of that thing must be huge.

Hopefully in a couple of decades such energetic excesses will be condemned by
humanity.

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fragsworth
I think we should be fine with it if there's more than enough taxes on
emissions.

And there should be luxury taxes too. The super-rich get this shit on discount
(20% capital gains in the U.S.?), while most of us have to pay upwards of 40%
extra for doing salaried work. It's not right.

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whatshisface
Even Marxists want playboys to buy Lamborghinis, because then the rich have
less money. The real answer to what you're calling for would be to match
capital gains with income taxes, although I'm sure that would have its own
raft of unexpected effects. (For example, what would happen to middle-class
retirement plans?)

Also: emissions taxes are sometimes regressive, for example consider that home
prices usually go up with shorter commutes.

Since the most universal benefit of having money is getting the first pick of
all the options, you'll quickly find that "those rich people" are _incredibly_
hard to pin down with tax plans. Whatever you make the worst asset class will
quickly end up in the hands of whoever can't afford better.

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dmoy
> (For example, what would happen to middle-class retirement plans?)

I agree with most of what you said (I'm sure there will be unintended
consequences). However that specific consequence...

The middle class has largely no retirement savings at all (median savings for
even 50+ yr old household is about one year's income). To the extent that the
middle class has retirement savings, it falls way, way, way under the pretax
tax advantaged account limits for 401k, IRA, etc. Capital gains tax on
retirement savings is a problem only for the upper upper middle class who can
afford to stock away more than like 20k/yr into retirement.

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Terr_
The cynic in me wonders what shifty benefits patrons could get from
effectively owning their own little mobile legal patch of whatever country is
the flag-of-convenience. (In this case, it seems to be the Bahamas.)

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hardlianotion
Tax advantages from non-dom status, I'm guessing. And getting to be with the
other ghetto kids.

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owenversteeg
Why not just buy a large boat, if you have $15MM to spend on a place to live?
I liveaboard an (obviously) much smaller boat, and I love the life. Obviously
life on my boat is very different vs a $15MM boat, but I think that life on
this cruise ship would be quite similar to a $15MM ship of your choosing.

I guess the main thing is the networking aspect and having neighbors, but that
doesn't seem like it'd be worth the premium.

Anyone else on HN a liveaboard, or interested in it? My email's in my profile.

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Thriptic
Cognitive overhead. You have to deal with maintenance, logistics, staffing,
planning, design etc yourself. Yes you get exactly what you want but it would
likely be a bunch of work whereas this sounds fairly turnkey with everything
planned out for you.

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owenversteeg
At the higher levels apparently you pay $900k a year for annual maintenance
fees. That could cover the full-time salaries of several people to do all
those things for you.

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jaggederest
But not the pain in the ass of managing them, or managing the manager if you
hire one.

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Taylor_OD
Anthony Bourdain wrote a short piece about a stay on this ship. Interesting
enough read!

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psergeant
Potentially a nifty tax dodge from a residence perspective for non-Americans.

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samstave
I recall reading about this in the early 2000s

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joejerryronnie
Seems like a plot device for the next Diehard movie - international terrorists
hijack a cruise ship full of billionaires, and only Bruce Willis can save
them.

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tomjakubowski
I could see that working with Bond. McClane is too much of an everyman to care
about boatfull of billionaires in distress. Family would have to somehow end
up on board.

Bond, on the other hand, is all about protecting the interests of (a subset
of) the rich and powerful.

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watbe
Not sure if anyone else was confused, but the cruise ship is called "The
World".

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ProxCoques
Would it have killed them to use inverted commas?

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autokad
I think quotes would have made the tittle more readable.

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sparky_z
"Inverted commas" is a Britishism that refers to quote marks.

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autokad
oh I didnt know, thanks for the incite :)

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ethftw
Supreme tax avoidance. Great for newly minted bitcoin heirs.

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QAPereo
What an incredible waste.

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matte_black
Tell that to the business that runs the ship.

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charlesdm
One man's waste is another man's profit. :)

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QAPereo
A lot of shit is shoveled for profit, yeah.

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junkscience2017
not surprised the subjects of the story are in their 70s...seems like a huge
bore unless one's notion of a good life is reams of idle time surrounded by
fawning servants

