You couldn’t be more wrong if you thought only luxury vessels of Russian oligarchs go dark. We have learned that centibillionaire Jeff Bezos‘s superyacht Koru has also been lurking in the dark for nearly two months, per Esysman SuperYachts and publicly available AIS information. The AIS tracker has not updated the position of the world’s second-largest schooner in several weeks. It was last updated in southwest Sardinia, and thanks to social media, we all know they have been to several exotic places since.
Despite the non-functioning AIS, the world has witnessed the glorious itinerary of the billionaire couple on a seemingly endless summer escapade aboard the 416-footer Koru Yacht. The American tycoon has voyaged from the Balearic Islands, Cannes, Saint-Tropez, Capri, Sardinia, Portofino, and the Baltic country.
Koru was spotted in Croatia in August and France in September, all with her AIS turned off. The $500 million vessel and its support ship, $75 million Abeona, was anchored at one of Europe’s largest shipyards for maintenance, La Coitat, France, on September 5th.
While the support vessel with a helipad got serviced, the large Oceanco ship was there for company. It does seem unlikely the Amazon co-founder turned off his AIS for maintenance work.
It is more believable they didnt want to garner any more attention, and privacy was paramount even with the risks undertaken. Thanks to Lauren Sanchez’s media posts from the vessel and the other guests, it is easy to ‘Keep up with Koru.’
What is AIS, and can it be switched off?
An automatic identification system is how a ship’s position is electronically broadcasted to nearby AIS-equipped ships or ashore. Even in conditions like low visibility, a vessel’s crew knows precisely where approaching vessels are positioned; the type, speed, and destination are also known. Keeping the AIS transponder on is mandatory for ships of 300 gross tons and upwards engaged on international voyages. Koru motoryacht flaunts a volume of 3,300 GT, and turning her transponders off put the safety of passengers, crew, and traffic monitoring at sea in peril. It may be a considerable price to pay for privacy, especially when you own the second-largest sailing yacht in the world.
Frustrated Bernard Arnault sold his jet as he was fed up with being tracked –
The world’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, was so frustrated by social activists tracking his movement on Twitter that the billionaire (worth $194.6 billion) sold his private jet. Thousands of Twitter accounts were tracking the aircraft, leading the affluent businessman to give up his Bombardier 7500 and rent planes instead. The most popular accounts that tracked Arnault’s flight data were @i_fly_Bernard and @laviondebernard with a combined following of almost 100,000 users.
