Bill Gates Is Selling His Unfinished $600M Feadship Megayacht and His Shadow Yacht

Until a few years ago, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire environmentalist Bill Gates didn't even own a superyacht, which was one of the few things that set him apart from the other billionaires and, in turn, gave him some degree of credibility as a climate activist. The other was that he was very open about his huge carbon footprint, mostly from flying private, and the many ways in which he tried to offset it.

In 2021, Gates took delivery of what would become his starter yacht, Wayfinder. Measuring 224 feet (68.2 meters) in length and built at the cost of "just" $25 million by Astilleros Armon, Wayfinder is a Shadowcat, which means it's a catamaran designed as a shadow vessel. Until just now, it was unclear exactly what Wayfinder was shadowing since no one seemed to be aware of the existence of a mothership.

That mothership, according to eSysman Superyachts who cites sources inside Feadship, is Project 821, currently under construction at the shipyard. Project 821 is a gigantic vessel with a 2024 delivery date, with a total length on water of 390 feet (119 meters) and an interior volume of over 7,000 GT. Until now, Project 821 has been closely kept under wraps.

Technically, it's still being kept under wraps, but this seemed to have slipped through the cracks: Gates is selling it.

The same sources say that the unfinished Feadship megayacht, which is set to become the yard's flagship and its biggest to date once delivery takes place, is being quietly put on the market to secure another owner. A vessel this size would only be listed quietly since only a small group of people would have access to the kind of money required for ownership and future maintenance.

Take that in the most literal sense: apparently, Project 821 is asking a whopping €600 million (approximately $642 million at the current exchange rate), which is more than double than what the previous Feadship build sold for. That would be Project 1010, which is now sailing as Launchpad and serves as the mothership of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The difference in pricing could be explained by the fact that Zuckerberg got Launchpad when the Russian sanctioned owner could no longer take delivery, and the yard was pressed to recoup its losses. Another explanation could be Project 821's unfinished state, which allows the future owner to skip the long waiting line and get a half-build that still allows for plenty of customization.

The same report notes that Wayfinder, which Gates got in 2021, presumably in preparation for the delivery of the mothership, is also being listed for sale. This would explain why it appeared on the charter market earlier this year, as well.

As for the reasons why Gates is supposedly unloading such a beautiful and very expensive pair of superyachts, your guess is as good as ours. Maybe he's realized that the effort and the costs of maintenance are not worth the hype, or maybe he's feeling the pinch just like the rest of us. Or maybe he finally saw the irony of urging us to consume and travel less, when he's cruising the world with his own mini-fleet of superyachts.

UPDATE May 5, 2024:

Feadship has launched Project 821 and the first details about it have been revealed. The megayacht is also listed for sale, which partly confirms the report above.