The Shadow Yacht: The Perfect Way to Showboat Your Distended Bank Account (Literally!)

For the billionaire who has everything, including a grossly bloated environmental footprint, comes the Shadow Yacht: think of it as a garage for your main 400-foot boat. If you’ve never seen those specials on TV that highlight the amazing ways Middle Eastern oil billionaires find to waste their money, here’s a quick education in Disgusting Wealth 101.

The Wall Street Journal has it:

A shadow yacht is a trailer yacht for your megayacht — a floating garage of a sort that tags along with your main yacht to carry your collection of helicopters, cars, motorcycles, jet skis and motorboats. That way, when you pull up to the docks of Monaco in your 350-foot main yacht, you can also pull into the local restaurants in your personalized drophead Rolls, without having to endure the indignity of a rented limo.

The boats can also pack fuel, water, spare parts and supplies, allowing more remote travel.

Shadow Marine, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is the main builder of shadow yachts, and they’ve sold two already — both to Middle Eastern clients. The company recently released a new model, called the Allure, which is much more plush than the earlier versions. Replacing the garage-like décor is an interior complete with six staterooms, a pool, sky lounge, theater, game room and mini gym.

For just $35 million, you can have a shadow yacht of your very own. It’s the perfect way to get back at your father for saying you would never be as rich as your 12 brothers, attract a plastic-tittied golddigging trophy wife, and can even secretly house your bevy of bleached blond, lucite-stripper-heels-wearing mistresses. It’s SO classy, y’all – Price Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, net worth $20.3 billion, whose beautiful mug is pictured, agrees. Even better, you can convince yourself you’re doing something good for the environment: these babies are made from decommissioned oil-supply boats. Just ignore the fact that you’re using insane quantities of oil to run it, and you’re golden.

Link: [Wall Street Journal]
Photo credit: Wall Street Journal + YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images

This Day in Green History: March 18th, 1974- Arab Nations End Oil Embargo

On March 18th, 1974, most of the Arab oil producing states ended their embargo against the United States, ending any short lived interest the average American had in gas efficiency for the next thirty plus years.

The embargo started in the thick of the Yom Kippur War on October 17, 1973 when OPEN announced that they would not be delivering oil to nations that support Israel. Oil prices soared, quadrupling in the US to $12/barrel by the next year.

Wikipedia has it:

This increase in the price of oil had a dramatic effect on oil exporting nations, for the countries of the Middle East who had long been dominated by the industrial powers were seen to have acquired control of a vital commodity. The traditional flow of capital reversed as the oil exporting nations accumulated vast wealth. Some of the income was dispensed in the form of aid to other underdeveloped nations whose economies had been caught between higher prices of oil and lower prices for their own export commodities and raw materials amid shrinking Western demand for their goods. Much was absorbed in massive arms purchases that exacerbated political tensions, particularly in the Middle East.

OPEC-member states in the developing world withheld the prospect of nationalization of the companies’ holdings in their countries. Most notably, the Saudis acquired operating control of Aramco, fully nationalizing it in 1980 under the leadership of Ahmed Zaki Yamani. As other OPEC nations followed suit, the cartel’s income soared. Saudi Arabia, awash with profits, undertook a series of ambitious five-year development plans, of which the most ambitious, begun in 1980, called for the expenditure of $250 billion. Other cartel members also undertook major economic development programs.

Meanwhile, the shock produced chaos in the West. In the United States, the retail price of a gallon of gasoline rose from a national average of 38.5 cents in May 1973 to 55.1 cents in June 1974. Meanwhile, New York Stock Exchange shares lost $97 billion in value in six weeks.

It’s notable that when you adjust for inflation, $.551/gallon gas is equal to $2.55 today. My heart aches for those poor people who had to pay over two and a half bucks a gallon for gas.