Superyacht pays visit to bay of liners
ONE of the world’s most futuristic luxury yachts, owned by Starbucks coffee billionaire Howard Schultz, turned heads on a visit to Tor Bay last weekend.
Despite her size, at 77 metres long, the vessel Pi was still dwarfed by the bay’s resident cruise ships on her visit.
Built in The Netherlands in 2019 and named Motor Yacht of the Year at the World Superyacht Awards in 2020, she anchored in the company of the everchanging backdrop of mothballed cruise ships in the bay, which has been nicknamed “the Torbay car park” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The yacht has luxury accommodation for 12 guests and 18 crew, along with a helicopter pad, glass-bottomed swimming pool and special rough sea stabilisers. Pi has now departed, crossed the English Channel and is heading south off Lisbon, in Portugal.
Schultz started working at Starbucks in 1982 and bought the company in the late 1980s. In 2020, he was named the 209th-richest person in the US by Forbes with a net worth of $4.3 billion (£3.2 million).
According to Marine Traffic, there are currently eight ships off South Devon: Oosterdam, Volendam, Eurodam, Arcadia, Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria, Marella Discovery and Marella Discovery 2. The latter lost her anchor during bad weather in Torbay on January 19.
The public has become fascinated by the sight of the grand ships awaiting the end of the pandemic, especially at night when they are lit up.
The major cruise liners do not yet know when they will be able to sail again and do not expect it will be before the second quarter of 2021.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) banned cruises between March and the end of October last year, with the industry voluntarily suspending operations shortly before that. The CDC has now lifted the ban – replacing it with a “phased” return to passenger operation.
The cruise liner companies have been losing billions. Carnival’s most recent results show an $8 billion loss for the first three quarters of 2020. That compares with a profit of about $2.6 billion over the same period in 2019.
According to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), between mid-March and September of last year the suspension of cruise operations resulted in an estimated loss of more than 518,000 jobs and $23 billion in wages globally.