A South Korean designer is working on plans for a yacht that, if built, will be worthy of a James Bond villain. The so-called ‘Valkyrie Project’ gigayacht measures an incredible 750 feet, or 229 metres – nearly a quarter of a kilometre.
To put that into perspective, 750 feet is the equivalent of 24 nose to nose double decker busses, or two whole football pitches. That puts the world’s current biggest yacht, Azzam to 2nd place. Azzam measures 590 feet.
It puts even the likes of research expedition superyacht REV, currently being built in Romania, in the shade. The new boat will top Azzam, but come in at a significantly smaller length than Valkyrie Project with its 600 feet.
Even more impressive, the yacht would have its own casino, art galleries, theatre and restaurants. It could house 52 guests along with 92 crew members, though the owner would have an entire deck entirely for their own use. It would sail at a respectable speed of 25 knots.
So who will buy it?
That all comes with a hefty price tag, however, with the cost of the yacht projected to be a massive $775 million, or £600 million.
The massive project is the design of Chulhun Park, 36, and was designed in partnership with yacht builders Palmer Johnson as part of his university course. Park, who comes from Seoul in South Korea, says that the vessel would be made of aluminium wrapped around a carbon fibre structure. He has some interesting thoughts on the shape of the ship, too.
"When I decided to be a yacht designer, I realized that most yachts are white coloured and stacked up like wedding cakes," Park says. "Therefore, I was determined to design a very unique looking yacht which would stand out of the fleet. I tried to manipulate the structure's surface skin and create non-rectilinear shapes which appear to distort and dislocate elements of shape."
While the yacht would most likely be privately owned, as the inclusion of an exclusive deck for the owner suggests, Mr Park doesn’t envisage it as exclusively for the use of one ultra-rich owner, but rather as an exclusive and luxurious hub for dining, entertainment and gambling.
"Most people consider super yachts to be an exclusive property for billionaires to show off their wealth,” Mr Park said. "However, what if we create floating architecture to be used by everyone?”
‘Everyone’ would most likely, in this case, be relative given the cost of building and maintaining a yacht so decadent. It could, however, become the playground of the merely rich rather than the exclusive preserve of the mega rich.
The on-board casino
One particularly unique feature would be the inclusion of a casino. While casinos are relatively commonplace on commercial cruise liners and have been found on them for years (and you probably wouldn’t struggle too hard to find poker rooms or limited table games on many larger private yachts), this may be the only fully featured gambling house built in a private yacht.
The casino feature certainly furthers Mr Park’s conception of the boat as a sort of private, highly exclusive cruise ship for entertaining the rich. It’s easy to imagine private, high stakes games taking place out on the high seas.
One thing that would have to be accommodated for, however, is the pitching and rolling created by the yacht’s motion in the water. Larger cruise ships tend to be more stable thanks to their size, but on a ‘smaller’ boat, even one that’s 750 feet long, the movement of the boat on the water could result in affecting how a roulette ball settles on the wheel or how a dice rolls. There are, of course, mechanisms and systems that can limit a ship’s movement.
Another concern might be security, and if high stakes casino games were played on the yacht it might be necessary to take out measures beyond the norm and stick to safer waters. Modern day piracy can be a serious concern for ships that find themselves in the wrong waters.
The games on offer
Of course, where the boat is, and the demographic of the guests, could have an impact on the selection of games on-board. If Mr Park’s dream comes true and the yacht is available for everyone, the games will need to reflect that. There are a whole host of weird and wonderful casino games out there, and their inclusion on the yacht should be considered if everyone is to feel welcome.
Pachinko would be a welcome addition, the complex laws surrounding gambling in Japan mean the machines often double up as an arcade game – making them perfect for younger guests and for use when the ship is close to the coastline in certain parts of the world.
Abiding by the law
There are also the complex gambling laws governing the world’s oceans to contend with. In the US, for example, the yacht will have to be three or more miles from the coastline around most of the country if it wants to avoid falling under the jurisdiction of state gambling laws. Along the coastline of Florida and Texas that distance jumps even further to nine nautical miles.
In the waters surrounding other countries the necessary distance can be even greater still to escape the reach of prohibitive legislation. In many places it’s as many as 12 nautical miles.
Beyond those distances, the ship would legally be in the territory of whatever country it is registered in. For the casino to run smoothly, whoever was in command of the yacht would have to have a firm grasp of the intricacies of gambling laws in different countries to avoid running afoul of them.
This is all academic at this point, of course, as Project Valkyrie hasn’t made it off the drawing board. Still, a billionaire wanting to gamble within reach of his or her home might buy or build the boat, register it somewhere with relatively liberal gambling laws like the United Kingdom and then use it as a floating base for gambling that they can’t take part in on their home shores.
One thing’s for certain, with its $755 million price tag, expect any games that do get played on Project Valkyrie to be the territory of some serious high rollers.
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