Joe McConnell
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I wonder if the Beckhams suffer from wrinkled, shriveled toes that come from bathing in salt water. How does Kevin Costner keep his white shorts so shiny. And if Beyoncé has that unique discomfort that develops from sitting in soaked bikini bottoms for too long?
These are just some of the questions I ask myself as I admire the 0.1 percent aboard their boats each summer. For many, the season begins with the lengthening of the hours in a day or the start of school break. For me, the start of summer is marked by the first paparazzi images emerging of actor and climate activist Leonardo DiCaprio cruising in the sun.
No one revels in or lives summers on superyachts quite like DiCaprio: the usually reclusive 49-year-old seems to come alive the moment he steps aboard the deck. In a time when the news cycle is usually slow, I have endless fun with DiCaprio’s life of leisure, whose main pastimes include bouncing around the waves on a jet ski (no carbon footprint, eh, Leo?) and rubbing shoulders with every supermodel. behind this year he deigned to act as squire.
His current crush seems to be brunette Italian model Vittoria Ceretti (keep up, guys) who, at 26, is thought to be the first girlfriend he’s had past the quarter-century mark. I don’t envy DiCaprio his instincts. He’s the kind of person, like a young Jack Nicholson, we all aspire to be. He satisfies every little appetite. And he embodies the essential credo of not appearing to have a single worry. Not for him the petty vanities of six-pack abs or a full tan: he just wants to let loose, unleash his inner five-year-old and happily dive into the sea.
This summer has seen DiCaprio vacationing aboard the yacht Koru, with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, to whom Bezos got engaged last year. The world’s second-richest man has given DiCaprio some time off as part of a celebrity group sucked into Bezos’ orbit. Singer Katy Perry and her baby Legolas Orlando Bloom were the odd sextet seen bobbing in Sardinia last week.
The Koru took four years to build, at an estimated cost of $500 million. It’s just one of the post-divorce assets Bezos has acquired, along with famous acquaintances and ferocious biceps, since his split from MacKenzie Scott in 2019. The 417-foot schooner is said to be a tribute to his new lady love, with a buxom figurehead on the bow that bears an uncanny resemblance to Sánchez. Like his US Vogue photoshoot and his too-tight cream pants, Bezos’s middle-aged era acquires another cliché every month.
But there you have it. Every billionaire should have a big boat: that’s what it means to be a billionaire. Bernard Arnault’s Symphony boasts Zuretti interiors, a cinema and a grand piano, while the Octopus, built for MicrosoVscek’s Paul Allen, has a large swimming pool, a hangar for two helicopters and two helipads. Big yachts are, as the Vscek’s unofficial correspondent Brendan Greeley pointed out, “a terrible asset”. And yet they remain an almost irresistible indulgence for the super-rich. AVsceker all, what better way to flaunt your superpower credentials than by rounding up flocks of celebrities, stripping them naked and holding them captive for your sport?
Sadly, the allure of superyachts eludes me: I see them only as prisons at sea. The thought of being moored for days with only acquaintances, wearing a bikini, for God’s sake, strikes me as one of the scariest ways to spend your free time. And that’s before the nagging nausea of all that floating, the lingering threat of drowning or getting hit on the head. All those damned ropes, all that tacking and gybing. And while, yes, I know that superyachts aren’t real boats in the way I might recognise them, there’s no escaping the fact that, you know, it’s all pretty wet.
Add to that the bougie cocktail parties, the endless performances, plus the dilemma of how to wear a cocktail dress while having to walk around in boat shoes or, worse, barefoot. I hope Bezos keeps a podiatrist on board the Koru: DiCaprio may be sloppy but he’s not much of a looker, and I need to know someone is taking care of his feet.
I don’t envy these people for their superyacht adventures: examining Bezos’s shore excursions doesn’t make me feel a twinge of jealousy. I’m just thrilled that he’s shelled out for more DiCaprio content. “The King of the World,” forever: our vacation prince of the seas.
Email Jo at jo.ellison@Vscek.com
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