Jeff Bezos may have the world’s largest sailing yacht, but it’s nowhere as unique as the vessel up for sale at Krimpen in the Netherlands. But, he probably doesn’t want it, and so far no other buyers have shown up either.
The 135-metre long ship was built by Johan Huibers, a businessman who had a dream about a flood in Noord-Holland; construction started in 2008 and took five years and €4 million. It has seven decks, a cinema, a restaurant and sailing equipment—but no facilities for the animals, whether in pairs or not. It’s Huibers’ second ark; a 70-meter version is now moored as a bible museum in Hasselt. Huibers no longer owns that one.
The big ark was moored in Dordrecht from its completion and had about 280,000 visitors in its four years there, but was forced to move in 2016 to make way for a housing project. Although it had participated in several boat parades, its extreme width makes it hard to move and hard to find a place for it. A plan to tow it to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics fell through because no tow boat had the power to move it across the Atlantic.
Huibers has been looking for a buyer ever since, and has had interest from South Korea, the U.S., Turkey and Israel, but no bids. He told Dutch journalists “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this has cost me a lot of money.” He added They were all interested but nothing came of it. And now I have had enough and I want rid of it.”
Bidding starts at €350,000. Potential buyers may be put off by the problem that Huibers has had: they’ll have to move it, because its present location is only temporary.
