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LarryLand I'm
not sure which of these two cost most. The big white one, all 450+ feet
of it, is Larry Ellison's Rising Sun, built by Lürssen, in Germany.
Nobody really has a clue how much it cost, but when you start talking
onyx tops everywhere, 3300 sg mtrs of teak decking and 80 odd cabins,
you can believe the $200 million that's been bandied around since the
thing was launched. That just happens to be the same figure that keeps
getting thrown in the air when people speculate over the cost of the BMW
Oracle Racing's campaign!Who cares if they start racing, or not, when you've something like that to loll around on, for the Louis Vuitton? Ellison's canoe started off as project LE120 - LE for Larry Ellison, 120 for her length in metres. Now you don't need a degree in mathematics to figure that 120 metres doesn't make 452 feet, so where did the extra come from? Again speculation, but it is true that Paul Allen's 126 metre Octopus was building, at Lürssen, around the same time and rumour has it that Larry couldn't bear the thought of Allen having a bigger boat, so got them to do a "chop and add a bit" job. Maybe, maybe not, but one's things for sure, this monster was the first yacht to be fitted with 20-cylinder, 12,000 hp MTU engines and she's got four of them. I'd hate to watch the dial going round when that thing's at the fuel pump and wonder which would cost more to replace, BMW Oracle's rig, or a Rising Sun engine? More pix of megas in Valencia here, nothing else quite so flash, but I did rather fancy setting off round the world in the Lone Ranger, that one really looks like it would keep you out of trouble anywhere. William Wallace 04/18/07 |