00:00From marble dining rooms cruising the Mediterranean, to Turkish baths with cows
00:04kept on board for fresh milk, to 90-meter steam palaces hosting kings, presidents, and inventors,
00:10these yachts belong to the richest family dynasties the 1800s had ever seen,
00:14and these are 10 of the most expensive ones they ever commissioned.
00:18North Star
00:18First on the list is the North Star. In 1853, Cornelius Vanderbilt was the richest man in
00:26America, having built his fortune through railroads, shipping, and steamboats that earned him the
00:31nickname the Commodore, and that year he decided he wanted a yacht that lived up to his name,
00:36so he commissioned the North Star from Jeremiah Simonson in New York, and what came back was one
00:41of the very first major private steam yachts in American history. The ship measured around 82
00:47meters long, with a beam of 12 meters and roughly 2,000 tons, running on paddle wheels and outfitted
00:53with a Louis XVI-style saloon, marble dining areas, and lavish accommodations for his entire family
00:59and entourage. That same year, Vanderbilt took the whole family on a five-month tour of Europe
01:05and the Mediterranean, which became the first high-profile private yacht voyage of its kind,
01:10and showed the world exactly what American industrial wealth could buy.
01:13E.L. Maruissa
01:15Number 2 Belongs to Royalty
01:17In 1865, Khadiv Ismail Pasha ruled Egypt under the Ottoman Empire, and he wanted a yacht worthy
01:25of a king, so he ordered one from Samouda brothers in London, and they delivered him the El Maruissa.
01:30The original yacht measured around 146 meters long with an iron hull, but Ismail had it extended twice
01:37over the years, first in 1872 by 12 meters and again in 1905 by another 5 until it reached a
01:45final
01:45length of roughly 150 meters overall. The yacht carried opulent royal interiors woven with Egyptian
01:51motifs, and Ismail used it for grand state diplomacy, including inviting European royalty aboard for the
01:581869 opening of the Suez Canal. Later, the same yacht would carry Ismail himself into exile,
02:04followed by Abbas II and then King Farouk I. Today, the El Maruissa still sails as Egypt's
02:10presidential yacht and holds the title of the oldest royal yacht still in active service anywhere in the
02:16world. America
02:18Number 3 is the yacht that started a global rivalry. In 1851, John Cox Stevens led a New York yacht
02:27club
02:28syndicate of wealthy sportsmen, and his family had made their fortune through engineering and
02:32transportation. So when Stevens wanted to challenge the British dominance of yacht racing, he had the
02:37resources to do it properly. He hired George Steers to design the Schooner America, which was then built
02:42by William H. Brown's Shipyard in New York, stretching roughly 31 meters long, with nearly 5,000 square feet
02:48of sail, all of which cost between $20,000 and $30,000, the equivalent of over $1 million today. In
02:55August of
02:55that year, the America raced around the Isle of Wight against 14 British yachts and won the 100-guinea cup.
03:00After the race, the trophy was renamed in honor of the winning vessel, and from that day forward,
03:06it became known as the America's Cup, the oldest international sporting trophy in the world.
03:11Gitana
03:12Number 4 belongs to one of the most powerful banking families in history, the Rothschilds. In 1875,
03:19Baroness Julie de Rothschild ordered the first gitana from Thornycroft in the United Kingdom,
03:24a steamship measuring around 24.5 meters long. What made this first gitana extraordinary?
03:30was that it set speed records on Lake Geneva, reportedly reaching more than 20 knots,
03:35which was almost unheard of for a yacht in 1875. But Julie's commission was only the beginning of
03:42the legacy because the gitana name soon became a multi-generational family tradition, with gitana
03:47the second arriving as a 37-meter steamship later in the same decade, followed by sailing and racing
03:53yachts that each pushed speed and innovation further than the last. What made Julie's original commission
03:59unusual was not simply the boat itself, but the fact that a woman had ordered such a record-breaking
04:04vessel in 1875. And to this day, the gitana name still lives on in modern racing multi-hulls,
04:12flying the Rothschild banner.
04:14Normahall
04:14Number 5 is the Normahall. The Aster dynasty had built their fortune first through the fur trade,
04:21and then through New York real estate. And by the late 1800s, they stood among the richest families
04:26in America, with multiple Normahall yachts crossing the generations. And later Vincent Aster commissioned
04:31the most famous version, built by Krupp in 1928, measuring around 49 meters long and replacing an
04:38earlier family yacht called the Noma. Each Normahall was used for luxury cruising and entertaining the
04:44European elite. At a time when the Asters moved across the Atlantic with the same ease that most people
04:49moved across a city, and the yacht effectively served as a floating Aster mansion wherever it sailed.
04:54During the Second World War, Vincent Aster lent his Normahall to the United States Navy,
04:59turning it into a wartime asset for the country.
05:01...aster wealth that rivaled even the Vanderbilts, a floating display of one of America's most powerful
05:07family names.
05:09Britannia
05:09Number 6 belongs to British royalty. In 1893, Prince Albert Edward was the heir to the British throne,
05:17and although he would eventually become King Edward VII, in that moment, he wanted a racing yacht that
05:22would make him a serious competitor on the water, so he commissioned a design from GL Watson that was
05:27built by D&W Henderson on the Clyde in Scotland, and they called her the Britannia. She was a gaff
05:33-rigged
05:33cutter, measuring around 52 meters long with the bowsprit, weighing 221 tons, with a sail area covering
05:40959 square meters. The Britannia was a racing machine, and across four decades, she scored more than 200 wins,
05:47first raced by Prince Albert Edward himself, and later by his son George V, who in 1936, made one final
05:54request
05:55that the Britannia be scuttled, so that no other man could ever sail her again.
05:59Valiant
06:01Number 7 brings us back to the Vanderbilts. In 1893, William Kissam Vanderbilt commissioned a twin-screw steam yacht
06:09built in Scotland, and what came back was called the Valiant, measuring roughly 93 to 100 meters long with more
06:15than
06:152,400 tons. Inside the Valiant was a floating palace fitted out with walnut and mahogany paneling, silk drapes,
06:22a private library, a Steinway piano, and brass fittings everywhere, capable of cruising at 17 knots.
06:28The Valiant carried the Vanderbilts across the Atlantic, into European harbors, and all around the
06:34Mediterranean, and she was built specifically to impress European society at a time when the family
06:39was actively buying its way into European nobility through Consuelo Vanderbilt's marriage to the Duke of
06:45Marlborough, making the Valiant the family's floating ambassador to the old world. She was
06:50everything the Gilded Age stood for, from the excess to the comfort to the raw display of power that
06:55cemented the Vanderbilt name as American royalty. Mayflower and Nama
07:00Number 8 is actually two yachts, sister ships built for two brothers. The Goelet family had made their
07:07fortune in New York real estate and banking, and although they were among the quieter Gilded Age
07:12dynasties, their yachts were anything but quiet, with Robert and Ogden Goelet both commissioning
07:17identical yachts designed by G. L. Watson, the Mayflower for Ogden, and the Nama for Robert.
07:23The Mayflower was built by J. A. G. Thompson on the Clyde in 1896 and 1897, and she was a
07:31luxurious
07:32steam yacht used for entertaining royalty and elite society until tragedy struck the family,
07:37when Ogden Goelet died aboard the Mayflower in 1897. After his death, the Mayflower was sold to
07:44the United States Navy, where she became the presidential yacht used by Theodore Roosevelt
07:49and the presidents who followed him, serving in that role until 1929. The Nama eventually followed
07:54a similar path, leaving the Goelet brothers behind two sister ships whose legacy ran from private luxury
08:00straight into American naval history. Lysistrata. Number 9 belongs to a newspaper tycoon. James
08:07Gordon Bennett Jr. ran the New York Herald, and around 1900 he commissioned a steam yacht designed
08:13by G. L. Watson and built by William Denny and brothers, and the result was a vessel called the
08:17Lysistrata that measured around 96 meters long and reportedly cost between $600,000 and $635,000 at the
08:24time, the equivalent of around $17 million today. But the cost was not even the eccentric part,
08:30because the Lysistrata had a Turkish bath built into the design and even carried a stable for a cow
08:35on board, all so that Bennett could enjoy fresh milk every morning at sea, with room for 100 crew
08:40members serving him at any given moment. This was less a floating mansion and more a floating town,
08:45and the Lysistrata served as Bennett's mobile headquarters where he ran his newspaper empire
08:50directly from her decks. Corsair Series. Number 10 is the most legendary name on this list,
08:56the Corsair, JP. Morgan was the most powerful banker in America at the turn of the century,
09:02and his financial empire reshaped the country in ways most people will never fully appreciate.
09:06So when he turned his attention to yachting, he reshaped that world too, with several Corsairs
09:11built across the family in succession, until Corsair III arrived around 1,898 and 1,899,
09:19designed by GL Watson, at roughly 93 meters long. Morgan used her for transatlantic travel and for
09:26entertaining the most important men of the era, with figures like Theodore Roosevelt,
09:30Thomas Edison and Mark Twain, all hosted aboard her decks. And when asked about the cost of owning
09:35such a yacht, Morgan reportedly offered one of the most famous lines in yachting history,
09:40saying, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. Later, JP, Morgan Jr. commissioned Corsair
09:46the 4th in 1930, measuring 104 meters and costing about $2.5 million, the largest American-built
09:54private yacht of her time, with the full story of her later years recorded in the New York Social
09:58Diary. Click on one of the cards on your screen to see more videos like this.
Comments