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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Recreation / Sports / Travel
- Published: 02/04/2025
Lives of the Super Wealthy
Born 1947, M, from Melbourne, Australia.png)
This week I had lunch with a young relative of mine and his mother (my sister). He had paid airfare for the two of them to visit me from New Zealand, in Melbourne, Australia. He is an enterprising young man. Ten years back he left New Zealand for the UK to see something of the World. Obtaining an electricians qualification in England, he decided to pursue his dream of working on a wealthy persons boat.
Travelling to the French Riviera, he went door to door ( yacht to yacht) asking for a job. Initially he was offered a position on some sort of survey boat and spent a year cruising in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle. Experience gained on that voyage enabled him to snare a position on a Billionaire's yacht. He seems to be in a maintenance/technology service position.
The interesting thing about working on these wealthy peoples boats is that qualifications are not always the criteria for being employed. Of course the Captain and Officers must be qualified, but often other crew are there because of connections, or ability to get along with people.
I was keen to hear what my relative had to say because it was a peek into how the super wealthy one percent live - something you hear nothing about. The boat owner made his fortune in fashion in the UK. He controls 5% of fashion production, retail, and export in
the UK. The cost of operating the boat full time is around $20 million dollars a year. Which includes wages, maintenance, mooring fees and much else.
By law the owner must cover the cost of return airfares for the crew to return home every four weeks. They all, including the Captains, work four weeks on four weeks off. The full crew is around 50 in number with just over twenty working on board at any given time. No small expense there! What a tough life - four weeks cruising the World, free airfares home for four weeks, then back again !!
My relatives boat is at present at PISA in Italy. He flies to that destination in a week or so.
I did not ask about wages. My young relative is building a house in New Zealand at present and judging from his life in general his earnings are substantial. He mentioned the owner recently sold an original Monet painting, purchased for $17 million, for the princely sum of $80 million. As my relative said, he can operate the boat for a few years on that sale alone.
In my contact with my sister over the years I have become used to her saying, "Oh, James (not his real name) is in Spain at the moment," "he's in Madagascar at present." "I have not heard from him in a while, he's in Yugoslavia - mobile coverage is not the best there." When James text me to say they had arrived, my phone showed the text as coming from France. He has a French phone he can apparently use anywhere in the World. I said to James when I heard how the owner made his money, "I have an online T Shirt shop, perhaps I should work on expanding it !!!
I asked about his experience in rough seas. The wife of the owner collects artworks from around the World which are all displayed or stored on board. The boat keeps to the more benign waterways of the World such as the Caribbean and the French Riviera, ensuring no damage to artworks from heavy seas.
James has made good by persistence and adaption of personality to what was needed for him to succeed. He lives in a World very few people experience, Was I jealous? Just a little bit!
Lives of the Super Wealthy(Ross Thompson)
This week I had lunch with a young relative of mine and his mother (my sister). He had paid airfare for the two of them to visit me from New Zealand, in Melbourne, Australia. He is an enterprising young man. Ten years back he left New Zealand for the UK to see something of the World. Obtaining an electricians qualification in England, he decided to pursue his dream of working on a wealthy persons boat.
Travelling to the French Riviera, he went door to door ( yacht to yacht) asking for a job. Initially he was offered a position on some sort of survey boat and spent a year cruising in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle. Experience gained on that voyage enabled him to snare a position on a Billionaire's yacht. He seems to be in a maintenance/technology service position.
The interesting thing about working on these wealthy peoples boats is that qualifications are not always the criteria for being employed. Of course the Captain and Officers must be qualified, but often other crew are there because of connections, or ability to get along with people.
I was keen to hear what my relative had to say because it was a peek into how the super wealthy one percent live - something you hear nothing about. The boat owner made his fortune in fashion in the UK. He controls 5% of fashion production, retail, and export in
the UK. The cost of operating the boat full time is around $20 million dollars a year. Which includes wages, maintenance, mooring fees and much else.
By law the owner must cover the cost of return airfares for the crew to return home every four weeks. They all, including the Captains, work four weeks on four weeks off. The full crew is around 50 in number with just over twenty working on board at any given time. No small expense there! What a tough life - four weeks cruising the World, free airfares home for four weeks, then back again !!
My relatives boat is at present at PISA in Italy. He flies to that destination in a week or so.
I did not ask about wages. My young relative is building a house in New Zealand at present and judging from his life in general his earnings are substantial. He mentioned the owner recently sold an original Monet painting, purchased for $17 million, for the princely sum of $80 million. As my relative said, he can operate the boat for a few years on that sale alone.
In my contact with my sister over the years I have become used to her saying, "Oh, James (not his real name) is in Spain at the moment," "he's in Madagascar at present." "I have not heard from him in a while, he's in Yugoslavia - mobile coverage is not the best there." When James text me to say they had arrived, my phone showed the text as coming from France. He has a French phone he can apparently use anywhere in the World. I said to James when I heard how the owner made his money, "I have an online T Shirt shop, perhaps I should work on expanding it !!!
I asked about his experience in rough seas. The wife of the owner collects artworks from around the World which are all displayed or stored on board. The boat keeps to the more benign waterways of the World such as the Caribbean and the French Riviera, ensuring no damage to artworks from heavy seas.
James has made good by persistence and adaption of personality to what was needed for him to succeed. He lives in a World very few people experience, Was I jealous? Just a little bit!
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