Seafaring Super-Rich Dive to Ocean Bottom in Luxury Submarines

[GI Joe]

Mega-rich paying top price for luxury submarines

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- The luxury-submarine business is sometimes hard to fathom.

``If you can find my submarine, it's yours,'' says Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich. And that's all the reclusive owner of the Chelsea Football Club has to say.

The ocean floor is the final spending frontier for the world's richest people. Journeying to see what's on the bottom aboard a personal submersible is a wretched excess guaranteed to trump the average mogul's stable of vintage Bugattis or a $38 million round-trip ticket to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket.

Luxury-submarine makers and salesmen from the Pacific Ocean to the Persian Gulf say fantasy and secrecy are the foundations of this nautical niche industry built on madcap multibillionaires.

``Everyone down there is a wealthy eccentric,'' says Jean- Claude Carme, vice president of marketing for U.S. Submarines Inc., a Portland, Oregon-based bespoke submarine builder. ``They're all intensely secretive.''

Who owns the estimated 100 luxury subs carousing the Seven Seas mostly remains a mystery.

Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., warned his boat builder that loose lips sink ships.

Undersea Yacht

``Not really supposed to talk about the sub, but it's a fancy one, a mighty nice piece of work,'' says Fred Rodie, one of the engineers who designed Allen's undersea yacht at Olympic Tool & Engineering Inc. in Shelton, Washington.

``If I told you, I'd have to shoot you,'' says Bruce Jones, president and founder of U.S. Submarines, about the names in his client book.

Jones, the 50-year-old son of a marine-construction engineer, built his first diesel- and battery-powered sub in 1993. Every sales contract since then has included a confidentiality clause to protect the buyer's identity.

``This is a nasty cut-throat business,'' Jones says.

Herve Jaubert, a former French Navy commando, swapped his cutlass for a screwdriver in 1995 to build his first luxury submarine. Now chief executive officer of Exomos, a Dubai-based custom-sub maker, Jaubert takes a more romantic view of the work: ``I'm a poet who builds submersible yachts for rich people.''

$80 Million

``Spending $80 million for a boat that goes underwater in a market where one that doesn't costs $150 million is a deal,'' Jones says. ``Our Phoenix 1000 is four stories tall, a 65-meter- long blend of a tourist and military sub.''

The ultimate war submarine, the U.S. Navy's Virginia-class New Attack Submarine, costs $2.4 billion and carries 16 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Jones says the most dangerous projectile aboard the Phoenix 1000 is a Champagne cork.

cont
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003783824_luxurysubs11.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&sid=a9s.rOyb3IaU&refer=home



I want one. I need to work harder

[GI Joe]

Civilian Subs Become a Nuisance
July 11, 2007: Over the last decade, luxury boat builders have begun building submarine yachts. Submarine construction technology has come a long way in the past century, and it's possible to build these boats at an affordable ($15-200 million) cost. They are safe, and there are about a hundred of them out there. A few companies have gained a lot of experience building subs for non-military underwater operations (academic research, oil exploration), which has created a cadre of information and technicians who can build these recreational subs. One of the largest civilian submarine yards is in Dubai, where 18 have been built so far, and over two dozen are under construction or on order. Another large operation is U.S. Submarines, in Seattle, a company that has built most of the scientific communities subs over the last two decades. These submersible pleasure craft look like streamlined yachts while on the surface. The upper deck, including the bridge, is outside the pressure hull. When submerging, everyone goes below, and the upper deck get flooded. If you get close to one of these yachts, it becomes obvious that they are built to dive. Military subs are still not used to encountering this civilian traffic underwater. The military boats have the right of way, but military boats are now warned to exercise extra care when approaching coastal areas used by civilian subs.



Owners of these luxury subs tend to be secretive, and the builders have agreed to some government oversight, especially to make sure militarized subs, that can carry torpedoes or mines, are not built. But there is no law against anyone owning one of these submarines, and it's feared that it's only a matter of time before drug dealers, gun runners, or even terrorists, get their hands on some of them. Some police officials believe this has already happened, but no one is saying much,

cont
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20070711.aspx

[AgentM]

Military subs are still not used to encountering this civilian traffic underwater. The military boats have the right of way, but military boats are now warned to exercise extra care when approaching coastal areas used by civilian subs.



Owners of these luxury subs tend to be secretive, and the builders have agreed to some government oversight, especially to make sure militarized subs, that can carry torpedoes or mines, are not built. But there is no law against anyone owning one of these submarines, and it's feared that it's only a matter of time before drug dealers, gun runners, or even terrorists, get their hands on some of them. Some police officials believe this has already happened, but no one is saying much,

cont
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20070711.aspx

This is pretty cool. But yeah, I was wondering what various navy's would think if they saw these things on sonar, heh. Might not be the safest thing to do.

[Essendon]

I wonder if joining the Mile Low Club feels much different to joining the Mile High Club?

[Mirror Lake 444]

Terrorists don't need a sub that can shoot torpedos. All they have to do is carry explosives and have a willingness to blow themselves up, which we know they do. I can just see one of these coming underneath a cruise ship and blowing it up.