A new terayacht just dropped, this time it’s a massive floating city shaped like a turtle named Pangeos that, if constructed, could become the world’s largest boat. Moreso, Lazzarini, the designers of Pangeos, say it will cost around $US8 billion (almost $AU12 billion) to construct. Yes, fuck the rich.
If you haven’t heard of the term terayacht before, it’s a name given to vessels larger than super, mega and gigayachts. Yes, that is a real term that many of us regular citizens will never have in our vocabulary because most of us can barely afford a two-bedroom apartment in Sydney, let alone a terayacht that doubles as a floating city.
Pangeos is named after yep, you guessed it, Pangea. The very supercontinent that existed from 200 million to 335 million years ago. It’s a bit on the nose. A giant floating city named after a giant supercontinent? A tad cliché.
According to Lazzarini, Pangeos the terayacht will be 550 metres long and 610 metres at its widest point, the wings. These wings will also offer 19 private villas and 69 apartments on each side. The designers say that Pangeos will be double the size of the Colosseum.
You can check out the video of Pangeos below. Be warned, it will make you feel wildly inferior.
As you can see, the yacht will have hotels, villas, resorts, shopping centres, parks (???) and ports for smaller ships and aircraft to allow guests access to the boat. It will be, in all essence of the word, a complete floating city.
Underneath the living areas, there will be 30,000 ‘cells’ that would allow for Pangeos to float. According to designs, the basement will also be made of steel with 30 metres of draft to allow for the terayacht to move at five knots.
I have a few questions when I watch this video.
Firstly, why? Secondly, why? Are we not all in a global economic crisis? Should we not be focusing our attention on other things than constructing a floating city terayacht? Just food for thought.
I was going to ask who had asked for Pangeos but I know my answer will lie amongst billionaires.
Lazzarini has said that Saudi Arabia is the intended location for the building of Pangeos, particularly King Abdullah Port. Approximately one square kilometre of the sea will need to be dredged with a circular dam constructed before the building can start.
In saying all this, I do actually quite like the turtle design they’ve gone for, it’s very cute. However, it is a little ironic that the massive boat is shaped like an endangered species when constructing the vessel may cause further environmental harm. The designs of the terayacht do have solar panels lining the rooftop which Lazzarini says is to generate clean energy to power the floating city.
And no, the floating city won’t be doing any international travel. It will literally just float around in one area.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, it does. Lazzarini has started a crowdfunding initiative, called ‘Unreal Estate’ where people can buy virtual entrance tickets to a VIP apartment through NFTs. Yes, this is hell, welcome.
The NFTs will also serve as a property deposit in the event of construction starting on Pangeos.