The waters off Sag Harbor and North Haven have been inundated with supersize yachts this summer, according to residents of North Haven and Shelter Island.
"Has anyone noticed the extraordinary population of luxury super-yachts camping out in Sag Harbor Bay?" asked Anthony Coron, a North Haven resident, in an email to The Star last week. Mr. Coron has become an avid yacht spotter, tracking and photographing the comings and goings of vessels such as MadSummer, a 312-foot, 10-cabin yacht with a helicopter landing pad, a swimming pool, an expansive spa, a 30-person crew, and a collection of toys including WaveRunners and Jet Skis.
"She's a pretty spectacular boat," said Chris Callahan, who works for Moran Yacht and Ship, the company that manages the vessel's charters. MadSummer is usually in Mediterranean waters and can be chartered there for 1.4 million euros (or about $1.67 million) per week, but the yacht is not available for charter in the United States, said Mr. Callahan, so it may be the yacht's owner who was on board while it was anchored in the Shelter Island Sound between North Haven and Shelter Island. Jeffrey Soffer, a Florida real estate magnate and the ex-husband of the supermodel Elle Macpherson, owns MadSummer, according to Forbes magazine.
MadSummer was one of at least six cruise-ship-like megayachts anchored in the waters between Shelter Island, Sag Harbor, and North Haven this week.
The yacht charter business had been initially hit hard by the pandemic because of restrictions on international travel, said Daniel Ziriakus, the president of Northrop and Johnson, a Florida-based broker. At the time, the company decided to keep many of its vessels close to home in the Caribbean rather than deploying them to Europe, he said. Then, after about six weeks of quarantining, clients started clamoring to get on the water. "Once you shut down everything, people go boating," he said.
The Lioness V, one of Northrop and Johnson's charters, is in Sag Harbor Bay right now, after having traveled from Barcelona, Gibraltar, the Azores, and, most recently, Nantucket, according to vesselfinder.com. It is a 208-footer with a cinema and media room, and an elevated pool, and she comes with a 19-person crew. The cost to charter it for a week is about $504,000 plus expenses, according to Northrop and Johnson's website.
The cleaning staff on Northrop and Johnson ships is employing state-of-the-art sanitizing methods, said Mr. Ziriakus. The company's clients, he said, see yachting as a way to take a respite from the pandemic. "People are looking for safety and security, and to be in an environment that can be controlled."
Earlier this year, the company conducted a survey of its customers to find out how the pandemic has impacted their lifestyles. "The message is loud and clear, ultra-high-net-worth individuals either plan to decrease or avoid activities that would increase the risk of exposure," the survey found.
That seems to hold true for David Geffen, a music and film executive who owns an estate in East Hampton Village. His 454-foot yacht, Rising Sun, was spotted anchored on the east side of Shelter Island in Gardiner's Bay last month. It later made a stop in New Bedford, Mass., where its tank was filled with 70,000 gallons of fuel, according to the town's Standard-Times newspaper. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Mr. Geffen has been quarantining in style. On March 28, he posted a yacht selfie on Instagram with the caption: "Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus. I'm hoping everybody is staying safe."
Rock.It, a 198-foot yacht owned by Jimmy John Liautaud, the founder of the Jimmy John's chain of sandwich shops, has been in Sag Harbor since last Thursday. The Sixth Sense, a 242-footer that Forbes said is rumored to be owned by Micky Arison, the C.E.O. of the Carnival Cruise Line, had also been there, but was on its way to Montauk earlier this week. The C Star, which sleeps up to 12 guests, also stopped over, as did the 141-foot Shadowl, and many more.
"About three years ago, I would see only one or two of those big yachts, and then last year there was more, but this year, it's been extraordinary," said Mr. Coron. "Whether the economy goes up or down, the boats seem to get 20 feet bigger every year."
At night, the lights from all the vessels cast an unfamiliar glow on his home. "It looks like the Las Vegas Strip," he said.
