Posted on 01/28/2016 10:52:46 PM PST by Citizen Zed
A massive luxury yacht owned by Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen destroyed most of a protected coral reef during a visit to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean earlier this month, media reported.
An anchor chain from the vessel damaged nearly 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters), or about 80 percent, of reef near two scuba diving sites in the West Bay, the islands' environment department said, according to the Cayman News Service.
Allen's Seattle-based Vulcan Inc organization, which manages his fortune, said on Wednesday that the M/V Tatoosh was moored on Jan. 14 in a "position explicitly directed" by the local port authority and that his team was cooperating with the investigation.
"When its crew was alerted by a diver that her anchor chain may have impacted coral in the area, the crew promptly, and on their own accord, relocated their position to ensure the reef was protected," Vulcan said.
The damage to the coral, which is vital for marine life, comes five months after the billionaire philanthropist announced support for research to stabilise and restore coral reefs.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.reuters.com ...
If you figure they could have swung around in a full circle (one cycle of tides in/out)... That only requires a circular contact patch of approximately 67 ft radius to make 14,000 sq ft in area.
Personally I think they're both ugly. Every now and then I go to the websites featuring luxury yachts and boy, there's some really beautiful boats out there.........
It really doesn't matter, the coral will grow back.......
I think I could live on that year-around. Great ship.
With Dicarprio looking at all that stuff on his boat, I’m sure he devotes plenty time to eyeball the gas gauge and closely monitor how to conserve fuel to help out the greenie cause.
Yeah, I’ve got it. And you FReepers are awesome for helping me visualize this in a real world example of a ship at anchorvand razing 14,000 square feet of ocean floor.
I like this one. I could live on it. ;)
I live on a 36 ft sailboat (1987 Tashing Tashiba). It would be a dinghy for those boats!
Hard to visualize.
My apologies. Went back into my cell phone pics. MV Tatoosh is indeed all white.
Nice! I saw one owned by Ron Perelman last year when we were in St. Maarten. But you couldn’t get within 100 yards of the mooring site because of intense security.
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