Jeff Bezos' Yacht Towed After Plans to Dismantle Bridge Shelved

Jeff Bezos' $500 million unfinished yacht was spotted being towed away in the early hours of Tuesday morning from a Dutch shipbuilding yard after plans to dismantle a landmark bridge to make way for the vessel sparked outrage from residents. 

The backlash emerged after suggestions to temporarily take apart a section of the Koningshavenbrug, a 140-year-old bridge known locally as De Hef, for the Amazon founder's 417-foot-long Y721 and its three large masts to pass its 130-foot clearance, the New York Post last month.

It was reported that Bezos, the second-richest person in the world, was willing to pay for the removal of the middle section of the span, but his offer was met with hostility. Residents threatened to gather to pelt the yacht with rotten eggs as it made its way through the waterway. A petition was also launched calling for the plans to dismantle the bridge to be halted. 

Local media reported that shipyard employees felt threatened. Oceanco, the company that was commissioned to build the yacht, feared it would be vandalized. 

Since then the proposal was shelved by Oceanco, and it was reported by local media that the yacht was towed from the Oceanco shipyard in Alblasserdam to the Greenport yard just 24 miles away in Rotterdam.

Dutch yacht enthusiast Hanco Bol posted video of the yacht's move on YouTube, noting that it took three hours for the vessel to travel southwest along the Noord canal even though it usually takes nearly double the time to traverse the route. 

"We never saw a transport going that fast," Bol wrote of what he witnessed.

Bol believes that Oceanco was trying to keep the move under wraps, which is why it chose the early hours. 

The New York Post reported that it will take several more months for the yacht to be completed.

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