Let's be honest, if you are a Republican, you don't care about the environment because you received your own oil well when you registered to vote.  And you like vampire babies. So you do not care about the emissions of your yacht.

But if you are a rich Democrat, things are a little dicier.  Buying pretend carbon offsets for a 29,000 square foot house can only get you so far. If you want to own a superyacht too, that's a lot of liberal guilt to agonize over. What to do?

The free market - that thing progressives hate - ironically has a solution to the problem; the 130 foot Ocean Supremacy. You shouldn't have to sacrifice quality just because you care more about the environment than other superyacht owners and this boat...errr, ship(1)...makes sure you don't have to.

It travels at a jaw-dropping 53 knots, which means poor people in Somalia can't just take it from you when you visit to tell them how superior their culture is compared to decadent America.  But it does so while generating 50% less emissions than ordinary superyachts.  Take that, capitalist pigs.

For slower speeds, like when you are not outrunning pirates, it has a zero-carbon cruising speed of 14 knots.  It's a science miracle, right?  No, it's called a sail. I once had someone show me a fancy watch and tell me about its awesome features and I noted that mine was so advanced it did not need a battery at all; you just had to wind it - no emissions, no acid rain from batteries, as green as it gets.  Then I pulled out my antique pocketwatch.

The sail...sorry, inflatable traction kite...is awesome but that is not all that makes it environmentally terrific. It also has a solar cell array charging a 2MW Lithium UPS battery (acid rain is sooooo 1980s it no longer counts as an environmental issue so this is okay) and has two diesel (and thus bio-diesel, if that is your thing and you don't care if poor people can buy food) generators plus wave-power using Maurer Sohne MDR motion damping. From an engineering point of view, making fun of rich people aside, this is pretty slick. 


Credit: Richard John Sauter

It's aerodynamic, it's hydrodynamic. I hope GE or Intel comes along and buys Science 2.0 so I can grab one of these things - and maybe a big trampoline for the office.  

Using these features means you can save 4,000 tons of CO2 per year. Do you know how much that is?  It's equivalent to all of the carbon dioxide belched into the atmosphere by Coca-Cola cans opening annually, a huge driver in global warming. Of course, that is relative to using an ordinary yacht.  Obviously you can save a lot more emissions by owning a sail boat, like conservative William F. Buckley did.

But we can't all be Bill Buckley, 50% of the American public is determined to be left and so it also goes with our richest. If you must have a yacht, and saving a few Coke cans worth of emissions makes the difference in your superyacht purchase, you at least will not have to sacrifice accessories for your love of Gaia. The Master suite has a King-sized bed, a double-jacuzzi bathroom, walk-in dressing room and a sofa with a giant TV. The four guest cabins only have one jacuzzi and Queen-sized beds - hey, it's your money, you have to show visitors who is boss - but the big TV and stuff are still there.

The cost: To Be Determined.  Basically, how much do you have?

NOTES:

(1) If you don't know the difference, you are not qualified to buy this yacht.  Anything over 100 feet is a ship, not a boat. Except submarines, they are always boats.  Even though they are underwater.  The Navy are such pranksters.