Octopus is a megayacht built for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. She is one of the world's largest yachts. Launched in 2003 at a cost of $200 million, Octopus is a private vessel that has been loaned out for exploration projects, scientific research and rescue missions.

Description

thumb|Octopus in [[Barbados, December 2, 2006]]

thumb|Octopus in Antibes [[Port Vauban, in 2009]]

thumb|Octopus in [[Hamburg, August 1, 2019]]

Octopuss exterior was designed by Espen Øino Naval Architects and built by the German shipbuilders Lürssen in Bremen and Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Kiel. The interior was by designer Jonathan Quinn Barnett.

Consisting of eight decks, including a private owners' deck, Octopus can host up to 26 guests accommodated in 13 staterooms and is crewed by a complement of 63 spread across 30 cabins. Entertainment facilities include several bars, a spa, library, cinema, gym, basketball court and multiple lounges including a forward-facing observation area. It has two helicopter pads on the main deck: a twin pad and hangars at the stern and a single pad on the bow; and a tender docked in the transom and a landing craft. There are a total of seven tenders aboard. The yacht also has a pool, located aft on one of its upper decks, and two submarines (one of them operated by remote control and capable of attaining greater depths). The latter was lent to Google Earth for the "Explore the Ocean" project.

In 2012, he loaned the ship to the Royal Navy in their attempt to retrieve the ship's bell from the , which sank to a depth of in the Denmark Strait during World War II, as a national memorial. HMS Hood was hit by a shell from the ; its magazines exploded and the ship sank in minutes with a loss of over 1,400 lives. The bell was located but not recovered, due to adverse weather conditions. On August 7, 2015 it was announced that the bell from HMS Hood had been recovered by the ROV operating from Octopus. After conservation, the bell was put on display in 2016 at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.

thumb|Octopus yacht in Sardegna

In March 2015, an Allen-led research team announced that it had found the Japanese battleship in the Sibuyan Sea off the coast of the Philippines. Armed with main guns and displacing at full load, Musashi and its sister ship were the largest and most heavily armed battleships in naval history.

Allen died in 2018. From December 2018 to July 2019, the yacht underwent a refit at Blohm+Voss and was advertised for sale in September 2019 with an asking price of €295 million. The asking price was later reduced to €235 million and the yacht was sold to an anonymous buyer in 2021. Later on, the buyer was announced by insideryachtfan.com to be the Swedish "pharma billionaire" .

References

Sources

Further reading

  • PDF file from 2004 containing 53 Octopus photos and the ship's detailed statistical data
  • Octopus: il megayacht ha lasciato Genova
  • USS Indianapolis Wreckage Found