Last month, I attended a birthday party for a yacht broker. His co-workers said that business was booming for all sizes of boats (though maybe they don’t deal with anything smaller than 35′? 70-125′ seems to be their bread and butter). “In the old days we could have just closed the office in August, but the phone never stops ringing.” What’s changed? “Boat buyers are richer and younger,” was the answer. “They’re taking much longer trips and want bigger more capable boats for those trips. Starlink has been the catalyst. It makes a tremendous difference, especially, for the crew, and has made people more willing to work the longer voyages. The owners can still work, no matter how long the trip.” How does Starlink compare to the previous generation of satellite-based Internet for yachts? “It’s 100 times faster,” a broker said, “a total game-changer for both speed and reliability.”
Speaking of reliability, it seems that the mid-priced yachts ($10-25 million) either have two independent Starlink subscriptions and receivers or, in some cases, two antennae and a single receiver that is smart about which one to use (“diversity is our strength” in the RF world). “You need the second antenna,” the brokers explained, “because sometimes the line of sight to the satellite is block by a mast.”
What I can’t figure out is where these additional/bigger yachts are parking. The world was already short of slips before the cash showers of government coronapanic programs and, more recently, AI. “They keep building marinas here in South Florida,” said a broker.
Its infrastructure fund went from owning zero marinas in 2024 to roughly 200 marinas today — more than anyone in the world.
The company paid $5.6 billion in early 2025 for Safe Harbor, which at the time owned and operated 138 marinas in the United States and Puerto Rico, including dozens of marinas from Maryland to Maine as well as the Caribbean’s largest in Fajardo, P.R. It also runs nine marinas on the Mediterranean, catering to large yachts in places like St. Tropez, Antibes and Monaco.
What’s going on locally? An $80 million revamp of a marina just south of Abacoa:
The facility will feature two five-story indoor storage buildings with 427 enclosed dry storage slips and 20 wet slips.
Someone with $80 million to invest didn’t get the climate change memo? The buildings are designed to handle 180 mph hurricane winds (the last hurricane to make landfall in Palm Beach County in a “major” category (>= 3) was in 1949). But they’ll be worthless if sea level rise happens as promised by the Climate Doomers.
How much does a true “yacht” cost an Nvidia receptionist? A Turkish-built 125′ Hargrave, which ChatGPT says is mid-market at this size, is advertised at $24.5 million. Westport is a “step up”. For the programmer who has been at Nvidia 10 years, “Feadship / Lürssen / Oceanco / Royal Huisman: an entirely different stratum—bespoke, extremely expensive, and usually much larger, though some of these yards historically built yachts around this size.”
Related:
Your financial analysis assumes that Nvidia employees were stupid and didn’t sell their RSUs on vest immediately to diversify!
Phil, your posts on SpaceX keep driving the stock higher! $176 this morning! Can you start giving us all a heads up on the “news” ahead of time so we can get our orders in? Also, have you had a recent chat with your analyst at Morningstar to see what he is saying?
SXS: I hope that the Morningstar guy didn’t do a massive leveraged short like the one I put on!
Here’s an investor who followed my advice with respect to Nvidia being unable to sustain 30% profit margins: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/michael-burry-just-named-cant-202300040.html
(I was correct, of course. The profit margin of 30% wasn’t sustained and, in fact, went down to 62%.)
Phil, yet more good news from SpaceX yesterday that they will be launching cellular service in the U.S. after purchasing 800MHz spectrum. And the stock is up on the news! I’m guessing you will be signing up (as you appear to now be a full-on Elon “fan boy” with recent exuberant posts about Teslas, X Money, X/Twitter, Starship)? I know we didn’t get a “heads up” on this news from you as has been your practice (thank you!), so hoping you are still in the good graces of “inside” company newsflow from Elon?
I don’t think that I’m the customer for SpaceX cell service. My telecom needs aren’t urgent so if I’m in a Verizon dead zone (i.e., at least part of the time on every dog walk around the neighborhood) there are no practical consequences.
Phil, good news for you and your dog walks! The service they are launching with their new 800 MHz spectrum will be on terrestrial cellular towers (not from space), so a direct competitor to Verizon. And, the terrestrial and space-based networks will of course work seamlessly together on the same phone if your dog walks should ever take you into uncharted and Wild Territories filled with scary animals (like Masskachusetts). Hence, this new service will perfectly fit in with your love of all things Elon.
I actually may need to switch carriers in February 2027 (our neighborhood is abandoning Xfinity for Hotwire fiber so the bundling deal of Xfinity Internet+WiFi won’t make sense anymore unless Hotwire proves to be super unreliable), but it looks as though SpaceX mobile service doesn’t begin until November 2027 at the earliest. I guess I’ll be willing to try it if the price is substantially lower than the incumbents.
In other news, Nero fiddles while Rome burns. I’ll keep the memory of the 14′ Hobie Cat I restored as a young man and the 20 year old girl in a bikini hanging out on the trapeze, thanks. Darth Vader Death Star boats, no thanks.
Yachts aren’t the only thing that Starlink has made more valuable (off-grid/rural homes etc.), but one of the most striking for the masses is Starlink on planes. The product is off-the-charts fast, crushing the few other current competitors (mainly Viasat globally, which in addition to being slow has awful coverage). Amazon is years away from a competitive offering for planes and by the time they have sufficient coverage, all the airlines will have adopted Starlink (even Delta, which has been dissing Musk, but which is now losing lots of premium customers to competitors because they have awful internet and have signed up with Amazon, which won’t really roll out for 2 years).
Delta is especially moronic! They are usually quite pragmatic and well run, and not using Starlink is direct self-sabotage – all business customers, aka best paying loyal customers, especially on international flights, need it! Unexplainable.
It seems even Disney Cruise Lines already use Starlink.
SK: I think that Amazon offered Delta much better business terms than Starlink did. Total control over the portal, etc. So it might not have been crazy if customers were more patient. JetBlue made the same decision, incidentally. Maybe Amazon gave them better financial terms. I don’t think JetBlue cares about the control over what customers do/see the way that Delta does. The Amazon system might still make sense if, unlike every other similar project in the history of humanity, there is no schedule slippage.
Phil, Amazon offered better terms for what? A system that will be far inferior to Starlink for at least the next 5-6 years and likely never catch up with Starlink in terms of speed and coverage (which is based on # and size of satellites). Even if all goes well from here with Amazon (questionable), they will perpetually be in catch-up mode with crummy service. Particularly with Starship able to launch 20x the # of satellites every launch as others. And part of Delta’ reasoning to screw their customers is so they can “control” their internet? You must be kidding! Delta management appear to be complete dopes.
“Delta rejected Starlink because it insisted on routing all connectivity through its branded “Delta Sync” portal rather than allowing a simple Starlink experience.” — https://www.teslarati.com/delta-airlines-rejects-starlink-reason-will-shock-you/
(This is my only source and, of course, I wasn’t there!)
Phil, yes that is the point. Delta management clearly wants to “control” their flyers’ internet so they’ve screwed their flyers (and themselves) by going with Amazon. Delta’s CEO also appears to be a Wokester/Leftist with a particular personal dislike for Musk, which many people hypothesize is the real reason they rejected Starlink. My guess is this guy loses his job (even if he reverses course and goes with Starlink eventually, which I think is likely). If you watch interviews with him, he appears like an incompetent dolt.
Here are the numbers on satellites:
Starlink: currently ~12,000 and the company has said they will likely plateau ~15,000-20,000 near-term, but could go substantially higher in out-years.
Amazon: currently ~400 in orbit and “goal” is to reach ~3,200 by July, 2029 and a further goal of ~7,700 by 2035. Very unlikely they reach the 2029 goal, given their own rockets have been blowing up and they are thus dependent on…SpaceX!! (and others) for launches. So, by 2029, even if they reach their goal, it will be a horrible service (speed and coverage) relative to Starlink, and even if they reach their 2035 goal it will still be crummy relative to Starlink.
Phil, ask your yacht broker friend how many of his big yacht customers are installing Amazon’s service on their yachts. I bet the answer is zero.
BTFW is correct, Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian appears to be a wokester (as per Grok):
Ending Delta’s NRA discount after the 2018 Parkland shooting (“Our values are not for sale”).
Criticizing Georgia’s 2021 voting law changes as based on a “lie” about 2020 fraud and calling restricted polling access “unacceptable.”
Supporting racial equity efforts after George Floyd’s death.
BY: Of course they’re not installing Amazon’s Leo since it is pure vaporware at this point. But they probably will do it when it becomes available, just to have redundancy.
Ed: Thank you for your support to Mitt Romney, a wonderful progressive as he got older (Grok says that you donated). And thank you for ending the NRA discount in 2018 after the Parkland shooting, also for “saying the airline was not taking sides and supported the Second Amendment”. I still think that your decision on Internet can be explained by greed rather than a passionate commitment to What is Right. I guess the “waiting an extra year or two is no problem” attitude can be explained by your age. I realize that you’ve got 10 more years before you can run for President of the U.S., but you’re 69 and didn’t mind waiting for AOL dialup so for you Delta’s current Internet service is plenty zippy!
I don’t oft git to these here parts of the Internet Superhighway. Blog comments sure have changed a darned good bit since I did. Lotta talk about loco weed and trans. “To each his or hern own,” I always say.
Now if I can just get my fingers underneath the collar of Glenda (that’s my bahr, ol’ Glinny) I need to see if we can find her a den to birth her cubs. Buenos noches, buenos noches muchachos.
[The above statement makes about as much sense as anything else today, I think.]
Also, would be interested to hear if any of your many friends with Gulfstream Jets have adopted the Amazon product?
There is no Amazon product!
In fairness to Amazon, it does look as though they’ve made some progress with JetBlue and Airbus. At least in their dream world where everything has been approved by EASA and the FAA, new planes are going to come out of the Airbus factory with the Leo hardware already installed. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/jetblue-amazon-project-kuiper-in-flight-wifi-partnership
The fact that JetBlue signed up with Amazon is not at all surprising to anyone who (like me) has flown on them in recent years. What was once a very well-run airline 20 years ago, has become a total shitshow in almost every respect. Hence, their selection of Amazon is a clear message to all others: AVOID Amazon.
Need we say more about JetBlue’s “performance” culture?
JetBlue’s IPO price (2002): $27
JetBlue’s stock price this morning: $3.93
I used to love JetBlue, but they do seem generally tired now. Internet has worked properly on about 30% of the JetBlue flights that I’ve taken in the past 1-2 years. Comfort and service are inferior to United and Delta, in my opinion. JetBlue used to be inexpensive, but now they’re usually the same price as the big carriers and they don’t seem to have as much depth in terms of being able to recover from a maintenance or crew problem.
Phil, does your Morningstar analyst have some notable thoughts on JetBlue’s stock?
I asked ChatGPT: “How is JetBlue stock done over the past 5 years and how have the Morningstar ratings been on the stock? If you followed Morningstar advice would you have made or lost money?”
Answer from our AI overlord: JetBlue has been a terrible five-year investment. On October 7, 2021, JBLU closed at $15.50; today it is about $4.03. That is a decline of about 74%, or roughly −23.6% per year compounded. JetBlue has paid no dividends, so there isn’t dividend income offsetting the loss. A $10,000 investment five years ago would now be worth only about $2,600.
But then it gives up on the second/third questions because it can’t find any rating from Morningstar on JetBlue for any date within the past five years. Gemini says “This is because Morningstar does not actively cover JetBlue with a human equity analyst. Instead, JetBlue receives a Quantitative Rating from Morningstar, which is an automated, statistically generated rating applied to companies without formal analyst coverage. Because there is no human analyst issuing reports or changing price targets, Morningstar does not publish official “upgrades” or “downgrades” for the stock.”
Phil, AOPA is back on X by the way.
Why didn’t they run a simple Grok search for why their engagement was down before deciding to try to shut everything down?
Anon: They’re not really “on X”. They spew stuff out to X. If you look at https://x.com/flywithaopa/with_replies they’ve replied to about three people during 2026. It is amazing that they felt entitled to high engagement given their near-zero effort. With this level of entitlement, I think it is safe to assume that they’re white males.
> It is amazing that they felt entitled to high engagement given their near-zero effort.
Maybe they worked really, really hard but couldn’t think of vapid, pithy comebacks to morons. I wouldn’t know though, sumbitch keeps trying to “onboard” me with the link provided. “X — The Everything App.” “What the heck does that literally mean?”, an XTwit might ask. (Emacs is the everything app.) I thought Twitta was going away when Letterman posted “I smell peppers and veal” on his show. It’s still spewing nonsense, and I am completely lost as to how one goes about monetizing that. Really seems like Twitta is a loss-leader for something like political influence.
I mean, if AOPA Twitter Exodus that big of a deal, why don’t you email AOPA or write them a letter? Then possibly realize you’ve found a better, more direct way of communicating with people. “We need you back on TwitX, The Everything App. Leaded avgas won’t lobby for itself.” Or they might blow your mind and give you a rational answer for their actions, instead of speculation. Now, someone air gap me, stat.
OAG: They’re already “back on X”, at least in their own minds. See https://x.com/flywithaopa/status/2107551483868729616?s=20
I guess they were so incompetent with the X algorithm, e.g., by making virtually all of their posts teaser links, that they didn’t get a lot of engagement from users and, therefore, there wasn’t a whole lot for them to respond to.
It’s not that interesting per se whether AOPA is on X. It is important that AOPA is competent because otherwise piston peasants are totally screwed. Their failure to get the basics right on X is a telling symptom that they aren’t pulling out of their nosedive (losing half of their members while EAA grew).