We were informed in 2024 that if Donald Trump were to become president that would be the end of our democracy and we wouldn’t have any future elections. The Nakba actually did occur in November 2024 and the hated dictator entered the White House in January 2025. Have you seen any evidence of an election going on in your state right now?
From Kamala Harris, the major cognitive ability upgrade from Biden installed by party elites protecting democracy:
Even before these intellectuals weighed in, Republican Liz Cheney told NBC viewers that a Trump election “may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in.”
Separately, officials in Palm Beach County failed to get the “no more elections” memo. There is some crazy stuff on the ballot and I’m sorry to say that the Republican party is officially supporting all of it. They want to narrow the tax base by exempting $250,000 of house value from general property taxes (Amendment 3). The people who pay no tax will still be able to vote, e.g., to increase county spending to be paid for by taxing other people. It’s the same system that has resulted in epic federal budget deficits. The Republicans also want to narrow the tax base by exempting farm equipment from a tax that currently applies to every business (Amendment 2). Finally, they want to let the state keep a huge rainy-day fund (Amendment 1; opposed by Ron DeSantis, who pointed out “We already have a maxed-out rainy-day fund and have run the largest surpluses in state history”).
It won’t be the end of Florida if these amendments pass, but even if they were good ideas getting people accustomed to the idea of amending the state constitution seems risky. What if Democrats return to power here in Florida and win the necessary 60% of the votes by telling people that they’ll get all government services without paying because the top 10% of Floridians will be hit with a massive income tax (currently barred by the constitution) and a massive wealth tax (also barred beyond 0.2%; Florida actually did tax “intangible property” at very small percentages from 1931-2006)? Who could be opposed to the idea of living off Ken Griffin? Could he live comfortably on $30 billion? If so, why not a one-time wealth tax of 50%, inspired by California’s one-time 5% tax?
Loosely related, some advice on voting from the dictator who supposedly was guaranteed to suspend elections:
Sad day for aviation in Florida, A 2004 Learjet 60 en route from Texas to the Bahamas crashed into a neighborhood here in Palm Beach County, about 30 miles south of us. The crash of N722BD is reported (NY Post) to have occurred shortly after 1 pm, 1300 local or 18Z. Here’s the archived radar from November 1, 2026 at 18Z:
(The crash was just southwest of the W in “West Palm Beach.” I’m a huge chicken/coward so if I had been coming from Texas with in-flight NEXRAD and seen the above image I would have flown around it all to the north, stopping to fuel in Orlando if necessary, and then proceeded offshore to head south to the Bahamas.)
Anecdotally, it has been rainy all day here.
There is some horrific ATC video that is so bad it sounds as though it might be AI:
*Listener discretion advised, ATC audio from the accident.
A Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida earlier today. The pilot reported moderate turbulence along with icing conditions. The aircraft departed Austin, Texas heading towards the Bahamas. The pilot later… pic.twitter.com/ynM2RgU9LM
If we believe the audio to be genuine, the plane was getting hit by some pretty bad turbulence (up and down at least 600′), consistent with being on top of or next to a thunderstorm. What’s confusing is that the pilot monitoring (a Learjet 60 is a two-pilot aircraft and, therefore, it is not the pilot on the controls who communicates with ATC) reports “we’re managing the ice” (i.e., the plane’s hot wings are preventing ice from accumulating) and also that the outside air temperature was -47C, We’re normally taught that icing tends to be prevalent when flying through heavy clouds at between 0 and -20C. The official government story is that icing can happen down to -40C.
An aviation friend sent me this, but I’m not sure what his source is:
Assuming no mechanical problems, what could have brought a Learjet down in these conditions? Turbulence can become so severe that, unless the pilots have anticipated it and slowed down quite a bit, a plane is damaged or comes apart. Icing can become so severe, with supercooled liquid droplets, that it overwhelms even a fully certified flight-into-known-icing (FIKI) system. A tailplane stall is theoretically recoverable, but if not corrected will result in a nosedive. Ordinarily a plane’s wing’s pull up while the horizontal stabilizer of the tail pushes down. This is what gives a standard (non-canard) aircraft its stability. If the tail stalls, e.g., due to ice formation, the plane can pitch down. Partial failure of a jet’s anti-icing system, which depends on running compressed hot air from the engines (“bleed air”) into the wing, engine nacelles, and tail leading edges, can result in an uncontrollable bank and/or spin (on wing producing dramatically more lift than the other). The Lear 60 is unusual in having electric heat for the horizontal stabilizer rather than engine bleed air, but it comes on with the same switch as the bleed air anti-ice and shouldn’t have been a factor. Also, tailplane stalls are more common during approach when flaps are extended because the result is an increased angle of attack for the tail.
Whether upset by turbulence or a tailplane stall, a slippery is much more challenging to recover than a four-seat piston-powered airplane. The jet can quickly get into mach tuck, for example, if pitched nose down from a normal cruise speed. Flying at FL350 rather than FL410, their cruising altitude over the Gulf (see below), gave the plane a larger range of acceptable speeds.
Anyway, a sad day. Based on a search, the plane was actually based here in South Florida at KFXE and, therefore, the pilots should have been more than familiar with thunderstorm hazards. So the crash is a mystery at this point, but almost surely the weather played an important role.
Update: An ADS-B-tracking web service shows that the crew were successfully avoiding the most severe weather, but not slowing down to a speed that would have resulted in the airplane stalling before it became overstressed by turbulence. They blundered into a narrow but severe cell at full cruise speed shortly before impact. Some people who have reviewed dashcam footage of the crash are saying that the horizontal stabilizer (tailplane) was entirely missing as the plane crashed into the ground (even worse effect than a tailplane stall).
Even small turbojet airliners have been brought down by thunderstorms. Braniff 250 was an 80-seat airliner that experienced structural failure in 1966 due to turbulence even though the pilots had slowed down almost to the recommended turbulence penetration speed (source). This would be much less likely today because Air Traffic Control now has access to high quality weather radar.
You might reasonably ask “Why would anyone be crazy enough to try to get through weather like this?” One answer is that if you’re going to fly in Florida or Texas and aren’t willing to try to get through ugly convective weather you’re not going to be able to fly on a schedule. That’s not a problem for private aircraft owners, but for airlines and charter pilots the passengers expect the schedule to kept. The second answer is that most of the time it is possible to stay in clear air and navigate around the worst cells visually. One thing that investigators will want to look at is why ATC gave them a descent when they were over Naples, Florida and why the crew accepted the descent. They’d been at 41,000′ (“FL410”) over the Gulf of Mexico and apparently descended to 35,000′ (FL350) on arrival in Florida. Why not stay as high as possible until past all of the ugly weather? Altitudes gives pilots the best chance of staying visual and avoiding the tallest buildups. It is possible to be assertive with ATC, though when above 18,000′ ATC has the authority to say “Well, if you can’t accept lower then I’m going to have to vector you to Cuba and back”. It’s possible that, knowing things were likely to get bumpy, they descended in order to give themselves a larger range of speeds at which the airplane would fly safely.
(Weather is much lower in New England than in Florida. I was with a friend in a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop coming back towards Bedford, MA (KBED) from Ohio. There was some ugly stuff on the in-cockpit NEXRAD over western-central Massachusetts. I insisted on staying at our cruising altitude (25,000′?) because that would keep us from entering the tops of the clouds. Everyone else on Boston Center was an airliner and ATC pushed us with “Everyone else is going through it.” I responded with “Well, they’re Boeings and Airbuses and we’re not. If we have to circle to lose altitude once we’re clear of this that’s okay.” They plainly thought we were absurdly conservative/chicken, but let us do what we asked for, eventually entering a rapid descent once clear. Our little 9-seater probably could have handled the tops of the rain clouds painted by NEXRAD, but why subject our passengers to the turbulence and ourselves to the stress if we didn’t have to?)
Update 2: Some weather experts posted detailed radar data and analysis (in Fahrenheit). Piecing together the most relevant parts from their follow-ups:
At 12:36 p.m., the thunderstorm cell was 33,000 feet tall. By 12:56 p.m., it was 48,300 feet tall. That’s an increase [of] 15,000 feet in 20 minutes. signifying VERY intense updrafts … Ordinarily, that would be too cold to support robust icing. (Clear glaze is most prevalent between 14 and 32 degrees [F], with mixing of clear/rime ice at colder temperatures. … Rime ice is a danger below 0 Fahrenheit, but once you get to colder temperatures, there aren’t many supercooled water droplets left. HOWEVER, a rapidly-growing thunderstorm cloud can lift warmer temperatures, and more liquid water content, vertically upward. That can lead to extremely rapid icing in environments at altitudes where it otherwise would be a lesser concern.
We're saddened to hear about the tragedy involving a Learjet 60 near West Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday evening, November 1. Weather was likely a contributing factor; while the NTSB has a long investigation ahead, here's what the meteorological and flight tracking data tell us: pic.twitter.com/9nysLp3qU2
below, a confusing incident involving the same aircraft a few months ago. The pilots reported “moderate chop” and also that they couldn’t hold altitude, thus leading me to wonder if something was wrong with the plane’s autopilot (jets are typically flown on autopilot). The controller correctly notes that an inability to hold altitude is “severe turbulence”, not “moderate chop”. We don’t hear any other planes on the frequency complaining of turbulence, including a plane that was close enough to them to be called out as conflicting traffic.
Got to looking on the ATC app with the N722BD crash and found a log from a few months ago with the same severe turbulence issue. Obviously unrelated but interesting nonetheless.. awful experience for anyone involved right nowhttps://t.co/YPC7Ghxxmppic.twitter.com/MCRMbNDLk6
A friendly reminder that eating the leftover Halloween candy and/or stealing from the kids while they’re at school can lead to significant bulk (Jupiter, Florida):
The town turns a bit darker at night…
Finally, I hate to brag (in fact, nobody hates to brag more than I do), but I attended Taylor Swift’s wedding.
We saved a ton of money this year on treats to hand out. All thanks to our fiscally responsible Congress and the stewardship of our wise Federal Reserve technocrats for keeping inflation under control. A few nights ago at the highest-end department store here in Jupiter, Florida, Twix was down from $5.97 to only $5.87 (“Manager’s Special”). A Lindt-brand Dubai choice was only $13.37, previously unaffordable at $13.47.
If you need some last-minute pumpkin decoration ideas for Halloween, a couple of examples from the local (Jupiter) branch of the Palm Beach County Library:
Also, a reminder of the true threat to the traditional culture and value system of the United States. Featured by the librarians:
What will your life be like after enough additional immigration to generate European levels of population density here? You will be freed from the tyranny of the private automobile and will be able to wait for, then crowd onto, public transit. Life After Cars:
The time spent waiting for the bus can be put to good use with some Craftivism:
Crafting a Better World: Inspiration and DIY Projects for Craftivists: A Dynamic Craft Book with Hands-On Projects, Learn to Make Art that Makes a Difference (Amazon):
It all started with a tiny stitch and a big prick. For the first two years of the Trump presidency, I watched in quiet dismay as he assaulted every aspect of our democracy and our decency. He felt anathema to the aspirations for my practice as an artist.
I STARTED MAKING THESE CHOCOLATES when George W. Bush was elected and haven’t stopped. They’re a delicious way to express my constant outrage that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy is so often based on laws made by men. We talk a lot at our shop about how not all women have vulvas and not everyone with a vulva is a woman, but everyone can be angry about violations of basic human rights. With this recipe, you can re-create these chocolates to enjoy them on your own, give them to a friend, or sell them at a bake sale to raise money for abortion access funds. I hope they serve as a sweet reminder of a woman’s right to choose.
FURIOUS VULVAS
Makes 10–100 vulvas, depending on the size of the mold
INGREDIENTS
¾ teaspoon pink Hawaiian alaea sea salt; honestly, any flaky high-quality sea salt will work! If you use table salt, use ½ teaspoon and add more to taste.
1 scant tablespoon pink peppercorns
1 pound dark chocolate (Make sure it’s a high-quality chocolate sourced in ethical ways! We use 65% Republica del Cacao and we love it.)
EQUIPMENT
A vulva mold (see below) A spatula, preferably an offset spatula A parchment-lined sheet pan
DIRECTIONS
Procure your vulva molds! You can find an abundance of vulva molds online. Searching for “vagina chocolate mold” (even though I know you know that the vagina is the internal genitalia and the vulva
A woman around age 30 who works for Cleveland Clinic here (yes, I know that it sounds like a contradiction, but Cleveland Clinic has a massive operation in SE Florida) shared her Floridian Origin Story. She and her now-husband came to Fort Lauderdale on vacation in 2020 and discovered that it was possible for young people to enjoy a mask-free lockdown-free lifestyle without being felled by SARS-CoV-2. The couple packed up and moved and never looked back to their deep roots in Massachusetts (the now-wife had grown up in a house that her grandparents purchased and her parents still live there).
How much tax base was lost via the transformation from Massachusetts to Maskachusetts? The immediately loss was modest, only about 5 percent of perhaps $250,000 in joint income or $12,500 per year in state income tax. Figure another $2,000 in lost sales tax and $5,000 per year in lost property tax (whether the couple had rented or purchased). A total of $20,000 per year.
What’s the long tail? The parents are executives back in MA and they’re approaching retirement age. They are planning to keep their house on Cape Cod, but live in Florida for most of the year so that they can spend time with their daughter and any grandkids. If the daughter hadn’t been driven to Florida by the lockdowns, mask orders, vaccine orders, etc., the parents wouldn’t have followed. The state will likely lose at least another $40,000 per year in tax receipts and won’t get the state estate tax that they’d hoped to harvest from the dead bodies of the parents. (See Effect on children’s wealth when parents move to Florida.)
Although Florida lacks both income and estate taxes, these folks are contributing to the Florida economy and tax base by living here. Thus, it seems that Ron DeSantis’s decision to reject Faucism and follow the Church of Sweden will pay financial dividends to the state for many decades to come.
A rich douche spent 5.5 months in Connecticut during his last year on this planet and that generate a huge amount of litigation over whether CT can harvest estate tax (reducing the kids’ inheritance). He could have avoided all of the drama for his executor simply by making his northern home anywhere away from the states of color in the Tax Foundation map below.
The Islamic Republic of Michigan, for example, or Live Free and Die Free in New Hampshire. Even California would have been a far better choice since elites there refuse to live their own principles by imposing an estate tax to reduce income inequality and the “generational wealth” that they decry.
A bit part of the mess seems to be that, like Marjorie Merriweather Post, the builder of Mar-a-Lago, this douche had three regular residences: FL, AZ, and CT. So he wasn’t anchored in Florida for 183 days per year.
It is all increasingly complicated when people can work anywhere and have multiple homes. The fights between states and the wealthy are playing out in an increasing number of residency audits, said Timothy Noonan, a lawyer who leads a tax residency practice at Hodgson Russ in New York City.
The trial court judge homed in on one factor: Anderson typically spent 5½ months a year from May to mid-October in Greenwich, and 3½ months from November through mid-February in Florida. He spent three months from mid-February through early May in Arizona.
The judge concluded that “ultimately, the most persuasive evidence demonstrating Anderson’s domicile is where he chose to spend his most valuable and limited resource: his time.”
The trial court concluded that Anderson’s personal, social and property connections with Connecticut and Florida were generally equal, but that the estate failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Connecticut wasn’t his true home.
Here’s the Vero Beach place:
Estate tax is particularly hazardous. My late mother’s college friend was a passionate Democrat who avoided paying any tax to the Democrats of Maskachusetts by spending 183 days per year in her Palm Beach place. I hope that she lives forever, but what if in the last year of her life she falls ill while on a January visit to MA and then ends up staying through December in MA for continuity of medical care? MA wouldn’t have a slam-dunk case to collect estate tax, but they could certainly argue that the deceased had given up FL residence and it was time to collect 16% ahead of the kids, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and other beneficiaries.
Here’s an Ohio-based law firm’s web page on National Estate Planning Awareness Month showing a typical high-net-worth Ohio family (and no other client photos):
Google AI: “The median household income for Black or African American households in Ohio is approximately $42,433 to $45,800 per year, according to recent state demographic snapshots and census data. This is lower than the overall state median household income, which sits above $71,000”,
Grok: “Law firm marketing frequently uses multi-racial or Black family stock images for inclusivity branding, aspirational messaging, or to signal that services are open to everyone. It is not an attempt to accurately depict the statistical modal client. This is common across many professional-service websites and does not change the underlying demographics of who actually pays for attorney-drafted plans. In short: the image is marketing aesthetics. The typical paying customer for this service in Ohio remains a higher-wealth, usually White household.”
ChatGPT characterizes the image as “generic stock-photo family”, implying that it was chosen at random. Pressed, the AI admits that the law firm’s likely clients are rich white people. How does the image help market to those douches? “It could help if the firm thinks affluent white clients care about signals beyond “this family looks like me.” Marketing often tries to communicate things such as “modern,” “inclusive,” “welcoming,” or “serves the whole community.” Some wealthy white prospective clients may respond positively to that branding.”
Also from the Wall Street Journal, a couple in Manhattan whose kids’ inheritance will be reduced if they don’t move…
“Kids?” you might ask if you remember anything from your high school biology class.
Martin, 60, and his husband, Andrew Farach-Colton, 63, were living in that tiny Upper West Side apartment in 1999 when they found out they would be the fathers of twins. They wanted more space, but knew they couldn’t get it in Manhattan on their salaries.
This morning we got another absurd inflation number from the BLS (3.7%/year). As harped on numerous times here, headline inflation is untethered to actual costs in the U.S. partly because of the Owners’ Equivalent Rent scam. There’s a recent beautiful example of this in our own Florida neighborhood (Abacoa, within Jupiter, which is within Palm Beach County).
The house recently sold for $3.1 million and will, I’m sure, cost the new owners another $3.1 million in property tax, maintenance, insurance, landscaping, pool care, etc. over the years. What would an owner tell the BLS about what he or she thinks it would cost to rent? Perhaps the Zillow number of $8,593 per month. That’s about half of what an interest-only 30-year mortgage on the place would cost, if a 30-year interest-only mortgage were available. It might be 20% of the real cost of living in the house as an owner.
Note that this is pretty much the top of the Abacoa market. The owners apparently bought it, invested a ton of money in renovation (though it was not taken back to the studs nor was the room layout changed), and then decided that they were too rich to live in a $3.1 million house.
The American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne, Florida is open to the public only on rare occasions. October 3, 2026 was a car show and fundraiser for the Lion’s Club and the rabble were admitted for $30 per adult (our kids got in free). It’s an amazing collection that cries out for an intervention by our political thought-leaders. Mark Pieloch, a dog pharma and supplement flavoring tycoon, decided that he needed to own about 30 Ford GTs, nearly all of them from the two modern reboot (of the GT40) generations and nearly all of them with less than 30 miles on the odometer.
(Note that I don’t think it is reasonable to call the Ford GT a “Ford”. They’ve been produced by contract manufacturers, e.g., Mayflower Vehicle Systems and Multimatic. Compare to the Corvette ZR1X, an insanely powerful machine that is built in a regular GM factory that also makes the humbler versions of the Corvette. Keep in mind that even the humblest version is “insanely powerful”, though, when you consider realistic public road situations.)
Here’s the first room. The 2020 Ford GT in the foreground has 24 miles on the clock. A 1966 GT40 rotates on the turntable in the center of the modern GTs. A museum employee said that it had cost $9 million.
Just one ring of recent GTs, then? No. There are a couple of additional rows of them, e.g.,
Viewed from the other side of the room:
We’re talking about a Gulfstream G700 hangar, essentially, entirely filled with the latest generation of Ford GTs, nearly all of which have never been driven. Is that collecting or hoarding? Either way, I feel that it is time for Bernie and AOC to step in. Just as Bernie reminds us that nobody needs more than three houses, I think that we can all agree that nobody needs more than 3 pristine never-driven modern Ford GTs. One never-driven GT is a sculpture. Two more could be backups. But the 4th one? That’s intolerable inequality and, dare I say it, billionaire greed!
If we walk deeper into the museum, we find an entire row of the 2005ish GTs:
Directly across the aisle, a 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder. The window sticker is still stuck: $915,000 (in pre-Biden dollars!). How much practical value has been delivered by this machine? 32 miles’ worth. (ChatGPT says that Car and Driver got better numbers out of the Porsche 918 than they did out of the 2017-2022 Ford GTs, which sold for substantially less.)
That’s a G-Wagen in the back. Here’s some Gemini output that makes me wonder what Google has been feeding its AI:
In Palm Beach, Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons function like a chronological alimony registry. You can pinpoint exactly when a settlement was finalized based on the specific body style and dashboard layout of the G-Class she is driving:
Speaking of German stuff, Mark Pieloch was an avid Porsche collector as well. He has about 10 Porsche-brand diesel tractors:
Imagine telling someone “I’ll pick you up in my Porsche” and then showing up with one of these tractors! They’re not unreasonably expensive:
Here’s one that Grok says might be worth $5 million, though, a 1959 718 RSK Werks Spyder that was raced:
Just how big is the second room?
There are some additional hangars full of cars, but they’re not regularly open to the rabble.
Corvettes are reasonably well-represented, though I don’t remember seeing any C7s. Almost every conceivable Ford Mustang is displayed.
Here’s a wood-paneled 1957 Ford Country Squire:
Another wagon that, if retrofitted with A/C, would be awesome to own:
The perfect pace car for Elvis:
How was the car show? Pretty good and a reasonable turnout despite the fact that it has been an unusually wet September and October in Florida despite a complete absence of hurricanes from the North Atlantic. Free and dog-friendly. Here’s another dream station wagon:
If you love cars, I recommend finding one of the special events and going. Based on the museum’s Form 990, it seems that all of the money paid goes to whatever group is supposed to benefit. Grok says that the cars and the real estate are owned by Mark Pieloch individually so it isn’t a tax-avoidance vehicle (so to speak) as you might expect. Grok even found the records for the real estate:
Brevard’s parcel record for 3500 Sarno Road lists the owner as PIELOCH, MARK J, mailing address a Melbourne post office box. The use code is a privately owned tourist attraction, the buildings date to 2016, and the 2026 value is about $18.1 million. A 2025 tax bill on that parcel is on the order of $320,000, which is what you pay when the property is not under a charitable exemption.
Unlike, for example, the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates, Mark Pieloch is apparently paying more than his fair share of tax rather than burdening those who’ve been less successful with the chore of funding government.
Department of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up… Carnegie-Mellon has released renderings of its new home in Miami. It’s a massive sea-level almost-all-glass pavilion that will generate a ton of CO2 every minute (for A/C):
A campus designed to connect.
Carnegie Mellon University Miami is being created as a comprehensive university campus, not a satellite location or a collection of individual programs.
— Carnegie Mellon University (@CarnegieMellon) October 2, 2026
For 20 years CMU’s Nobel-winning Climate Doomers told us that hurricanes of never-before-experienced intensity would be ravaging Miami at least once per year. If forced to move to the Hurricane Belt, you’d expect the elites of Pittsburgh to build themselves something like the German U-boat base in Saint-Nazaire (26-foot-thick roof). What do we see instead? The folks who said that everyone in Miami was going to be killed by hurricanes or driven out by rising seas are going to park themselves inside a literal glass house (at sea level, of course!).
What would a structure in South Florida built by people who took their own predictions seriously look like?
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.”
