Ulysses sailed from Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan yesterday, according to the Marine Traffic vessel tracker, to join the glitz and glamour gathering at Saint-Bartelemy, a tiny French-speaking Caribbean island known as St Barts.
Jeff Bezos and wife Lauren Sanchez. Photo / laurenwsanchez, Instagram
Vessel trackers show the harbour packed with vessels, with many revellers likely to head ashore on tenders for invite-only parties at exclusive hotels, beach clubs and villas.
Hart’s superyacht – reportedly worth more than $250 million – shapes up well against some of the other large and luxurious vessels, even ones owned by some of the world’s richest men and women.
Others moored at St Barts include superyachts owned by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Australian billionaire James Packer, Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie, sports tycoon Shahid Khan, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, Google founder Eric Schmidt, vacuum cleaner inventor James Dyson and TV personality Dr Phil McGraw.
Hart took delivery of the world’s largest expedition yacht Feadship 1011 in 2023 and renamed it Ulysses – the same name as one of his previous superyachts, a 107m Norwegian-built explorer yacht the billionaire sold in 2017.
Graeme Hart’s 103m superyacht Ulysses.
The high-tech yacht features a swimming pool that covers the entire span of the main deck, a helicopter hangar concealed in the foredeck, multiple outdoor hot tubs, a glass staircase and elevator, and a 15m-long tender garage. It can accommodate 20 guests and 30 crew members.
Hart left school at 16 and built a business empire.
Rank Group, which Hart owns, houses businesses that operate internationally in the packaging, consumer goods and building supplies industries.
In 2023, two listed United States companies majority-owned by Hart made a combined US$9.2 billion ($15b).
Publicly listed packaging business Pactiv Evergreen Inc, listed on the Nasdaq in September 2020, made total net revenue of US$5.5b for the year to December 31, 2023, while Reynolds Consumer Products Inc, also Nasdaq-listed, made US$3.7b ($6b) in the same year.
Hart lives in Auckland but most of his investments are overseas.
Kurt Bayer is NZ Herald South Island Head of News based in Christchurch. He is a senior journalist who joined the Herald in 2011.