“A man is never lost at sea.” Old man and the sea."> “A man is never lost at sea.” Old man and the sea.
MegaYachts are so yesterday. For the cutting edge super-rich, the new water toy of choice is a luxury submersible–also known as a submarine.
These aren’t the chugging hulks of the military variety. Nor are they the cramped, bubble shaped pods used for scientific research. The new wave of lux subs are more like underwater jets that can swoop, dive and surge to keep up with the fastest underwater life. Call them the Learjets of the seas.
The company making the new breed of subs is Hawkes Ocean Technologies, led by engineering whiz Graham Hawkes. Mr. Hawkes started building submersible research vessels in the 1980s. He then pioneered “underwater flight” which, rather than using “sinkers” or underwater-balloon technology, allows vessels to soar through the water like planes.
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins commissioned the company to build the first production winged submersible, called the DeepFlight SuperFalcon, which launched last year. (Mr. Perkins, as Wealth Report readers might recall, sold his megayacht Maltese Falcon to focus on submersibles.) {Read on}
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- The Learjet of the Seas (blogs.wsj.com)
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- Richard Branson’s ‘Underwater Plane’ Is First of Its Kind (abcnews.go.com)
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