After finishing construction on his $485 million super yacht, Jeff Bezos will pay for Rotterdam to partially remove a nearly 145-year-old bridge so he can sail it out.
The former Amazon CEO's yacht, Y721, is virtually finished at the Oceanco shipyard in Alblasserdam near Rotterdam, but the vessel is too enormous to sail off with the bridge as it is. So the builders requested that the central part of the bridge be removed to allow the yacht to pass, FOX News reported.
According to FOX News, billionaire Bezos, 57, will foot the tab for the operation. The super yacht, which will be Oceanco's largest and one of the world's largest, will need at least a 130-foot clearance to get through.
The Koningshaven Bridge, also known as De Hef by locals, was completed in 1878 but was bombed by Nazis in 1940 during World War II. After repeated traffic delays and collisions, the local council decided to replace the original swing bridge design with a lifting bridge.
In 2017, the local council completed a significant bridge repair and committed not to dismantle it again.
