You may have heard that the most expensive yacht in history is called the History Supreme. As near as I’ve been able to figure out, that’s not true. Not because the alleged $4.8 billion yacht wouldn’t be the most expensive – that’s far more than the next most expensive yacht. Instead, it’s not true because the History Supreme is not a real yacht. It doesn’t exist. But you wouldn’t know that from how the internet works.

The World’s Most Expensive Yacht

If you Google the most expensive yacht nearly all the top results, whether they are lists or single topic articles, tell you about History Supreme. Every single one of these articles uses the same four photos. Keep that in mind because it will be important in a moment.

According to the stories, which all source their information from the same place, the History Supreme was designed by a man named Stuart Hughes. Hughes is famous for elevating common things to the extravagant. He had added hundreds of diamonds to things like iPhones and iPads, turning the everyday pieces of technology into multi-million dollar pieces of art.

Hughes himself states he designed the History Supreme for an anonymous Malaysian businessman back around 2011. 

What Made the History Supreme So Expensive?

Hughes is famous for his excess so he was said to have gone all out with the History Supreme. One wall feature in the master suite was said to be made from meteoric stone (as in, harvested from a meteor) and included genuine dinosaur bone shaved from a Tyrannosaurus Rex found in Arizona. The dino bones alone were priced at $89,000.  There was even supposed to be a massive diamond housed in a luxury liquor bottle on display and a panoramic wall aquarium. So this ain’t your dad’s fishing boat, that’s for sure.

The big cost for the History Supreme was the solid gold and platinum. Hughes said he used 100,000 kg of precious metals to cover nearly every surface on the boat. The railings, the deck, the dining area, even the base of the boat was said to be wrapped in gold. Even the anchor was gold. And, for the record, 100,000 kg is about 220,000 pounds or 110 tons. Wow, right? Sounds like an amazing yacht.

Who Owns History Supreme?

All photos of the History Supreme came from Hughes own website and since that time, in 2011 or so, not a single other photo of the boat has been taken. No one has reported seeing the boat and no one even knows who owns the boat.

People have assumed that the owner would be a man named Robert Kuok, the richest man in Malaysia. His fortune is around $14.5 billion. If he was indeed the man who purchased this boat, it means he spent one third of all of his money on it. That’s a lot of money to invest in a single boat. 

Why Is the History Supreme Fake?

At the end of the day, there is no evidence History Supreme ever existed for real. The most damning evidence is those four photographs. Some internet sleuths who were unconvinced about the story of the History Supreme realized that the boat in Hughes photos looked a lot like the Baia One Hundred, a yacht made by Italian yacht makers Baia in 2008. 

The sales manager from Baia was contacted by a yachting news website back in 2011 to ask about the History Supreme. Because, in fairness, Hughes never claimed he was a yacht maker. He’s a man who makes normal things extravagant. He could have taken a One Hundred from Baia and made it into History One, right? Not so fast.

Baia’s sales manager said those photos were stolen from their website and doctored. So they were not new photos of an altered boat, but altered photos of an old boat. Moreover, and this is crucial, he also pointed out what should have been obvious to anyone working in boating news. If Hughes added 110 tons of gold to the boat, how the heck was it staying afloat?

The One Hundred has a displacement of 80 tons as is. Imagine adding an extra 110 tons of gold on top of that. There’s just no way. It would sink to the bottom like a stone. And honestly, how would that boat even work? Gold on the outside hull would get scraped off, assuming people didn’t strip it in the middle of the night. And a gold anchor? You’d risk the gold getting scraped and knocked off every time you used it. It just doesn’t make sense. 

While it seems like a cool story at first, I have to say it’s just beyond reason. It doesn’t make sense. No one has seen the boat in over a decade. Only four photos exist and they seem to have been photoshopped. And, finally, science itself stands in the way of the boat even working with the sheer mass of gold that’s supposed to be on board. For those reasons, we have to call this one a straight up hoax. There is no History Supreme.

The Bottom Line

For over a decade now, numerous websites have claimed History Supreme as the most expensive yacht in the world. But since no one has seen the yacht in over a decade, the pictures are apparently photoshopped, and it’s far too heavy to even work as a boat as it’s been described by the man who allegedly made it, we’re saying that the boat is just a hoax and never existed in the first place.