Boeing once built a superyacht for its founder and 95 years later it’s still sailing
- This is the only Boeing superyacht ever made
- She’s called Taconite and still sails to this day
- It was built specifically for Bill Boeing, the company’s founder
Published on Mar 22, 2025 at 3:06 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Mar 18, 2025 at 4:42 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
This is the Boeing Taconite, a 125-foot superyacht built specifically for Mr Bill Boeing, the company’s founder.
The yacht was designed as a unique creation for him, and there’s only one in the world.
It’s made entirely out of teak wood, and it held an interesting record for a while.
It was also, as you can imagine, very expensive to build.
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The company’s first and only yacht was incredibly expensive to build, even by today’s standards
Ironically, the Boeing Taconite superyacht was built during the Great Depression, so it wasn’t exactly in tune with the times.
It was constructed entirely of rare Burmese teak, and it cost $421,000 at the time – equivalent to $6 million today.
The yacht held an interesting record for a while, as it was the largest privately owned yacht on Canadian waters.
It also had some historic significance – iconic aviator Amelia Earhart once visited, and Al Pacino and the late Robin Williams have also walked its decks.
The yacht, amazingly, is still sailing to this day.
How Boeing created one of the most successful aerospace companies in the world
Bill Boeing was born in Detroit to parents from Austria and Germany respectively.
His last name is actually the transliteration in English of the last name Böing.
Language nerds will love that.
But language geekiness aside, what matters is that Boeing owes much of his success to Glenn L. Martin, an early aviation pioneer.
Martin taught Boeing how to fly, and then he sold him one of his planes, which effectively became the first Boeing plane.
As ever, history has a unique and cruel way of creating irony.
A global upheaval, WWI, sealed the deal for Bill and his company.
When the war started, the US Navy placed orders for 50 planes.
His company delivered, both figuratively and metaphorically.
Over 100 years later, Bill’s aerospace company is still selling airplanes to commercial airlines while maintaining a solid market share as a defense contractor.
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