Superyachts

Saudi Arabia’s $8b turtle-shaped yacht would be a floating city that breaks records

  • Saudi Arabia wants to build a massive turtle-shaped yacht that’s both a vessel, and a floating city
  • At 1,800 feet (550 meters), this would set a world record for the largest floating structure ever made
  • The Saudi Arabia cruise ship turtle will include shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, public parks, ports for smaller ships and, of course, residential buildings

Published on Nov 28, 2023 at 6:17 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis

Last updated on Dec 07, 2023 at 1:14 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by Adam Gray

Saudi Arabia wants to build a massive turtle-shaped yacht that’s both a vessel, and a floating city.

Not only will it be massive, it will also be massively expensive.

Saudi Arabia plans to spend around $8 billion on this project.

READ MORE: Saudi Arabia is building a $1.6 billion ultra-luxury yacht club to rival Monaco

The yacht is called Pangeos, after Pangea, the supercontinent that existed 200 million years ago – but this is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

At 1,800 feet (550 meters), this would set a world record for the largest floating structure ever made.

It is three times longer than the largest yacht in the world, the Azzam.

Lazzarini Design

According to Lazzarini, the design studio that’s working on the project with Saudi Arabia, this is technically a yacht.

It can cover great distances by floating on water, and it can be moored to the pierside.

However, the idea is to turn this into a full-on, self-sustaining city.

The Saudi Arabia cruise ship turtle will include shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, public parks, ports for smaller ships and, of course, residential buildings.

Turtle-shaped city, condos
Lazzarini Design
Turtle-shaped city
Lazzarini Design

The turtle-shaped yacht is able to stay afloat thanks to over 30,000 cells placed underneath the living space.

It has a cruising speed of five knots.

It’s not exactly what you’d call as fast as lightning, but it’s more than enough to keep it afloat and circumnavigate the globe.

Turtle-shaped floating city seen from underwater
Lazzarini Design
Turtle-shaped floating city
Lazzarini Design

A significant portion of the hull and the beam would be covered with solar panels to provide energy.

Even though this is just a prototype and a design study, Lazzarini and Saudi Arabia are taking it seriously.

They say that construction could start in 2033 and it would take about eight years to complete.

Turtle yacht solar panels
Lazzarini Design

They’ve actually launched a crowdfunding campaign allowing anyone to buy a virtual ticket for $16 or an NFT that gives you access to your own virtual apartment in the turtle yacht.

For some reason we feel that wouldn’t be enough to get to $8 billion, though.

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Experienced content creator with a strong focus on cars and watches. Alessandro penned the first-ever post on the Supercar Blondie website and covers cars, watches, yachts, real estate and crypto. Former DriveTribe writer, fixed gear bike owner, obsessed with ducks for some reason.