He withstood the terrible German bombings of 1940, he may not resist the power of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. The Koningshavenbrug (“King’s Harbor Bridge”), better known as “De Hef” – short for hefbrug“lift bridge” – by all the inhabitants of Rotterdam, will perhaps be partly dismantled to let Y721the gigantic yacht ordered by the American billionaire from the Oceanco shipyards in Alblasserdam, in the south of the Netherlands.
With its central structure of 46.5 meters high De Hef, classified as a national monument, is an obstacle on the sea route of the 127-meter-long boat, equipped with three gigantic masts. Y721 is, indeed, a huge sailboat – which should, however, have backup diesel engines.
Asked Wednesday, February 2, a spokesman for the town hall of the large port city confirmed the information from a regional television: yes, the old railway bridge, which found its current form in 1927, will be dismantled next summer . Even if it means going back on a promise made to the inhabitants, very attached to this symbol of their city: no question of touching De Hef one day, they were told in 2017, after a renovation operation.
Embarrassing affair for the town hall
Also of great symbolic significance, the announcement quickly went around the world and, on Thursday 3 February, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the social-democratic mayor of Rotterdam corrected the situation: he indicated on a daily basis AD that he had not yet received any official request and that he intended to weigh the pros and cons. “The economic interest, with the key to the image of our region at sea, and the technical aspect: can we avoid damage? We also want to know if the costs will be borne by the buyer. » It would be a question, in fact, of quickly rebuilding the structure of the bridge after the passage of the superyacht.
A priori, this last question should not worry Mr. Bezos, whose fortune was estimated at 211 billion dollars (184.3 billion euros) in July 2021. He only distracted a meager part of this jackpot (430 million euros) for the order of his boat, with a small supplement for a support vessel of 75 meters, ordered from another Dutch shipyard.
For the town hall on the left, the affair is embarrassing a few weeks before the local elections which will take place in mid-March. If it was preparing to celebrate the talent of its builders – even if the Oceanco shipyards are owned by a billionaire from Oman – it will now want to make people forget the megalomania of a project which will have required four years of work, whim of a ultra-rich who, after having wanted to supplant his rivals in the field of space tourism, also intends to incarnate himself as king of the sea. Y721 also aims to supplant Venusthe mythical yacht of Steve Jobs, designed by Philippe Starck, and launched in the Netherlands in 2012, a year after the death of the co-founder of Apple.