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James Bond boats: 11 times yachts have stolen the show in a 007 movie

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MI6’s most famous fictional agent can’t seem to keep away from the water - here’s our pick of the best James Bond boats and the fascinating stories behind them…

Who can forget Roger Moore’s comedic rendition of James Bond flying the Glastron speedboat in Live and Let Die ? Or the gorgeous Sunseeker Sovereign 17 in Quantum of Solace , starring the British actor with the bluest eyes, Daniel Craig?

James Bond boats are a key feature of every film they appear in. Sleek, classy, powerful and smart, just like everybody’s favourite British secret agent, these vessels have at times stolen the show, even from 007 himself.

Read on to see some of the beautiful and at times wacky craft that have appeared in James Bond films over the past 60 years.

11 of the most iconic James Bond boats

Fairey Huntress and Fairey Huntsman in From Russia With Love (1963)

It all began with a young Sean Connery heading to Venice, accompanied by Tatiana Romanova, four spare fuel barrels and a flare gun. When the baddies track him down, 007’s explosive escape is as spectacular as it is predictable.

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The producers clearly loved Fairey so much that they couldn’t pick just one model for Bond to drive – the exterior shots show a Huntress, but the interiors are from the Huntsman model. Meanwhile, the Venice boat chase was actually shot in Scotland.

Read more about the Fairey Huntsman

Disco Volante in Thunderball (1965)

The fictional Disco Volante that appeared in 1965’s Thunderball had quite the starring role. Owned by villain Emilio Largo, the hydrofoil boat was purchased with SPECTRE funds to carry two nuclear weapons. It cost the global terrorist organisation £250,000, which equates to roughly £4.3million in today’s money.

The vessel is destroyed following a battle between Largo and Bond. With nobody at the helm, it runs aground and bursts into flames.

Bond production designer Sir Ken Adam stipulated that Disco Volante had to be 160ft long and capable of 50 knots. No such boat existed, so they created one that shed its aft accommodation section before rising onto hydrofoils to outrun pursuing navy ships.

Glaston GT-150 in Live and Let Die (1974)

Possibly the most famous Bond boat ever, this 135hp Glastron performed a spectacular leap over two cars and a baffled Louisiana sheriff in Bayou Des Allemands.

The helm position, normally offset to one side to allow a passenger, was centrally mounted, and underneath the boat were small black skids designed to keep the boat level on terra firma.

A grand total of 26 Glastron boats were used in the filming of Live and Let Die , 17 of which were wrecked. But it was worth it, with an iconic movie moment in the can and a new world record for the biggest boat jump – a staggering 120ft!

As an interesting post-script, Roger Moore, who learned to helm a boat specifically so that he could be filmed in the chase, clearly got a taste for boating and in retirement kept one close to his private villa in Cap d’Antibes.

Read more about the Glastron GT-150

Watch a yacht tour of Sir Roger Moore’s Sunseeker Tomahawk 41

Lotus Esprit S1 submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

There is a more conventional motorboat in The Spy Who Loved Me (an Intermarine 40 was used to shuttle Bond out to meet the villain at his offshore lair) but the one everyone remembers is the amphibious Lotus personal submarine.

Fitted with fins, front-mounted rocket launchers, mines, a periscope, a smoke screen and a surface-to-air missile, it cost a reported $100,000 for Eon Productions to adapt the Esprit S1 roadcar into one of Bond’s most spectacular vehicles, lovingly known as Wet Nellie .

Glastron CV23HT in Moonraker (1979)

With all the ridiculousness of its extra-terrestrial finale, it’s easy to forget that Moonraker also features a fantastic Amazon boat chase.

Roger Moore’s silver Glastron Carlson CV23HT fends off Jaws’ henchmen by deploying homing missiles, and the big man himself is foiled when Bond makes a spectacular escape over the Iguazu falls. Wings pop out of the roof, allowing Bond to fly off as the baddies speed off the edge.

This hard top model was available to buy in a super-rare limited edition of just 300, but sadly they all came with that sparkly metal flake paint job.

The 86m superyacht Nabila was later renamed Trump Princess . Photo: Jacques Soffer / AFP / Getty

Nabila in Never Say Never Again (1983)

Never Say Never Again put villain Maximillian Largo aboard The Flying Saucer once again. This time it was the turn of the Benetti superyacht Nabila , built for Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi and later sold to Donald Trump, to take centre stage.

At 86m long, this can lay claim to being the largest James Bond boat so far by quite some distance, and at the time of filming it held the honour of being the world’s largest private yacht.

Sunseeker Superhawk 34 in The World is Not Enough (1999)

In what is perhaps the most famous James Bond boat chase scene, a hair-raising race along the Thames provides a blockbuster opening to Pierce Brosnan’s second outing as 007.

Stealing Q’s retirement boat and bursting out of MI6, Bond jets through London (quite literally) and catches up with the mysterious assassin in the shadow of the Millenium Dome, after a highly implausible shortcut through the Docklands.

This time we prefer the villain’s choice of boat – a super-sleek Sunseeker Superhawk 34 that appears to be able to drive itself at times. Powerboat racer Sarah Donohue was the stunt double for Giulietta da Vinci in the scene and got the chance to show off her impressive helming skills.

Watch our yacht tour video of a restored Sunseeker Superhawk 34

Spirit 54 Soufrière in Casino Royale (2006)

The Bond reboot in 2006 coincided with the appearance of James Bond’s first proper sailing yacht.

British yard Spirit Yachts got the gig, providing the Spirit 54 Soufrière that 007 and Vesper Lynd sailed up the Grand Canal of Venice.

“Probably the most challenging voyage for Soufrière came during filming in Venice when we had to take the rig in and out ten times,” Spirit Yachts CEO and head designer Sean McMillan revealed in 2016. “She was the first sailing yacht to go up the Grand Canal for 300 years.”

Venice was just one stop on her exhaustive filming schedule though. Soufrière was shipped to the Bahamas, sailed to Puerto Rico and through the British Virgin Islands to Tortola Harbour, before being shipped to Croatia.

An honourable mention should also go to the Sunseeker Predator 108 that serves as Le Chiffre’s floating lair.

Sunseeker Sovereign 17 in Quantum of Solace (2008)

2008’s Quantum saw Bond go Sunseeker crazy, with a Sunseeker 37M Yacht, an XS2000 and a Superhawk 43 all featuring.

However, it was the vintage 1970 Sunseeker Sovereign 17 that stole the show, with Sunseeker founder Robert Braithwaite at the helm as 007 was skippered across a lake.

There’s further boating action when Bond steals a wooden fishing boat to escape the gun-toting villains giving chase in a RIB.

The spectacular chase scene that follows is courtesy of a secret stunt driver, who was hidden in the bow end of the indigenous vessel.

Pruva Regina in Skyfall (2012)

Pruva Yachting supplied the 56m sailing superyacht for Bond and Severine’s voyage to Silva’s Hashima island hideaway. Referred to as Chimera in the film, the schooner-rigged yacht was launched in Turkey the year before for 28-year-old Pruva vice-chairman Dogukan Boyaci.

For this reason all the scenes were actually shot off the coast of Bodrum, apart from Bond and Severine’s steamy shower encounter, which was done in a studio as the yacht’s shower wasn’t large enough. Pruva Regina , as the yacht was known in real life, has since been sold and renamed Aria I .

Spirit 46 in No Time To Die (2021)

Craig’s final outing as Bond saw him sail a Spirit yacht once more, this time while enjoying his retirement in Jamaica.

It was the Spirit 46 that was chosen for the big screen treatment, however, this wasn’t the only boat involved in the film, with a Royal Navy Destroyer playing a crucial role in the shocking finale.

Read an interview with Spirit Yachts CEO Sean McMillan about how the Spirit 46 was chosen for No Time To Die .

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The true story of billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, his 11-strong harem and £150,000-a-day lifestyle

He nearly brought down the US government, and his yacht was featured in a James Bond film, then later sold to Donald Trump - even as he faced bankruptcy

• 11:34, 22 Nov 2017
• Updated 12:49, 22 Nov 2017

"An extraordinary lover," is the glowing verdict of one of Adnan Khashoggi's "pleasure wives," 1980s model Jill Dodd, despite him being over twenty years older than her, and several inches shorter.

Khashoggi, who died in London aged 81 earlier this month, believed that under the law of his birthplace, Saudi Arabia, a man is allowed 11 "pleasure wives" - lovers, essentially - and three legal wives.

Jill was "a 21-year-old child" when she fell into a relationship with Khashoggi in 1980. They had met at a party in Cannes, where the young model thought that the short, balding man reminded her of friend's father.

The billionaire ended the evening by writing "I love you" in his blood on Jill's arm.

The next night, Khashoggi invited Jill for dinner on his yacht, where she was given the run of his room full of couture gowns, choosing a grey Lanvin dress for the occasion.

Married for the second time, Khashoggi kept seeing Jill platonically for months, even inviting her to his one-year-old son Ali's birthday party.

His second wife, Lamia (born Laura Biancolini in Italy, she changed her name and converted to Islam upon marriage), was unsurprisingly cold to her husband's newest possible love interest.

Khashoggi's first wife, Soraya, had been at 20, half his age when they married in 1961.

Born Sandra Daly on a Leicester council estate, she took the name Soraya when she converted to Islam to marry Khashoggi.

She gave birth to five of Khashoggi's children - including Nabila, the yacht's namesake - while another daughter, Petrina, was fathered by Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken.

After a week at Khashoggi's Marbella compound, waiting for him to arrive in the country, Jill Dodd was woken by him in the middle of the night.

He watched her strip off and take a bubble bath, then made her an extraordinary offer: to become his pleasure wife, and travel to his properties around the world with him.

Jill agreed - and joined the Khashoggi harem. He acted like a default father in some ways, such as paying for her tuition at the Los Angeles Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

Her lover's generosity really paid off for her - she would later found the Roxy surf and snowboard clothing brand in the late 1980s.

Jill Dodd's relationship with the flashy arms dealer didn't last beyond 1982, as she felt her prime position within his harem slip away. Khashoggi was turning his attention to newer, younger models.

In her memoir The Currency of Love: A Courageous Journey to Finding the Love Within , Jill, now 57, only has good things to say about Khashoggi.

"I never forfeited my independence, ambition or creative expression when I was with Adnan and have no regrets.

"I’ve learned a valuable lesson: Neither money nor love is worth the sacrifice of integrity, inner peace and authenticity."

Jill's education is a rare example of Khashoggi spending money on something that couldn't be seen, worn or docked in St Tropez.

By the mid-1980s, he had 12 homes across the world, in expensive locations like Cannes, Paris, Madrid and London.

His New York apartment was comprised of 16 flats knocked together to create a super-sized pad.

He also owned a compound in Marbella, where he hosted his wildest parties.

The billionaire had 100 limousines, three private jets and a South Korean bodyguard, named Mr Kill.

Khashoggi's famous yacht, the Nabila (named for his daughter), cost $80m and boasted a disco with laser beams that projected Khashoggi's face, 11 (that number again) guest rooms, on-board hospital, morgue with coffins and bulletproof glass.

He loaned his vessel to the makers of the 1983 James Bond Film, Never Say Never Again. The yacht became baddie Blofeld's headquarters.

Khashoggi's pampered yet insecure harem of "pleasure wives" only saw one side of his complicated, high-rolling life.

They were not given a peek at how he made the money that bought them diamond rings and Lanvin dresses on tap.

The conspicuous consumption and endless parties featuring free-flowing champagne, unlimited caviar and celebrity pals flown in private jets helped cement Khashoggi's reputation as the Gatsby of his time.

The intrigue around him kept his shady weapons deals firmly in the dark.

Adnan Khashoggi was born in the holy city of Mecca in 1935, one of the six children of the Turkish court doctor to King Ibn Saud.

He went to school in Egypt, then college in California.

Aged 21, he brokered his first major deal, selling $3 million- worth of trucks to Egypt; this netted him $150,000 commission.

Unsurprisingly, after this, Khashoggi didn't return to college.

Instead, he built his career - and incredible fortune - on the shaky back of freelance deal-making. He called it "merchantry."

A 1987 Time cover story on the billionaire featured his face, alongside the taglines 'Those Shadowy Arms Traders' and 'Adnan Khashoggi's High Life and Flashy Deals'.

He did business with the all the main arms dealers: Northrop, Lockheed, Grumman, Chrysler, Fiat, the Westland helicopter company, Rolls-Royce and Raytheon.

He set these companies up with buyers for their military wares: most often, governments.

Moving in these powerful, dangerous circles led to the scandal that cost Khashoggi his place in the global elite.

In 1987, Khashoggi was implicated in the Iran-Contra Affair, the biggest political scandal of the 1980s.

The Reagan administration sold arms to Iran in exchange for the release of Iranian hostages, and then diverted the proceeds to Nicaraguan rebels.

The international intrigue had tendrils stretching as far as Lebanon, and involved deal-making with Hezbollah.

Adnan Khashoggi was named as a key middleman in this labyrinthine plot, accused of paying bribes.

In 1988, he was arrested in Switzerland and faced charges of concealing funds.

After three months in a Swiss prison (where he ate gourmet meals brought in from a nearby restaurant in his cell), Khashoggi was extradited to the US, tried and acquitted.

Scandal continued to dog the disgraced billionaire as the 1980s came to a close.

In 1989, Khashoggi was indicted in New York for sheltering assets for Imelda Marcos, widow of Ferdinand Marcos, the 10th president of the Phillippines.

Both were eventually acquitted from charges of fraud and racketeering.

Khashoggi's government links started fading away as the 1980s moved into the 90s.

He lost his Washington contacts after Reagan left office, and when other important clients such as the Shah of Iran and the President of Sudan were ousted from power, they were no longer in the market for his services.

In a 1989 Vanity Fair profile of Adnan Khashoggi, Donald Trump told the reporter Dominick Dunne about his purchase of Khashoggi's famed yacht, the Nabila, which he renamed the Trump Princess:

"Khashoggi was a great broker and a lousy businessman,” Trump said to me that night.

“He understood the art of bringing people together and putting together a deal better than almost anyone—all the bullshitting part, of talk and entertainment—but he never knew how to invest his money.

"If he had put his commissions into a bank in Switzerland, he’d be a rich man today, but he invested it, and he made lousy choices.”

The 1990s were a decade of decline for Khashoggi, as the court cases starting lining up.

He was finally having to pay for his excessive 80s. For example, he was forced to settle a £10 million gambling debt from a 1986 visit to the London Ritz Casino - in 1998.

He spent the last years of his life between London and Monaco, reportedly living on his last $400 million.

In his final years, Khashoggi evaporated from public view, the champagne-and-caviar parties all over for him.

He was battling Parkinson's disease when he died at St Thomas' Hospital in London on 6 June 2017.

He is survived by his second wife Lamia, his third wife Shahpari, his eight children and countless "pleasure wives."

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The Legendary Nabila   Yacht

The Nabila yacht was built at Benetti's shipyards in Viareggio and delivered in 1980. Measuring 281 feet and featuring 11 suites, a cinema and helipad, she was one of the world's largest yachts at the time and without doubt the most opulent. In 1983 the Nabila played an important role in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again ; a few years later she was seized by the Sultan of Brunei and sold to Donald Trump.

She was bought by her current owner, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, in 1991. The photo below shows her berthed at Antibes, France.

Adnan Khashoggi

The Nabila was commissioned in 1978 by billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Named after Khashoggi's daughter, she was built at Benetti's shipyards in Viareggio and delivered in July 1980. Interior design was managed by Luigi Sturchio; the exterior was designed by English-Australian yacht designer Jon Bannenberg . The yacht was powered by twin Nohap Polar engines, giving her a cruising speed of 17 knots and a top speed of 20 knots.

The Nabila soon became known the world over for her sumptuous interiors, opulent suites and ostentatious luxury. The yacht spanned 5 five decks and featured every conceivable amenity. The 11 suites were paneled with chamois leather and bird's-eye maple; bathrooms were decked out in gold and onyx. Khashoggi's suite not only had its own saloon, office and sauna, it also had an elevator that went up to a private sun lounge.

The main saloon featured a waterfall, bronze bar, and grand piano gifted to Khashoggi's wife by Liberace. Other amenities included a 12-seat cinema, a disco, and a medical clinic with its own operating theatre. No one really knows how much the yacht cost to build, though some estimates give $35 million for the exterior and $50 million for the interiors.

It's a spectacle, a statement of astronomic wealth, a massive piece of equipment designed to arouse envy in those who behold it.

New York Magazine, 1988

The Nabila had a major impact on the global yachting scene and changed the industry in two significant ways. First, her flamboyant Saudi Arabian owner inspired other Middle Eastern businessmen to commission luxury yachts of their own. The trend began in the early 1980s and continues to this day. Second, her innovative design and extravagant interiors opened eyes to what could truly be achieved if money were no object.

The Nabila yacht had 11 suites, all named after precious stones or metals. The bedroom shown here is the Ruby Suite. The other photo shows part of the main saloon, with the bronze bar visible on the left.

Khashoggi and Benetti: Financial Ruin

Adnan Khashoggi often claimed to be the world's richest man and at times spent up to $250,000 a day to support his lifestyle. He started experiencing cash flow problems in the early 1980s, however, and towards the end of the decade the debt bubble burst. First to go was his private DC-8. The jet was grounded in 1986 when he defaulted on a $15 million loan. Following that, he defaulted on a $50 million loan issued by a Swiss bank and guaranteed by the Sultan of Brunei. The loan had been used to finance the construction of the Nabila .

The Sultan settled the loan himself, seized control of the Nabila and promptly put the yacht on the market. A handful of potential buyers took interest – one of whom was a New York real estate developer named Donald Trump.

The Nabila also took its toll on Benetti. The shipyard had seriously undervalued the costs of constructing the yacht and was hit hard by a series of penalty clauses added to the contract by Khashoggi's negotiators. The contract was overtly biased in Khashoggi's favor, and even allowed him to request changes during the final construction stages. Ultimately the yacht was built at a loss, and by 1985 Benetti was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

A young Italian named Paolo Vitelli stepped in. Sixteen years earlier Paolo had founded Azimut Yachts and built the company into a global brand. In a bid to rescue Benetti and take control of their Viagreggio shipyards, he invested every cent he had to bail out the ailing giant. It was a huge risk, but one that paid off. The new company became known as the Azimut Benetti Group and the rest, as they say, is history.

On the subject of history, remember Sean Connery's role in the James Bond movie, Never Say Never again ? The Nabila yacht is shown at bottom right.

The Trump Princess

The Sultan of Brunei's broker put the Nabila up for sale in 1987 with an asking price of $50 million. Donald Trump offered $15 million, the broker dropped to 32, Trump countered with 28, they settled on 30. A further million was taken off when Trump agreed not to keep the name Nabila and rename the yacht as he saw fit. Until this deal took place, the highest price paid for a secondhand yacht was $16 million.

Trump had actually had his eyes on the Nabila for quite a while. He'd been expanding his casino empire in Atlantic City and realized the Nabila could function both as a business tool and tourist attraction.

While I was building Farley Marina I was trying to get the boat because I knew she would blow everybody's mind.

Donald Trump

Trump renamed the yacht Trump Princess and spent $8.5 million having her refitted. The hull was repainted, the engines rebuilt and more than 3500 yards of chamois leather stripped out and replaced. As a finishing touch, the letter H on the helipad was swapped for a T. When done, the yacht set sail for America and cruised into New York on July 4 1988.

In April 1990 Trump opened his third gambling resort in Atlantic City, the $1 billion Taj Mahal. It was New Jersey's tallest building and the world's largest casino. But to survive it needed to take more than $1 million per day just to service its loans, and the market simply wasn't there. Trump's lenders intervened. They insisted he restructure his organization and sell the Trump Princess . Once again, Adnan Khashoggi's superyacht was up for sale.

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bought the yacht in 1991 for $19 million. One of the world's richest men, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is founder, CEO and majority stock owner of the Kingdom Holding Company, a company with global interests that include financial services, media, agriculture and real estate. After taking possession of the Trump Princess , Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal renamed the yacht Kingdom 5KR , where 5 represents his lucky number and the letters K and R are the initials of his children. Since the acquisition, Kingdom 5KR is almost permanently berthed at Antibes in the south of France, though from time to time she ventures out to nearby Cannes and Monte Carlo.

The Kingdom 5KR is shown below. The exhaust funnels have been a distinctive feature of this yacht ever since she was launched. They are angled outwards to accommodate the helicopter.

Pinnacle Marine New Zealand

Pinnacle Marine has years of practical experience dealing with luxury yachts and is supported by a network of contacts throughout the industry. If you would like more information about the Azimut Benetti Group, or anything else connected with luxury yachts, please get in touch.

Buettner, Russ; Bagli, Charles V. (2016), How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions , New York Times

Kessler, Ronald (1986), The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Adnan Khashoggi , Hachette Book Group , ISBN: 978-1-5387-6254-7

Rempel, William C. (1987), Latest Financial Setback for Billionaire Saudi Arms Dealer: Sultan of Brunei Seizes Khashoggi Yacht , LA Times

Taylor, John (1988), Trump's Newest Toy , New York Magazine , 20-26, ISSN: 0028-7369

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The incredible story of the world’s richest arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi

Just how did the world’s richest man lose his fortune.

Words: Gentleman's Journal

Adnan Khashoggi was the charismatic arms fixer clients, classmates and even the US government could rely on. But unlike his rivals, his deals were brokered not in backstreet dens but at parties drowning in Champagne, caviar and Hollywood A-listers. So just how did the world’s richest man lose his fortune?

I first heard of Adnan Khashoggi at a gathering in a golf club outside Marbella. The guests were the owners of mansions dotting the hills on the outskirts of town. If you looked down the valley past the fairways and greens, you could see the tax haven of Gibraltar just out to sea. I was chatting to a London hedge fund manager who, realising I didn’t work in finance, changed the topic to the club’s previous owner.

‘You know all of this used to belong to Khashoggi?’ he said. ‘This whole estate used to be his private hunting ground. This was his lodge.’ I’d wondered what relation the taxidermy and animal skulls plastered on the walls bore to golf, but I had no idea who the man was. Having seen the size of the estate spread across the face of two mountains, I was intrigued to find out.

One of Khashaggi’s many homes

Today, he is something of a forgotten legend, but in the Eighties he was at the very centre of the international jet set. Although never convicted of any crime, he made his $4bn fortune from brokering deals between arms manufacturers, governments and private clients. He was considered the richest man in the world and became famous for his life of extravagance and excess.

The media labelled him the era’s most prolific weapon dealer before he was implicated in a scandal that destroyed his business and almost brought down the US government in the process.

The hedge fund manager was surprised I’d never heard of him and told me that Khashoggi’s sister was Dodi Al Fayed’s mother, thinking it’d give some idea of who he was talking about. ‘The Spanish government seized the estate from him and sold it on, but the basement is completely untouched since he lived here. It’s like a time warp. The parties he had down there were legendary.’

Khashoggi on the cover of The Washington Post in 1984

It was enough to spark my curiosity and over the course of the last few years I have spoken to people who knew him or have watched his movements with intense interest. And, I eventually found my way into that forgotten basement.

Some months after the meeting at the golf club I spoke to Ronald Kessler, Khashoggi’s biographer. He attended some of the soirées at the lodge when Khashoggi was at the height of his fame. His 50th birthday saw the party to end them all.

‘One of his brothers gave him a lion cub,’ he says. ‘Shirley Bassey belted out, “Happy birthday dear Adnan.”’ There were Hollywood stars, including Brooke Shields and Sean Connery. Several refrigerator trucks were parked outside solely to cool the champagne. ‘The birthday cake was a work of art – literally,’ Kessler continues. ‘On top was a gold crown measuring 3ft across and made of sugar. Khashoggi’s chief chef had flown to the Louvre to study Louis XIV’s coronation crown, then returned with his plan for the cake.’ Balloons were dropped from the ceiling adorned with the slogan ‘World’s Greatest’. ‘Anyone who was there knew they’d reached the pinnacle of high society.’

Although it may all sound like a trumped-up Ferrero Rocher advert, in the rarefied world of the Eighties, business magnate reputation was everything. If you needed an arms deal funded or a shopping mall built, a healthy bottom line or triple-A credit rating were by the by. Far better to throw a $6m birthday party and sweep your creditors away to Marbella on one of your three private jets. Risky deals were made and dubious loans granted over little more than a hunch and an expensive dinner. No one knew this better than Adnan Khashoggi.

With his second wife, Lamia, in Monaco in 2006

According to folklore, the young Khashoggi brokered his first business deal when still at high school. He arranged a meeting between the fathers of two classmates, one a hotel manager, the other an oil magnate, charging $1,000 for the privilege. A few years later he quit university in the US and used the money his father gave him for his studies to broker a deal between US and Saudi logistics companies and received $50,000 in commission. With this he formed his company Triad Holdings, which he used for legitimate business interests throughout his career. It was the front companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein he used for the other deals.

Kessler told me that, like all great networkers, he genuinely liked people and people genuinely liked him. Many years ago Donald Trump said, ‘Khashoggi understood the art of bringing people together and putting together a deal better than almost anyone – all the bullshitting part, of talk and entertainment.’

Trump, like so many business tycoons of the era, seemed to have inherited some of Khashoggi’s panache for making deals and some of his taste for garish decadence. He also inherited his multi-million dollar superyacht, Nabila. Trump bought it from the Sultan of Brunei who seized it from Khashoggi when he defaulted on a loan for which the boat was security.

The Nabila, named after Khashoggi’s daughter, was the jewel in the crown of his billionaire lifestyle. At a total cost of around $80m, it had a 12-seat movie theatre, two saunas, a swimming pool, a discothèque, a jacuzzi, a billiard room and 11 guest rooms all clad in white chamois leather and spread over five decks. The master suite had four rooms and a bathroom with a solid gold sink. The glass was bulletproof, but the ship also had an on-board ‘hospital’ with the slightly macabre addition of a morgue, if all else failed. In the Bond film Never Say Never Again , the ship was used as the nerve centre for an international criminal mastermind.

By the mid-Eighties, Khashoggi’s property empire included 12 homes spread across the world: Cannes, Paris, Madrid, London, and, of course, Marbella. In New York he bought 16 flats and knocked them together into one vast apartment. He owned 100 limousines, three private jets and boasted a South Korean bodyguard trained in martial arts. He also featured on the cover of Time magazine and TV shows such as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous , which typified the image of the Eighties tycoon.

The show was hosted by Robin Leach, who joined Khashoggi at his homes, on his private jets and his superyachts. ‘He was the Gatsby of his time,’ he says. ‘At his parties it was unlimited champagne, unlimited caviar, fancy dresses, beautiful jewels and a slew of Hollywood celebrities flown in on private jets.’

Inside Khashoggi’s private jet

As Mr Leach had met so many of the Eighties wealthiest, I asked him what set Khashoggi apart? ‘The ability to fly to any continent at a minute’s notice, the houses in all the swanky places including his Mount Kenya Safari Club estate, the New York apartment – all fabulously decorated. No expense spared.’

His comments on Khashoggi’s character sounded very familiar. ‘Warm, friendly, sociable, a winning smile that could charm anybody, even his detractors. The time spent in his company was always fun and enjoyable except once when his bodyguards wanted me to throw a game of table tennis so he won. You would never have guessed he was involved in arms deals.’

The fact that Khashoggi worked so hard to cultivate a lifestyle of extravagance might suggest he grew up in the orbit of exceptional wealth, but he didn’t. He was from a relatively modest, middle-class family. His father was a physician, distinguished by the fact he was family doctor to King Abdulaziz of the House of Saud. Abdulaziz was the ruler who unified Arabia before he oversaw the discovery of petroleum and its mass export to the west.

‘Carnegie began manufacturing steel when there was a great need for it for railroads,’ Kessler suggests. ‘One could argue that Khashoggi fell into a similarly fortunate situation.’ He came along at just the same time as Saudi Arabia’s billions of petrodollars and was canny enough to identify it along with their need for arms. All that was left was to bring together the American arms manufacturers and his childhood connections. He put two and two together and made billions over the course of the Sixties and Seventies.

Not that Khashoggi himself saw what he did as arms dealing. When an interviewer, perplexed at how it could be called anything but, asked what it was he was up to Khashoggi replied simply, ‘Marketing’.

Khasshoggi on the cover in 1987

Indeed, the director of Lockheed Martin described Khashoggi as a one-man marketing department, and the company rewarded him in kind with over $100m in the time he worked with them. The main customer was the Saudi government, but he helped smaller clients too. He reportedly provided David Stirling, who founded the modern SAS, with arms for a covert operation in Yemen in 1963 and countless others we may never know about.

While Khashoggi’s public image and business interests entered the stratosphere, his personal life started to become rather more tumultuous. His first marriage in 1961 was to English socialite Sandra Daly, who was half his age, double his height and grew up on a Leicester council estate. She subsequently converted to Islam and took the name Soraya before she became pregnant with Khashoggi’s children. It later transpired the Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken had fathered at least one of them.

‘Khashoggi was 5ft 4in tall and weighed about 200lbs, but he somehow seemed robust more than flabby,’ Kessler told me. ‘He had a deep gaze with a charming mystery to it.’ His diminutive figure didn’t appear to be an issue when it came to women.

Khashoggi was no stranger to infidelities himself. In 2006 he gave an interview freely admitting his penchant for prostitutes and claimed he’d hired Heather Mills, Paul McCartney’s ex-wife, as a call girl for one of his parties at the Marbella hunting lodge. Despite this, when I asked Kessler if he knew what happened at the basement parties I’d been told about he declined to comment.

Khashoggi’s supernova lifestyle reached fever pitch in the mid-Eighties. Some estimates suggest he was spending around $300,000 a day when the scandal that would bring about his downfall began to emerge. The Iran Contra Affair involved a secret sale of weapons by the US government to Iran when it was supposed to be under an arms embargo. The Reagan administration initiated the sale as part of a complex deal that led Iran to release US hostages and fund the Contra rebellion in Nicaragua on behalf of the US. When the scandal hit in 1987, Reagan made a grovelling public apology for misleading the American public (‘There’s nothing I can say that will make the situation right,’ he explained) amid calls for his impeachment and pressure from Congress. And who was it that brokered the arms deal? One Adnan Khashoggi.

In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland accused of concealing funds. He was swiftly extradited to the US on charges of racketeering and fraud, but later cleared by a Federal jury. The damage to his reputation was done though and the court cases came thick and fast after that. He began defaulting on debts and in the early Nineties his empire and obscene lifestyle quickly unravelled. (In 1998, for example, he settled one £10m gambling bill racked up during a three-month spree in 1986 at the Ritz Casino in London.)

Khashoggi with his second wife, Lamia

Now 80, Adnan Khashoggi is still with us. Word has it he ekes out a modest life in Monaco with just $400m to his name. He was implicated in a money laundering scam in 2011 and was allegedly consulted by the US government on the 2003 Iraq invasion, but his profile has all but evaporated. Those who played a role in his life – ex-house maids, ex-wives, those looking to recoup money – tell their stories in the news far more often than Khashoggi himself.

The long line of tales of court cases and companies trying to recoup money remain. One creditor tried to recoup an 11-year-old debt, plus interest, through the Saudi courts, but lost because interest is banned under Sharia. It seems Khashoggi may have retained some of his luck at least.

Years after the night at the golf club, the idea of the untouched basement, the time capsule of Khashoggi’s fame, still hadn’t left me. I got in touch with the owners of the estate in Marbella, who agreed to show me around.

I was led down a staircase that spiralled deep into a hall of mirrors. Ahead was a stage and a dance floor surrounded by velvet sofas, and I was filled with a sense of awe and ghoulishness as I began to realise just how untouched the place really was. The DJ booth, for instance, still had his record collection strewn across the shelves and turntables, while small rooms, into which guests could disappear to find privacy, gathered layers of dust. Past the wine cellar and old hunting trophies was a firing range where human shaped targets still hung at the far end.

But, there my exploration was forced to an abrupt halt by a padded door, shut tight with a huge lever. My hosts told me they had no idea what was back there, no one had ever opened it. Beyond the basement’s veneer of decadence, sociability and nods to great violence was something unknowable, something perhaps only Khashoggi had ever really known. Much of the mystery of Adnan Khashoggi remains, perhaps never to be explained.

This article was written by Henry Wilkins for our March/April issue. Subscribe to the magazine here.

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A Look at the Football Field-Sized Yacht Donald Trump Called His "Princess"

It supposedly had 210 telephones.

While Donald Trump once owned the third-largest yacht in the world, the current president believed the 281-foot Trump Princess wasn't quite big enough. In 1993, he toyed with creating a record-breaking private pleasure vessel, and even paid some $170,000 for its design, Fortune reports.

While the 420-foot behemoth never launched, Trump 's first big boat still offers a peek at his love for luxury. Here's the story behind his former floating palace.

When Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi commissioned the ship almost 40 years ago, it came with a $100 million price tag — equivalent to almost $300 million today. He named the boat  after his daughter Nabila, but you might recognize the prow under yet another name. James Bond villain Maximillian Largo operated it as the Flying Saucer  in the 1983 movie Never Say Never Again . 

Faced with financial struggles, Khashoggi lost his boat to the Sultan of Brunei as collateral for unpaid loans. Donald Trump then took it off the Sultan's hands in 1987 for a reported $29 million, although he supposedly received a $1 million discount for renaming the ship. 

After spending another $10 million in renovations, Donald and Ivana Trump welcomed New York press aboard the refurbished Trump Princess in 1988. 

The revamped boat could host 22 guests and another 52 crew members , rivaling even mansions of the stationary variety. 

With a pool, movie theater, disco, three elevators, two dining rooms,  11 staterooms and a  reported 210 telephones , the ship didn't skimp on anything — especially the gold-plated fittings.  Trump even replaced the helipad's H with a T.

Trump used the entertaining headquarters to host high rollers from his Atlantic City casinos, the  Los Angeles Times reports. The Miss America Pageant contestants also earned invitations. 

Only a few years after acquiring the yacht, the real estate recession forced Trump to give up on his seafaring lifestyle. He sold the boat to Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal for $20 million, according to the Washington Post . 

With more money in his pockets, Trump (now dating Marla Maples ) commissioned a larger sequel in 1993. "I am interested in building a 420[-foot] yacht which, when completed, will not only be the largest yacht in the world, but at the same time, the most beautiful," Trump reportedly wrote to Spanish ship builders. Pesky financing issues sprung up again though, and boat never came to be.  

The original Trump Princess  still belongs to Al-Waleed bin Tala l, but it now  goes by name  Kingdom 5KR . Previously one of the largest yachts afloat, the ship now pales in comparison to the 500-foot giants currently commissioned by billionaires. 

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See What’s Inside Donald Trump’s Former Superyacht

When Donald J. Trump bought a 282-foot superyacht from Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi in the late 1980s, it was among the largest in the world. Outfitted in marble and gold (and a master bedroom ceiling made of endangered tortoise shell), and equipped with such amenities as a helipad, a disco, and a movie theater, the Trump Princess seemed the perfect vessel for a man with a penchant for glitz. In fact, one of Trump’s first requests was to change the H on the helipad to a T.

The Trump Princess, which includes 11 cabins for 22 guests and 31 crew members, wasn’t in the real-estate tycoon’s possession for very long. By 1991, Trump was forced to sell his beloved boat. The buyer was Saudi Prince Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who renamed the vessel the Kingdom 5KR, after his lucky number and his two children's first initials.

The yacht, which can hit a top speed of 20 knots and a cruising speed of 17.5 knots, was built in Benetti Shipyards in Viareggio, Italy, and designed by renowned craftsman Jon Bannenberg. It was once featured in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983), starring Sean Connery.

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Arms, harems and a Trump-owned yacht: How a Khashoggi family member helped mold the U.S.-Saudi relationship

In the mid-1980s, Jill Dodd was a 20-year-old model working in Paris when she got an unexpected offer from her agent: She was invited to a gala pirate-themed party on the beach in Monte Carlo being thrown by the billionaire Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

Dodd had no idea who Khashoggi was or why she was invited. But, she says, being “naive and gullible,” she jumped at the chance and soon found herself on the beach dancing with the short, pudgy Saudi mogul. He ended up writing “I love you” in blood on her arm, she says.

It was the start of a wild 18-month relationship during which Dodd agreed to serve as Khashoggi’s “pleasure wife." She partied it up on his legendary yacht, the Nabila, and flew around the world on his private jet, having sex, doing cocaine, sitting by his side at high-stakes gambling binges in Las Vegas.

Today, Dodd — having gone on to have a successful career in the fashion business — looks back on her time globe-trotting with Khashoggi with no small degree of horror. “I really realized I was part of a harem,” she says. “It took a long time to come to the realization and be able to accept the fact that I had been sold without my knowledge. So I was sold like a prostitute would be sold.”

The flamboyant life and checkered legacy of Adnan Khashoggi are the subject of Episode 2 in the new season of the Yahoo News podcast "Conspiracyland : The Secret Lives and Brutal Death of Jamal Khashoggi."

Adnan Khashoggi, who died in 2017, was Jamal Khashoggi’s cousin; their grandfathers were brothers in the holy city of Medina. Jamal Khashoggi knew his older cousin from family gatherings over the years and showed up for his burial in Medina four years ago, even while expressing nothing but disdain for his grotesque sybaritic lifestyle.

And yet, as "Conspiracyland" shows, Adnan Khashoggi played a crucial role in the evolution of the U.S.-Saudi alliance. Over the course of two decades, between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, he brokered billions of dollars in arms sales from U.S. defense contractors to the Saudi military — deals that became the heart of a core arms-for-oil bargain that has sustained Washington’s relationship with Riyadh ever since.

Adnan Khashoggi “pioneered this relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia,” says Ron Kessler, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Post, who wrote a biography of the arms dealer called “The World’s Richest Man.”

“Khashoggi was the emissary of the king,” Kessler says in "Conspiracyland." “And so he would kick back some of the commissions from the American companies directly to the king, as well as to the Saudi defense minister and princes. And everyone was happy. The king was happy, he got his money, Khashoggi got his cut. … The spectacular wealth, the display, the parties, all attracted business. And it was like bees around honey. It was really an incredible episode in history.”

The fear of disrupting that arms-for-oil money flow was ultimately a major factor in persuading the Trump White House not to impose any price on the Saudis for the gruesome murder of Adnan’s cousin Jamal, who at the time of his death was a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post.

Trump himself made that painfully clear when he cited giant Saudi arms purchases as his chief reason for not imposing any sanctions on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even after the CIA concluded he had authorized the operation that killed the journalist inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018.

“If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it will be a terrible mistake,” Trump said at the time. “They're buying hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of things from this country. If I say 'We don’t want to take your business,' if I say 'We're going to cut it off,' they will get their equipment, military equipment, from Russia and China. I’m not going to tell a country spending hundreds of billions of dollars — and helping me out do one thing very importantly, keep oil prices down so they're not going to 100, 150 dollars a barrel — I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.”

As with much else with Trump, such positions were taken against the backdrop of business deals between him and various Saudi moguls that began with Adnan Khashoggi. In 1991, Trump — envious of the Saudi mogul’s lifestyle — arranged to buy his yacht, the Nabila, for $29 million, touting it on the David Letterman show as “probably the greatest yacht ever built. It's really been kind of a great investment.” (Trump renamed it the Princess, apparently after his daughter Ivanka.)

But not that great an investment. Three years later, when Trump was facing bankruptcy over his floundering Atlantic City casinos, he was bailed out by yet another Saudi mogul — Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — who bought the yacht from him for $20 million. Although he may have taken a bath on the boat, the sale was the start of a gushing Saudi spigot to the Trump Organization that continued for years.

Wealthy Saudis pumped millions into his company coffers, buying up apartments in Trump buildings, at least as much as, if not more than, Russian oligarchs did. In 2001, three months before the 9/11 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, the Saudi government plunked down $4.5 million to purchase the entire 45th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan, eventually turning it into the offices of the country’s United Nations mission.

"Saudi Arabia, and I get along great with all of them, they buy apartments from me, they spend $40 million, $50 million,” Trump declared at a 2015 campaign rally in Mobile, Ala. “They spend so much money. Am I going to dislike them? I love them.”

It was an affection that continued right into his presidency, when Trump made placating the Saudis a centerpiece of his Middle East strategy — and ultimately persuaded him to impose no price on the country’s leaders for the state-sponsored assassination of Adnan Khashoggi’s cousin Jamal.

Next on "Conspiracyland": Episode 3, "Jamal and Osama"

Adnan’s younger cousin Jamal pursues a very different path that leads him to the caves of Afghanistan, where, as a young reporter for the Arab News, he champions the fight against the Soviet occupation being waged by a fellow Muslim Brother who was then his good friend: Osama bin Laden. It is the start of a long and complicated relationship between Khashoggi and bin Laden that years later leads to a fateful series of meetings in Khartoum, Sudan, in which the Saudi journalist is recruited to try and persuade the terrorist leader to return to the kingdom.

In case you missed it:

Episode 1 — Exclusive: Saudi assassins picked up illicit drugs in Cairo to kill Khashoggi

Cover thumbnail photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images, Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Read more from Yahoo News:

Exclusive: Saudi assassins picked up illicit drugs in Cairo to kill Khashoggi

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Donald Trump’s old James Bond superyacht in Palma

Small armada of the world’s most expensive private vessels gathering in mallorca, bill gates’s superyacht is in mallorca and up for sale, facebook boss likes his toys in mallorca, from superyachts to helicopters, british yacht which was once home-from-home for british royalty in mallorca.

Kingdom 5-KR in Palma has has some interesting owners. | Julian Aguirre

The superyachts are flooding into Mallorca with a small armada of some of the largest and most expensive private vessels gathering in Mallorca. The latest superyacht to have docked in Palma is Kingdom 5-KR which was commissioned by Adnan Kashogi who named her Nabila after his daughter.

The former President of the United States Donald Trump then bought the yacht from the Sultan of Brunei in 1988 for close to 30 million dollars and transformed her into Trump Princess . 85.9-metre (282foot) Benetti superyacht is considered to be a “piece of art”, one of the reasons, apart from the price, that Trump apparently bought her. Interestingly, he has never owned a private yacht since.

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Even Mark Zuckerberg prefers Instagram over Facebook in Mallorca!

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Benetti shipyards originally delivered the then-named Nabila to Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi back 1980. In 1983, the superyacht appeared in the James Bond movie, Never Say Never Again . The Trump Princess was then sold on to a Saudi Prince. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and he still owns the now-named Kingdom 5KR. It was rumoured at the time that the boat was being repossessed due to Trump’s business failures, but Trump called the claims “completely false”.

The other new megayacht in Mallorca is the 100-metre I Dinasty, owned by the late Kazakh businessman Alijan Ibragimov, who died in 2021, and which is valued at more than 200 million dollars. Ibragimov was a member of a well-known circle of oligarchs in Kazakhstan known as the "Trio." The Trio consisted of Ibragimov. Alexander Mashkevich and Patokh Chodiev, all active in the mining, oil and gas, and banking sectors in Kazakhstan. At the time of his death, Ibragimov had dropped off Forbes’ list of world billionaires .

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“Completely false” is 98% of what comes out of Trump’s mouth. The other 2% is spittle, no doubt.

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Adnan Khashoggi, once king of the Marbella jet set, has died in London

The former billionaire had suffered a stroke.

Héctor Barbotta

Friday, 9 June 2017, 15:50

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In the 1980s Adnan Khashoggi was considered the king of the Marbella jet set and the lavish parties he threw at his residence in Benahavís and on board his megayacht Nabila were legendary, but his departure from the town bore none of the glamour of those golden years.

The enormous 900-hectare estate on which he had built his home was embargoed by three banks; it was eventually acquired by a group of Spanish, Swiss, German and American investors and is now the prestigious La Zagaleta residential development, which is considered the most luxurious in Europe.

His yacht did not fare much better. It too was eventually sold and, after being used in the James Bond film Never Say Never, was bought by Donald Trump.

Khashoggi was born in Mecca in 1935 and became a billionaire at an early age after seeing an opportunity as an arms dealer in the conflicts in the Middle East.

Thanks to his contacts, he was able to act as an intermediary between weapons manufacturers in the west and governments in the region, but his downfall came when he was jailed for money laundering. He retired to Riyadh, but spent time in different European cities until last year, when he suffered a stroke. He died in London on Tuesday.

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The Richest Man in the World

The Story of Adnan Khashoggi

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By Ronald Kessler

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• Thunderball (film) Vehicles
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Flying Saucer

The Flying Saucer was a fictional luxury Superyacht owned by SPECTRE operative Maximillian Largo . The vessel was featured in the unofficial 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again and was based on the Disco Volante (from Italian meaning "Flying Saucer") hydrofoil from Ian Fleming 's 1962 novel Thunderball and its 1965 official film adaptation of the same name .

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• 6 References

Appearance [ ]

The Flying Saucer is a fictional luxury Superyacht owned by millionaire philanthropist and SPECTRE operative Maximillian Largo . The vessel is utilized as his mobile headquarters during the organization's scheme to steal two cruise missiles and their nuclear warheads; intending to extort billions of dollars from NATO governments. During the course of the operation, the Flying Saucer is first active in the Bahamas , before mooring in Nice , France . It is there that intelligence operatives James Bond and Felix Leiter attempt to board the motor yacht in search of the missing warheads. Treated as Largo's guest, Bond finds the millionaire's mistress, Domino and attempts to make Largo jealous by kissing her in front of a two way mirror. Largo becomes enraged, traps Bond and takes him and Domino to Palmyra , his base of operations in North Africa. He subsequently collects the second warhead from Palmyra and sets sail for the Ethiopian Coast, where he utilizes the vessel's underwater hatch to covertly deploy scuba divers from the ship - transporting the bomb to the Tears of Allah , a fragile location below a desert oasis.

Gadgets [ ]

Behind the scenes [ ]

The Kingdom 5KR.

For Never Say Never Again , the unofficial film adaptation of the novel Thunderball and its source material, the villains' hydrofoil yacht was re-imagined as a luxury superyacht and was renamed The Flying Saucer (the English translation of the Italian name Disco Volante used in the source novel). The 282-foot yacht that was used in long shots for the film was known as the Nabila and was built for Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi . The yacht was later sold to Donald Trump , who renamed it Trump Princess . The boat, now owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal , has subsequently been renamed the Kingdom 5KR . [2] These days Kingdom 5KR can usually be found in Antibes, France or cruising the French Riviera during the summer months.

Gallery [ ]

See also [ ]

• Disco Volante

References [ ]

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kingdom 5KR , Monaco Eye
• ↑ Salmans, Sandra. " Lavish Lifestyle of a Wheeler-Dealer ", 22 February 1985. Retrieved on 6 September 2011.  
• 1 Mr. White
• 2 James Bond (Daniel Craig)
• 3 List of Firearms

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