Super Yachts, Jets, and the $35 Mower Fuel Problem

Super Yachts, Jets, and the $35 Mower Fuel Problem

I was watching The Woman in Cabin 10. Not a bad film. But halfway through, my mind drifted to the billionaires wining and dining their invited guests on a seven‑hundred‑million‑dollar superyacht. There they were, plodding through the ocean on a grey, overcast day with a crew of thirty, being fed three‑hundred‑dollar salads they did not want because they were watching their weight in case the paparazzi were hiding behind a cloud. Meanwhile, the yacht’s engines were burning ten thousand dollars an hour to feed their diesel addiction.

Money without movement becomes a kind of padded cell. If you want to lie near cold water under a grey sky, go to a Tasmanian beach in winter. At least the cold means something. At least the wind has personality. At least the ocean is alive, not a backdrop for someone’s Instagram misery. Superyachts are the perfect metaphor for people who have everything except a reason to be anywhere. A Tasmanian winter beach has more soul than a superyacht with a helipad, because one is real and the other is a very expensive way to avoid yourself.

And because I suffer from a chronic case of mind drift, my memory jumped back twenty years. I was in Del Mar, a beach suburb of San Diego, and I had just landed a meeting with a billionaire, Ron Taylor. The man who founded Pyxis, those medication cabinets with the touch screens you see in every hospital drama where George Clooney is saving someone with perfect hair.

To Ron’s credit, he had Googled, possibly even Netscaped, me to find out more about this Tasmanian who kept pestering him about participating in a Series B round for a fledgling technology company called Biovend. Ron had worked out that I was a farm‑dwelling Tasmanian who commuted to Melbourne every week, and he asked, with total sincerity, whether I had my own jet. I delivered one of the great dry lines of my life: I am about sixty million short on the jet, Ron. It was meant as a joke, but in truth it was a hard‑truth diagnosis. Ron did not laugh. Instead, he launched into a monologue about crew costs, fuel burn, maintenance, hangar fees, and the existential burden of owning a flying money shredder.

Meanwhile, just the day before, I was wandering around San Diego wondering whether my alcoholic mower guy back home had enough fuel in the twenty‑litre drum, about thirty‑five dollars to fill, so my lawns would be mowed when I got back. Because nothing ruins a driveway arrival like unmowed grass. Ron is worried about the cost of keeping a Gulfstream in the air. I am worried about the cost of keeping a Husqvarna ride‑on lawnmower on the ground. Ron’s world burns ten thousand dollars of Jet A‑1 an hour. My world burns thirty‑five dollars of lowest‑grade ninety‑one octane a fortnight. Ron’s anxiety is whether the pilot is rested enough for a four‑hour repositioning flight. Mine is whether the mower guy is sober enough to get himself over to the farm without getting busted again on a DUI, because then he will be having a non‑expense holiday at Her Majesty’s pleasure and my lawns will remain defiantly unmowed.

Ron’s jet is just a superyacht with wings, a very expensive way to avoid being still. My mower guy, on the other hand, is a man with a mission, to keep the grass down so I do not feel my blood pressure rise when I turn into the driveway.

Founder of the Hadspen Foundation, Jason is committed to building frameworks for spiritual recovery that are both repeatable and personal. His writing is guided by discernment, narrative cadence, and the belief that doctrine should support—not overshadow—the human story.