A person in Maui took to Reddit after spotting a large yacht off the coast of Wailea. The comment section of the post indicates the 387-foot megayacht, dubbed Liva O, belongs to Stephen Orenstein, a German-American billionaire. Orenstein reportedly purchased the yacht for $250 million, and the upkeep costs amount to $15-20 million annually.
Unsurprisingly, Redditors didn't hold back about the yacht's owner. "A fraudster billionaire profiting off of the suffering of others," one commenter quipped. "Starting to see a trend?"
"Where's a pod of vengeful orcas when you need them," another user joked.
According to local reports, the yacht visited Molokaʻi after stopping in Maui, and residents confronted the ship. "We told them that we're very concerned about who's coming to Molokaʻi, especially when they come on a $250 million boat," Walter Ritte, a native Hawaiian and Molokaʻi resident told SFGATE.
Back in 2017, a group of Molokaʻi residents and activists blocked a luxury yacht's access to the island. "We want to keep Molokaʻi Molokaʻi," Loretta Ritte, Walter's wife, said at the time, according to Hawaiʻi News Now.
This kind of luxury comes at a steep environmental cost. According to Fortune, a single superyacht can emit over 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year — more than 1,500 times the emissions of the average car. Their extreme fuel consumption, coupled with the air and water pollution they generate, makes superyachts one of the worst sources of pollution.
Yachts also contribute to a range of ecological issues, including underwater noise pollution, plastic waste, and oil spills. As yacht ownership surges to an all-time high, calls are growing louder for stricter emission standards and environmental protections to preserve fragile marine ecosystems.
As sightings of these floating mansions become more common in Hawaiʻi, so too does the public backlash. For many locals, the presence of such large ships feels not only environmentally reckless but also deeply out of touch.
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