What It Actually Costs to Charter BREAKTHROUGH in the Bahamas
Most superyachts are expensive because of what they're made of. BREAKTHROUGH is expensive partly because of what she's not made of — she is the first superyacht on earth to run on liquid hydrogen, stored on board at minus 253 degrees Celsius, with methanol fuel cells and biofuel-capable generators standing by for whatever the hydrogen can't cover. Feadship delivered her in May 2025. She now winters in the Bahamas, available to charter. Here's what that number actually is, and what's floating underneath it.
The base rate
Chartering BREAKTHROUGH starts at €3,500,000 a week, plus expenses. That works out to roughly €500,000 a day — before a single water toy leaves the garage, before a bottle is opened, before the crew has moved you from Nassau to the Exumas and back.
Where the real total comes from
The headline rate is only the starting point. The Advance Provisioning Allowance runs at 35% of the charter fee — €1,225,000 — held in a separate account to cover fuel, food, drink, dockage and the hundred small costs a week like this generates, reconciled against receipts at the end. Then there's the Bahamas' charter tax, consolidated into a single 14% fee on the Port Department's books since July 2025 — €490,000. Then crew gratuity, customarily 15% of the base fee for a charter of this standard — €525,000. Add it together and a week on BREAKTHROUGH lands at roughly €5,740,000, before you've spent a euro on land.
What that money is actually floating
At 118.8 metres, BREAKTHROUGH isn't just the world's first hydrogen-powered superyacht — she's built like a small district. There's an 8.2-metre infinity pool with a contraflow current and a movable glass floor, sitting directly above a beach club. Fourteen balconies and seven fold-out platforms give near-constant access to the water. Below the waterline, an underwater viewing lounge looks out into open ocean. Inside, the layout breaks from typical superyacht design entirely — a central atrium wraps a staircase around the elevator, built to the owner's request into something closer to a townhouse than a boat. She was reportedly built for Bill Gates before a 2025 sale to Canadian businessman Patrick Dovigi, though ownership on a yacht this size is rarely confirmed on the record by anyone involved.
Why only 12 of her 30 beds are up for charter
BREAKTHROUGH sleeps 30 across her full complement of guests and owner's party, with a crew of 44 to run her. But charter guests are capped at 12 — the same limit that applies to every charter yacht on the water, superyacht or otherwise. Under the IMO's SOLAS convention, any vessel carrying more than 12 fare-paying passengers is legally a passenger ship, triggering an entirely different — and far stricter — set of safety and construction rules. BREAKTHROUGH could technically host thirty; the rulebook says twelve of them can be paying charter guests, and no more.
None of this is arbitrary. It's the price of being one of the twelve people, on any given week, allowed aboard the only hydrogen-powered superyacht in the world — for however long €5.7 million buys.