Home > News > Bored Yachts Club: An NFT collection with real life yachting utility
NFTs and Web3 are slowly but surely encroaching into the world of yachting. Cryptocurrencies have been pretty much accepted across the board, with even the most steeped-in-tradition brokerage houses facilitating wallet-to-wallet payments. But NFTs have been a little slower to take off – and it’s likely to do with utility.
Jad Comair, Founder and CEO of Melanion Capital and owner of the motor yacht Lady Amanda, in collaboration with a team of Web3 experts, is about to launch an all-new NFT collection that is looking to change this. The Bored Yachts Club collection will give its users access to yachting experiences and events.
Drawing inspiration from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem, which combines Web3 and real-life utility, Comair plans to replicate the model but in the context of yachting. Simply, he’s looking to create a global decentralised yacht club that provides access to yachting for those that might not otherwise have the opportunity. 
“I have no doubt that NFTs and Web3 are the future, and I wanted to find a way to incorporate this into my yacht charter business. This was the genesis of the idea, really. Yachting is the ultimate luxurious experience, and by building an ecosystem where instead of paying for the experience in monetary terms you can incentivise users, in a similar way to how air miles work, to trade and earn coins for time on board,” Comair explained.
This initially translates to time onboard Lady Amanda, but as the ecosystem expands Comair anticipates a large number of yacht owners getting involved. “We’re not only building an NFT collection, we’re building a community – and we want as many people involved as possible. There are many privately owned yachts that are available to charter but struggle to find charterers.
If you visit any marina you will always see lines of yachts moored, waiting for their next excursion with an owner or charterer. We can tap into this and bring these owners into the folds of the ecosystem.”
There will be a coin-based system within the Bored Yachts Club collection that will preserve and facilitate growth for the ecosystem (I’ll explain later), and will be the basis in which to incentivise yacht owners to join the community and get them “bored”. 
“The coins raised and earned through the buying and exchanging of NFTs will be payment for time onboard the yachts,” Comair explained. “These coins can be spent, donated to the YachtCoin foundation, or to any other foundation of the yacht owner’s choosing.
The majority of owner’s already donate to foundations and charities, and this is an opportunity for them to swap time onboard for their donations – meaning they can support their organisations through chartering their yachts and not through monetary donations.”
For those savvy with the BAYC ecosystem this may all make sense, but for those unfamiliar I’ll explain. The Bored Ape Yacht Club is an exclusive member’s only group of art collectors – the art being digital JPEGs of apes, which you may or may not have seen as social media profile photos.
Firstly, BAYC has created great prestige and its well-known that amongst its members are a number of which are A-list celebrities. What’s unique about the art collection though is that they have royalties attached, so that every time one is sold or exchanged the designers receive commission. Basically, BAYC has created a loop system where its clients (users) generate revenue for the artists and foundation of the group, while simultaneously self-promoting the brand.
The rewards are exclusive access to events through what’s called “drop outs” – free gifts and invitations organised by its members.
Read: Superyacht NFTs: Making the “exclusive more inclusive” with Oceanco
BAYC has been so successful that it’s just received around $500,000,000 from venture capitalists to develop a metaverse that replicates the cult classic novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and film of the same name. To put this into perspective, leading games such as Fortnight are estimated to cost around $100-150,000,000 to produce. BAYC’s metaverse smashes that record. 
Read: From blockchain to in-build: Tactical 110, the first NFT yacht sale on ETH blockchain
Comair is not pushing to create a metaverse – not yet, anyway! – but he is replicating the essence of what BAYC has created. It’s the ecosystem, and its disruptive attitude that we’ll see in yachting. Comair will replace this loop system model as a coin-based system where users can earn and spend coins to use as time onboard yachts.
As the Founder and CEO of Melanion Capital, an asset management company that specialises in digital assets, and issuer of the first Bitcoin thematic ETF in Europe, Comair is well-versed in Web3 and the world of crypto and NFTs. He’s also the owner of the John Blackeye NFT, making him a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Interestingly, it’s John Blackeye who’s the legal custodian of the 29.68-metre motor yacht Lady Amanda – making her the world’s first “tokenised” yacht. It therefore offers a unique premier spot for Web3 networking. 
Read: Superyacht brokerage & bitcoin: Is the trend here to stay?
Lady Amanda, the first yacht available for charter through the scheme, is one of the most popular charter yachts in the Mediterranean. She has a brimming toybox, which includes an inflatable slide – unusual for a 30-metre motor yacht. With four staterooms, she can accommodate as many as ten guests.
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