By: Scott Way
The 66 metre (216 foot) Hodor is not a standalone yacht. The fact that it's a support ship at 216 feet long is crazy enough, but it's her purpose that's even crazier.
The Hodor isn't meant for accommodating extra guests, or even to serve as a tender for shuttling its owners to the mainland. It is, strictly speaking, a toy chest. Let's hold the door open on her main deck and take a peak inside.
Hodor is based on an Incat Crowther all-aluminum 55 metre 'fast ferry' platform, but has been stretched by 11 metres and custom fitted to accommodate a veritable Pandora's box of powersports entertainment. She has no guest accommodations (although there is lodging for 17 crew), and she is designed entirely to transport a fleet of toys alongside her main ship. Incat Crowther is renowned for designing high-speed catamaran ferries, but the modifications to Hodor allow her to not only keep up with the main ship but also make the storage, maintenance, and use of superyacht toys as simple as possible.
In an interview with Boat International, first officer of Hodor Troy Eriksson said, “The idea was to get all the clutter off the mothership and on board a dedicated vessel – and the Incat Crowther catamaran platform provided the perfect answer.”
“The fact that the boat has two hulls and is based on a commercial vessel means there are huge load areas and storage spaces, so there was no need to restrict the quantity of toys we put on board. The owner just let us go ahead and fill it with cool stuff.”
Hodor doesn't look like a typical boat, either. Despite already being a massive catamaran designed to carry helicopters and off-road vehicles, she is also painted in stealth grey with an orange accent stripe. The various boats, choppers, and machinery on her deck may not belie her purpose, but at a distance it's not unthinkable to mistake her for a warship.
So what's on board?
The garage below deck contains nine jet skis, four Yamaha ATV's, two Yamaha side-by-sides, four Yamaha motorcycles, two Laser dinghies, and a Hobie Cat. The area was also recently outfitted to take delivery of a Seamagine Aurora-3 submersible. To coincide with the sub's arrival, the ship also holds a dive room with oxygen and compressed air, a decompression chamber, and a triage centre with medical supplies.
The best stuff is up top, of course, where a 17 metre (55 foot) Nor-Tech 560 center console resides (fun fact- the boat and Hodor are showcased together on the Nor-Tech website). It also appears much of Hodor's top-deck engineering was done to accommodate the Nor-Tech, and the Incat Crowther design in particular proved the best platform for the job. Robert Smith of YCTS, the project manager responsible for Hodor's customization, told Boat International, “We looked at every other possible option, but the big issue was always the Nor-Tech – loading it on and off another boat is a very serious business that needs to be treated with respect. Incat Crowther’s existing catamaran design meant we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, because it’s so big and stable that it allows such maneuvers to be carried out in safety.”
Dan Mace, the project's technical manager, added “We have a number of vessels with fast launch and recovery systems, which we simply scaled up to a suitable size to allow the chase boat to be launched easily and quickly between the catamaran hulls. The submarine garage is housed in the centre of Hodor, and its launching system uses air casters to locate from the garage to the beam cranes.”
But that's just the beginning of what's on deck. There is also a colour-matching fully composite Airbus H145 helicopter with a futuristic tail-shrouded rotor with seating for 10 passengers. There's a 7.3 metre (24 foot) Novurania catamaran RIB, a 16 metre (52 foot) Hydra-Sports 53 center console with quad Seven Marine 627 diesel outboard engines, a Nautique ski boat, and a truly wild 388 Skater offshore race boat capable of 190 mph.
As you might expect, all those toys don't leave much room for R&R, but that's not the purpose of Hodor. The ship has two lounge areas for guests, but there are no guest accommodations. For what it's worth, the lounges are well equipped with everything including a full bar, big screen TV's, custom laser-cut Corian panels, plush furnishings, and an ultra-modern design.
The crew has it pretty good, too, thanks in part to the natural layout of a catamaran design. The ship holds 17 crew while underway, and the pontoon layout on the 216 foot boat provides a spacious platform that allows the crew cabins to be oversized with full size bathrooms. There are also open concept communal areas that get natural sunlight from enormous side panel windows.
So who owns Hodor, and its main yacht, you might be wondering? While superyacht ownership is always shrouded in mystery and layers, there are several outlets claiming the boat belongs to Lorenzo Fertitta, a successful Las Vegas casino owner and the former CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The Fertitta family owns the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas as well as Station Casinos, which have 21 locations across the United States. The Fertittas sold their share of the UFC to entertainment conglomerate WME-IMG in 2016 for a whopping $4 billion.
'Shadow yachts' are becoming more commonplace as billionaires commission ever-bigger superyachts requiring more support. Amazon's Jeff Bezos was just linked to a 417 foot $500 million superyacht that's currently in production that will also include a 246 foot support ship. There's no word if Bezos' yacht will have a boat, inside a boat, inside another boat, the way Hodor does, but one can probably assume it'll have a couple extra toys aboard.
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You can get a full walkthrough of Hodor in the video below:
(h/t Boat International)
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