The superyacht Launchpad, right, passes in front of the Walla Walla, a Washington State Ferries vessel making the run from Kingston to Edmonds across Puget Sound on Thursday. (Tim Davis Photo / timdavisimages)
Give way, Washington State Ferries, Mark Zuckerberg’s superyacht has a new port of call — it’s now north of Seattle off Everett, Wash.
Launchpad was spotted Thursday making the move from Elliott Bay in Seattle. According to MarineTraffic, the Meta CEO’s vessel anchored in Port Gardner Bay near Naval Station Everett around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Tim Davis, a Kingston, Wash., photographer, shared images on Facebook — naturally! — as he saw the yacht pass President Point. His post is loaded with comments from others who saw the ship, from land or from ferries crisscrossing Puget Sound.
Davis said MarineTraffic has the yacht’s destination as “salmon country,” which some speculated could mean it’s headed to Alaska.
A dot on a map shows the superyacht Launchpad anchored off Everett, Wash., on Friday. (Screen grab via MarineTraffic.com)
Since arriving in Seattle on May 27 and passing through the Ballard Locks before mooring on Lake Union for a couple days, the $300 million, 387-foot Launchpad has drawn gawkers and protesters. No indication has been given about why the vessel was in the Pacific Northwest or whether Zuckerberg would be joining it.
Wingman, a 262-foot support vessel that can carry tender boats, a helicopter and other toys, has been docked at Smith Cove in Seattle, where it remained on Friday morning.
The vessels arrived in Seattle the same day Meta disclosed plans to cut nearly 1,400 jobs in Washington state. That amounted to about 20% of its local workforce, part of a broader reduction of roughly 8,000 positions companywide.
Some on Facebook called the yacht “a grotesque display of wealth owned by a tone deaf billionaire” while others called it a “gorgeous boat” and defended Zuckerberg as someone who “earned it” and who employs thousands of people.
