Bored Yachts Club NFT collection
NFTs and Web3 are slowly but surely entering the yachting world. Cryptocurrencies have become fairly accepted across the board, with even the most traditional brokerage houses facilitating wallet-to-wallet payments. But NFTs have been a bit slower to take off – and that probably has 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 a brand new NFT collection that wants to change this. The Bored Yachts Club collection will give its users access to yachting experiences and events.
Taking inspiration from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem, which combines Web3 and real-world utility, Comair plans to recreate the model, but in the context of yachting. Quite simply, he is looking to create a global decentralized yacht club that provides access to yachting for those who 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 luxury experience, and by building a ecosystem where instead of paying for the experience in financial terms, you can encourage users, in a similar way to how air miles work, to shop and earn coins for time on board,” explained Comair .
This basically translates into time on board Lady Amanda, but as the ecosystem expands, Comair expects a large number of yacht owners to become involved. “We’re not just building an NFT collection, we’re building a community – and we want as many people involved as possible. There are many privately owned yachts available for charter but struggle to find charterers.
If you visit a marina you will always see lines of yachts moored, waiting for their next outing with an owner or charterer. We can take advantage of this and bring these owners into the folds of the ecosystem.”
There will be a coin-based system in the Bored Yachts Club collection that will preserve and facilitate the growth of the ecosystem (I will explain later), and will be the basis for motivating yacht owners to join the community and make them “bored ». 
“The coins collected and earned through the purchase and exchange of NFTs will be payment for time aboard yachts,” explained Comair. “These coins can be spent, donated to the YachtCoin Foundation or to any other foundation of the yacht owner’s choice.
The majority of owners already donate to foundations and charities, and this is an opportunity for them to trade time on board for their donations – meaning they can support their organizations through chartering yachts and not through monetary donations.”
For those familiar with the BAYC ecosystem, this may all make sense, but for those unfamiliar, let me explain. The Bored Ape Yacht Club is an exclusive members only group of art collectors – the art is digital JPEG images of monkeys, which you may have seen as profile pictures on social media.
Firstly, BAYC has created great prestige and it is well known that among its members are a number of A-list celebrities. The unique thing about the art collection, however, is that they have royalties, so that every time one is sold or exchanged, the designers receive a commission. Basically, BAYC has created a loop system where the customers (users) generate income for the artists and the foundation of the group, while also promoting the brand themselves.
The rewards are exclusive access to events through what are called “drop outs” – free gifts and invitations organized by the members.
Read: Superyacht NFTs: Making the ‘exclusive more inclusive’ with Oceanco
BAYC has been so successful that it just received about $500,000,000 from venture capitalists to develop a metaverse that recreates the cult classic novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and the film of the same name. To put this into perspective, leading games like Fortnight are estimated to cost around $100-150,000,000 to produce. BAYC’s metaverse shatters that record. 
Read: From blockchain to built-in: Tactical 110, the first NFT yacht sale on the ETH blockchain
Comair isn’t pushing to create a metaverse – not yet, anyway! – but he recreates the essence of what BAYC has created. It is the ecosystem and its disruptive attitude that we will see in yachting. Comair will replace this loop system model as a coin-based system where users can earn and spend coins to spend as time on board yachts.
As the founder and CEO of Melanion Capital, an asset management company specializing in digital assets, and issuer of the first Bitcoin-themed ETF in Europe, Comair is well-versed in Web3 and the world of crypto and NFTs. He is also the owner of the John Blackeye NFT, making him a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Interestingly, John Blackeye is the legal custodian of the 29.68m motor yacht Lady Amanda – which makes her the world’s first “tokenized” yacht. It therefore offers a unique prime location for Web3 networks. 
Read: Superyacht brokerage and 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 an overflowing playbox, which includes an inflatable slide – unusual for a 30m motor yacht. With four cabins, she has room for as many as ten guests.
