Presidential yachts: Inside the superyachts owned by world leaders

Builder: Blohm & Voss
Length: 135.9m
Designers: Gibbs & Cox, Donald Starkey

One of the world’s largest superyachts, Savarona was launched in 1931 for American heiress Emily Roebling Cadwalader, the granddaughter of the engineer behind the Brooklyn Bridge. The yacht was sold six years later to the Turkish government, after which it served as the presidential yacht for Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. She was given a $35 million refit in 1989 and has been used both for private cruises as well as for hosting various world leaders for official business on board.

Key features include a Turkish hammam bath that spans the entire 16-metre beam, a swimming pool, a gold-trimmed grand staircase, a private cinema and a library suite furnished with many of the personal artefacts belonging to Atatürk. She returned to the water this summer following a multi-year refit and recommissioning project at Istanbul Shipyard Command.

Builder: Mathis
Length: 31.9m
Designers: John Trumpy

USS Sequoia is the smallest presidential yacht on this list, but her history is no less storied. The yacht was launched in 1926 by the New Jersey-based yard and originally used to intercept moonshine smugglers in the prohibition era.

She has hosted a series of US presidents, including John F. Kennedy, who celebrated his last birthday on board, and Richard Nixon, who took a cruise with more than a dozen baseball stars after the 1969 All Star Game. After being decommissioned in 1977, she has since been purchased by a private company and is currently undergoing restoration works at Richardson Maritime Museum in Cambridge, Maryland. The rebuild is expected to take five years to complete.

Builder: J&G Thompson
Length: 83.8m
Designers: G. L. Watson

Launched in 1896, USS Mayflower was one of the earliest presidential yachts. She was originally commissioned by American businessman Ogden Goelet – who died on board – but hosted five commanders in chief over a 24-year period, from Theodore Roosevelt to Calvin Coolidge. The yacht was decommissioned in 1929 by Herbert Hoover.

USS Mayflower's active years were filled with various adventures. She participated in the Spanish–American War, served as a government vessel to various Caribbean nations, and was even used for a 1905 peace conference that helped to bring about the end of the Russo-Japanese War. After exploring the arctic waters of Greenland and Labrador as a sealer, and serving in the Israeli Navy as well as in the US Coast Guard during World War II, USS Mayflower was broken up in 1955.

Builder: Benetti
Length: 85.9m
Designers: Jon Bannenberg, Luigi Sturchio

This superyacht was once the plaything of Donald Trump. Upon purchasing Nabila (as she was then called), the former US president renamed her Trump Princess and refitted her interiors extensively at a cost of $8.5 million. The full-beam owners suite featured a tortoise shell ceiling, a three-metre-wide bed and a secret exit, while the en suite bathroom, finished in onyx, was completed with a sauna and 13-nozzle shower hand-carved into the shape of a scallop shell. Able to host up to 52 people, other interior highlights included everything from a patisserie and three-chair hair salon to a screening room with an 800-film library and a hospital with an operating theatre.

Used for cruising along the East Coast with his family, Donald Trump bought Trump Princess, he says, "because I was buying a great piece of art at a ridiculously low price". She has since been renamed Kingdom 5KR and hit the headlines this year following a collision with a quay in Tunisia.

Builder: Peterswerft - Kusch, Oceanco
Length: 133.2m
Designers: Kusch Yachts, Tim Heywood, Winch Design

H3 was once Indian Empress was once Al Mirqab, a floating palace owned by the former prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. "I met the client in 2003, after he was unsuccessful in purchasing [114.5-metre] Pelorus," Heywood said at the time. "He wanted a yacht in a similar style, to contain a much larger number of guests and family cabins, an internal swimming pool with balconies, a large gym, sauna, hairdressing saloon – all the features which we now take for granted on the larger scale yachts."

Her three-year rebuild, beginning in 2020, won her international acclaim and a World Superyacht Award. Virtually nothing was left from her previous life except the hull, which had also been extended a further 10 metres. She is currently the world's most expensive superyacht for sale, asking €295,000,000 with Edmiston.

Builder: Defoe
Length: 28.4m
Designers: Defoe

This commuter-style vessel was a home-from-home for the Kennedys and an important feature of the Camelot years of John F. Kennedy's presidency. An unofficial presidential yacht, Honey Fitz was built in 1931 for financier Sewel Avery, who called her Lenore after his daughter. JFK, after taking the oath of office in January 1961, promptly renamed her Honey Fitz in honour of his maternal grandfather, John Francis Fitzgerald. It was on board this yacht that JFK celebrated his last birthday in 1963.

Honey Fitz was used to take visitors down the Potomac river to Mount Vernon for state dinners, and between May and September hosted the family as they cruised around Cape Cod. Statesmen and business leaders were frequent guests and British prime minister Harold Macmillan, as well as Hollywood stars Marilyn Monroe and Peter Lawford, were also entertained on board. Honey Fitz was inherited by successive presidents but eventually sold in the late 90's to William Kallop, who's grandfather had been at Princeton with JFK, for $5.9 million. She joined the charter market for the first time this summer, now available for private charters and dockside events, including weddings and parties.

Builder: Manitowoc Sb
Length: 50.3m
Designers: US Coastguard, Manitowoc Shipbuilding

One of two US Presidential yachts that still survives to this day and the only one open to the public, USS Potomac was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) as his floating base from 1936 to 1945. FDR hosted several famous faces on board this former US Coast Guard vessel, including King George VI of the United Kingdom and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway.

In the 80's she was briefly owned by Rock and Roll icon Elvis Presley, and in the 21st century, her escapades included being a set for the movie The Master, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. She now lies along the coast of Oakland, California, having been preserved as a National Historic Landmark. She is open for dockside tours and regularly cruises through San Francisco Bay. 

Michael Roosevelt, the grandson of FDR, recently sat down with BOAT International to share some never-before-heard stories about the USS Potomac.

Builder: Bath Iron
Length: 74.3m
Designers: Bath Iron Works

At the end of World War II, USS Williamsburg took over from USS Potomac as the presidential yacht. Harry Truman was particularly fond – he took her to Key West for a vacation in 1951, and used her as a base for talks with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Mexican president Miguel Alemán. Truman’s successor, Dwight Eisenhower, was less enamoured and had her decommissioned after just one cruise. 

The presidential yacht was later converted into an oceanographic research vessel by the National Science Foundation, and plans were made to restore her further, but she met an unfortunate end when she sank in her moorings at La Spezia harbour in 2015, and was subsequently scrapped in 2016.

Builder: Perini Navi
Length: 48.2m
Designers: Perini Navi

The navy-hulled sailing yacht Morning Glory has had a colourful past. Originally commissioned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1985, she was delivered in 1993 and eventually bought by the infamous former prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, in 1999. Under Berlusconi’s ownership, Morning Glory regularly frequented the Caribbean cruising destination of Antigua, where Berlusconi owned a holiday home, and spent her summers sailing through the Italian Riviera and around the south of France.

Morning Glory can host up to eight guests across four cabins and features two spacious saloons on board – one with a marble fireplace forward and another with a formal dining area, drinks bar and games table.

Builder: Ishikawajima-Harima
Length: 77.3m
Designers: Ishikawajima-Harima

Gifted to the Philippines as part of Japan’s post-war reparations, BRP Ang Pangulo was converted into a presidential yacht in the late 1950s and the yacht is still in service today. Able to accommodate up to 44 guests and 81 crew members, famous faces believed to have spent time on board include dancers Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, and actress Brooke Shields. 

Under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the vessel was converted into a hospital ship, and during the COVID-19 pandemic was used as a 28-bed isolation facility for frontline military workers.