Maik Hahn - July 21 2024

Exploring the Depths with Kevin Koenig aka @theyachtfella: Yachts, Submarines, and the Life of a Marine Journalist

Meet Kevin Koenig, a man whose passion for the marine world has taken him from the depths of the ocean to the pinnacles of yacht journalism. As a seasoned writer and influencer, Kevin's journey is as thrilling as the adventures he chronicles. From diving 300 meters below the surface in a submarine to rubbing shoulders with billionaires and legendary athletes, his stories captivate and inspire. With a career that seamlessly blends his love for writing, travel, and the sea, Kevin has become a leading voice in the yachting industry. Join us as we delve into the fascinating life and career of a man who has truly made waves in his field.

Maik Hahn: In preparation for talking to you, I saw the submarine article you published, and I went through your Instagram profile. I noted that you went with a submarine 130 meters deep. My next note is "crazy?" You know what happened to the guys in the submarine, and you still decided to go?

Kevin Koenig: Deeper than that. We went 300 meters deep in 2022 for the New York Times. They flew me down to Curaçao in the Caribbean, where the Dutch submarine builder U-Boat Worx has a testing facility. We saw eels, rays, and all kinds of corals. When you're all the way at the bottom, it gets really dark.

Maik Hahn: It gets really dark very quickly, right? I think after 20 to 30 meters?

Kevin Koenig: A little more than that. It starts getting dark then, but it gets pitch black at about 100m. After that, at 300m, it's nighttime dark. Yeah, we went straight to the bottom, and the pilot turned off all the lights and he played Stevie Ray Vaughans “Little Wing". It was a very meditative experience. I meditated beforehand because I knew it was going to be intense, because of claustrophobia and going down deep like that, you know it's very spooky. I do a lot of meditation. I'm a practicing stoic, so in that belief system, you end up thinking about death a lot. It's part of the practice. So, I literally did a death meditation that freed me from my earthly concerns.

Maik Hahn: So you prepared for the worst, and then, nothing bad happened.

Kevin Koenig: I think it's a media distortion that those things are actually dangerous. There was one implosion a year ago, but they've done tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dives without a problem. These guys went down in a sub that wasn't classed, wasn't safe, and had all these sketchy things going on, and it imploded. That's all anyone thinks about now. Submarines are actually very safe and important for discovering the ocean. They discover new species by the bundle. It’s a shame if the public was scared off by just this one incident.

Maik Hahn: One thing that stuck in my mind was a video from the guy who owned or built the submarine, and the controller was an Xbox controller.

Kevin Koenig: Yeah, and they had Bluetooth. They were using Bluetooth to control that submarine going to the Titanic. Dude, just get wires. I couldn't believe it.

Maik Hahn: Absolutely crazy.

Kevin Koenig: But it's indicative of the rest of the build process for that sub. There were whistleblowers who were telling people this was going to implode and that people are going to die. They went ahead with it anyway, unfortunately. It's a very shady story.

Maik Hahn: When I ask about your journey into Yacht reporting, is there a point where you can say, "At this time, at this place, I decided I was going to do what I do today"?

Kevin Koenig: This profession kind of found me. I had worked a bunch of jobs in my 20s, and none of them worked out. I hated them, and they didn't like me either. I found myself almost terminally unemployed. But I had a very strong writing background, and I knew I wanted to do that in some capacity. We had a boat growing up, so I knew boats. I applied online to a boating magazine I had never heard of. The company was based in midtown Manhattan, named “Power and Motoryacht Magazine”. They called me in, and I hit it off with the editor-in-chief, who ended up becoming my mentor. He has since passed. His name was Richard Thiel.I thought he was going to hire me on the spot, but he sent me a picture of a boat that night and asked for a thousand words by 3 p.m. the next day. No caption, no nothing, just a picture of a boat.

I did a bunch of research and luckily recognized the boat as a Viking, which they built in New Jersey, where I grew up. And I remember fishing with my father on the Manasquan Inlet watching boats go by and he would always point out Vikings and tell me these were really good boats. So this was just a stroke of fate honestly that I knew which boat this was, because we had a 23 foot Searay But I knew nothing about 83 foot Vikings at this point in my life. But I knew they were fast and knew they’re from New Jersey so I titled this mock article titled "Born to Run," weaving in a bunch of Springsteen quotes. The next day I turned it in and got hired. That's when I realized I could do this job. They weren't paying me much, but they were paying me to go around the world and be on the water, which I love. And they were paying me to write, which I also loved. My first assignment was testing the fastest jets ever built in Bimini in the Bahamas. I remember ripping around the water, thinking, "Holy..."

Maik Hahn: Let's talk more about the Yacht industry and what excites you most right now. We were just talking about submarines or submersibles. I've seen in your videos that there are Yachts with submersibles on board. Is that a new thing?

Kevin Koenig: It's not that new. I'd say within the last decade or so, it's almost, not standard. Submarines are a staple on Yachts over 150ft, once you are talking about the larger Megayachts, a sub for shallow diving, not to go to the Titanic or anything like that becomes pretty standard practice. It's like a toy to show off to guests and to see some wildlife they have never seen before. It's like a bragging right type thing. It's just a cool experience that an owner can offer his guests. It's huge for charters too, because if you charter with a Sub and you have never been on a Sub, you can do it. But submersibles are different than submarines, in that they kind of require a boat to propel them in and out of port. So submersibles almost require a Yacht in some ways.

Maik Hahn: So they are connected the whole time you are diving?

Kevin Koenig: No. The definition on the top of my head is, that a submarine has its own power supply and can get in and out of port by itself whereas a submersible has a limited power supply and basically needs a mothership to transport it around.

Maik Hahn: Because the energy runs out before it reaches the right depths?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah, you know in the public knowledge everything is a submarine. It's a much more common word. They use submarine and submersible kind of interchangeably, but the definition is different.

Maik Hahn: Learned something new. Great. Anything else that comes to mind when thinking about trends in general?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah I think at least at the very high end, a cool trend that we are seeing is the really big Yachts owned by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and possibly Gabe Newell (that's not confirmed). It's certainly Anthony Hsieh with “Bad Company Fishing”. They're buying fleets, so just one mega Yacht is no longer an option but 2 or 3, each specified to their interests. Like Anthony Hsieh for example is a billionaire, he founded “Loan Depot”, he is from California and he has three mega Yachts now that he has in different strategic places so he can fish every ocean in the world. Whatever he wants - Black Marlin I believe is his favorite prey. So he’s doing that and then you got some other guys. So people are buying full fleets geared to specific interests, art curation or underwater exploration.

Maik Hahn: So you think they make compromises in the size of the Yachts? Is there a trend to smaller Yachts?

Kevin Koenig: (Laughs) It's more big Yachts. Those guys are not compromising. Yacht owners are getting younger, while they still have these passions. It's also a culture shift with the Russians not playing as big a part in the largest Yacht sector. Americans are kind of dominating and started to follow their passion with a different verve than the Russians. The Russians want the biggest, baddest-looking boat in the harbor. The Americans want that too, but they also like to be doing experimental stuff with them.

Maik Hahn: So it's not just about status but also about having a real upside from your Yacht?

Kevin Koenig: Sure, but it's also about status as well.

Maik Hahn: When we talk about technologies, is there anything specific coming to mind in the Yacht business that will change the way they work? I think I also saw a video on your site talking about super Yachts driven by nuclear power plants?

Kevin Koenig: There is always new technologies being brought out in super Yachts because there is so much money involved in it. These guys can basically have anything they want.But the one thing that has really changed the industry and will continue to change it, is Elon Musk's “Starlink” and it has made connectivity so much better and so much cheaper all over the world that you can be anywhere on earth, basically, and do a call like we're doing. Like the guy I was talking about, with Bad Company Anthony Hsieh and we shared this with him and he was, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a hundred miles off the map. We were talking like this during an interview, you know, so that's the way that's going to change things is not only, you know, make everybody's lives easier.The connectivity is going to make the crew a lot happier. Just a crew, you know, very isolated at times on these boats. And Connection is good for their mental health. And it's also going to drive people to be on the boats a lot longer. Instead of spending two weeks in the mediterranean or six weeks in the Caribbean now they can do six months because they can properly run their businesses from the boats. And, I believe that's only going to drive these Yachts to get even larger and larger because they literally become a floating compound.

Maik Hahn: Do you have a very unforgettable experience you had while reporting on Yachts or maybe on Yachts in general, something that really is stuck in your mind from the past?

Kevin Koenig: A million. I love my job is because I. You know, I've lived a crazy life. Last 16 years, I had so many fun moments and stories that either you know, we're adventures or just kind of. You meet somebody and you're like, holy smokes! Like you're meeting someone famous or the richest guy in the world or whatever, you know? Oh, God, I was spearfishing once I got charged by a shark, which was, very interesting and hair raising. I took that submarine down to 1000 feet and sat in the darkness and hung out, and that was very cool. I remember one time I was at the Monaco Yacht Club having lunch, with some of the members and some other people, and a huge Italian boat, like a 300 foot Italian boat came into port. And I remember them sitting there and one of the couple of them kind of sniffed like "oh, why would you spend $300 million boat built in Italy when you could get, like, it's Dutch or German or nothing?” And I remember being like, holy smokes. So the owners spent $300 million on a boat and there's still people going “Ough”. Like touching it with a light glove. Its always like this in this industry. There's always somebody above you, no matter who you are, you know? Which is interesting.

I think one of my favorite stories, though, is, I did a fishing trip with, these two basketball legends. Bob Knight, who was a Hall of Fame coach, and then John Havlicek, who was an NBA Hall of Famer. It was a very memorable weekend for a few reasons. Bob Knight threatened to have a hitman get me.

Maik Hahn: (Laughing) How? Why? What did you do?

Kevin Koenig: We were on a small boat around tiny skiffs, in Bimini in the Bahamas. And, we were going through a little passage in the mangroves, and we were big history buffs, and we started talking about history, and, we were talking about the Civil War, and we got into a thorny topic, and, I, I've been recording the conversation, and I thought he knew that I was recording it because I had a GoPro. Like, in front of us. There's a really cool, boat. We're in the middle of the jungle. We're talking about, like, war history. And all of the sudden he's saying stuff that, you know, he probably would rather not have recorded. And I was like, oh my God, he doesn't realize that I'm recording him and he's with this rich guy and he is famous for his temper. And he really did have a crazy temper. And all sudden he just lost his mind on me and start screaming at me and like, you know, it was so awkward. And I was there profiling him for a five day piece, and we were like, on day three. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah. So he ended up telling me that, if the tape ever saw the light of day, he, would have a hitman knock on my door and make sure I never fucked up anything, ever again.

Maik Hahn: Well, that sounds really bad, but he obviously didn't go through with it and you didn't publish the tape?

Kevin Koenig: I got rid of the tape. I've written about it. I've never said exactly what he said. I promised him I wouldn't. Yeah, I'm still here. And he he passed away earlier this year, so I guess I'm in the clear now.

Maik Hahn: Fascinating story. I am glad you are still here to do the Interview Kevin! I work a lot with cars and car enthusiasts with BonnetMagazine. Have you noticed cross-topics between Yacht- and car enthusiasts?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah, they're the same guys. You know, if you can afford a Yacht, especially the ones that I write about, you probably have a pretty sick collection of cars, you know, and it's not even like, a lot of times it's not even an afterthought for these guys. I'll be talking to them on and on about their boats, and they'll be going on and on about the boats, the passion, blah, blah, blah. And they'll casually mention that they have like 20 Ferraris.

Maik Hahn: What do you think why that is? Is it a luxury thing, design, speed, power?

Kevin Koenig: They are both toys, you know, so a lot of the guys like the mechanical aspect of it. One of the things that surprised me about the yachting industry is that a lot of guys that own the biggest boats and even like the not huge boats, but still like 60, 70, 80 and 100 footers, they are car dealership guys, for whatever reason, like it's like a huge crossover into the yachting market. And then a bunch of them are in F1 racing and it's just, you know, it's boys and their toys.

Maik Hahn: Let's talk more about your career. You already told me how you started out. If someone asked you how to start a career in Yacht journalism, what advice would you give?

Kevin Koenig: If you want to be a yachting journalist, make sure you really want to. I've kind of caught lightning in a bottle with what I do. There's a lot of very talented people who do this stuff., and, you know, probably aren’t too well. It's a tough industry. You're not going to make a lot of money, especially with journalism, the way that it is right now. It's hard. I wouldn't tell somebody, don't do it because I've been afforded such an amazing life doing it. And I wouldn't want / I'd be remiss if I turned somebody, some young kid, away from it. You know, I had a football coach in high school, and he was a vice principal at Tom Cruise's high school. Tom Cruise came to him and said, hey, should I go out to Hollywood? He told him, no, you'll never make it - right?

Maik Hahn: I bet the competition is tough as well because the journalism part gets smaller and the social media part gets bigger, right?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah. I'm uniquely positioned in that I write for yachting titles, larger publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and I have a big social media footprint. I've kind of become an influencer. As far as I know, I'm the only person in the world doing that.

Maik Hahn: But don't you think it was good that you first started out doing the journalistic work, and then had success in the social media world? Now you have all the knowledge and attract all this social media attention. I think that was the right way around.

Kevin Koenig: Yeah. I couldn't do it without real credentials. I was the executive editor of Yachting Magazine, and I've been in the industry for 16 years. I know everybody, and if I don't know somebody, I'm one person away from them. I've won a bunch of awards and really gone out of my way not to screw people over.

Maik Hahn: That's a good thing, I think.

Kevin Koenig: Yeah. I think I have enemies in this business as everybody does in this industry. But the people that know me know that I'm going to do right by them. That goes a long way because it is a relationship business. Start screwing people over, and people will remember it. It's going to come around to bite you. So try to stay one step ahead of that and just do the right thing.

Maik Hahn: Yeah. I also think that's in every business, it's very important. As soon as people see that you're an authentic person and honest all the time, I think that's very valuable. But you told me about enemies. Is the Yacht business a tough business?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah. It's rougher than people might think. You think of Yachts and you think of people wearing white gloves, sipping champagne. But it's very competitive, especially with brokers. The media side sometimes even gets you in street fights. You got to be ready sometimes.

Maik Hahn: Do you have any upcoming projects or collaborations you're excited about?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah. Short term, I just filed my last piece of a book about Burgess, the number one Yacht brokerage house in the world based in London. That's going to be a lot of fun when it comes out. I'm also going to Lake Maggiore in Italy in a few weeks with Maserati. I'll be testing the new Maserati model, and they have a boat out as well. I'm pretty excited about that.

Maik Hahn: Perfect. I've been there a few times. I love the lake. It's a beautiful place.

Kevin Koenig: I love it. I've never been to that part of Italy. I speak a little bit of Italian, so I'm excited to brush that up a little bit.Medium term, I'm branching out into YouTube. We're going to be doing long-form content based off my Instagram, which is going to be really cool. I think people are going to love that. It's part of a larger strategy of building YachtFella into a real brand. I've got a great head start with my journalism reputation and this skyrocketing Instagram profile. I want to build that into the next big thing in yachting media. I think it's going to get there.

Maik Hahn: And that's what you want to do for the rest of your life, or is there anything else you still want to do besides YachtFella and the journalism part?

Kevin Koenig: I'd love to host a television show at some point. I actually just cancelled on a possible contract yesterday. So, I'm looking for someone to produce a TV show about my career. If anybody out in BonnetLand wants to do that, let them know.

Maik Hahn: I'll ask around. Maybe there is someone who can help you with that.

Kevin Koenig: I want to write a New York Times bestseller at some point, and I don't even know if that'll be about Yachts. It might be about something completely different. And if I could do all that from my own jiu-jitsu gym that I would be running, that would be fantastic.

Maik Hahn: Do you need a black belt for that?

Kevin Koenig: You don't - but in my area of the world, you kind of do. Where I live is super competitive. It's like the North Shore of Hawaii for surfing. The guys who run schools here are champions. I'm not a world champion, but I could open one. Right now I'm at a level where I could do it. It's just, you know, I got a lot going on. I have little kids, too.

Maik Hahn: I bet you're busy enough without the jiu-jitsu gym on the side. One question I need to ask: if you could own one Yacht, which one would it be and why?

Kevin Koenig: Such a difficult question. My favorite Yacht in the world right now is a German Yacht called “Liva-O,” a 387-foot-long Yacht by Abeking & Rasmussen. It has a brutalist design and a black hull. It's just gorgeous.

Maik Hahn: You also had a video about that as well, right?

Kevin Koenig: Yeah. There's a couple you can't really get an idea for how beautiful a piece of machinery that Yacht is in that video. But there are a few more I posted where you can get a good look at it. It's just something else. I'd also love to get one of the big fishing boats too. The fully custom wooden fishing boats they build in the Carolinas are top of the line and just beautiful. I'm not even a big fisherman. I've just kind of drawn to the way those look. I'd love to get a Spencer 70 or something like that.

Maik Hahn: They look pretty fun to handle. I think they're pretty quick and have a lot of power.

Kevin Koenig: They're fast and big. Some of my best memories on the water have been in those kinds of boats. You go out with your friends, go fishing, and have these crazy adventures. They're very masculine too. To get on one of those boats and then shoot over to the Bahamas for a week with your buddies, I mean, God bless, what could be better than that?

Maik Hahn: Sounds good to me. Maybe back to your work in Yacht journalism. What would you say is the single thing you love the most about what you're doing?

Kevin Koenig: It's kind of like I said before: traveling the world, being on the boats, and being able to write about it. The only thing I ever really wanted to be was a writer. As a kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist, so I became a marine journalist, and it's close enough. This is what I was put on earth to do. Writing is what I am best at. I honestly feel in my heart that I'm one of the best in the world at it. There are a lot of talented writers out there that don't make it, for one reason or another. I feel very blessed to be one of the few that is actually making a good living and a good career out of it. The fact that I'm on the water and all these crazy boats all the time is even better. The Yachts are wonderful as well because it's unfettered. I don't have any editors. I don't have any advertising concerns. I just say whatever's on my mind, and the fact that people love it is a great feeling. I wake up every day very thankful and grateful for the opportunity.

Maik Hahn: I think it's also the authenticity you have with your content creation and your honest opinion. I think people really see and value that.

Kevin Koenig: Yeah, it's a rare thing in this industry. There's so much marketing bullshit. Nobody ever wants to say anything real. I felt I came through and was like, hey, I'm going to give you the real talk about what's going on here, and I'm going to do it in a way that's entertaining. Oh, by the way, I have all the bona fides behind me. When I say it, it's legit as well. That's why it resonated with people.

Maik Hahn: It's a good way to do it. Now, at BonnetMagazine, we mostly work with cars. As someone passionate about Yachts, what do you think about cars? Could you tell me a bit more about your Mercedes?

Kevin Koenig: God, I love it. It's a 1987 cherry red Mercedes 560 SL convertible with a beige interior. I got it for a song. The guy might have been coming out of a divorce or something. I don't even know. Got it for so cheap. It was right when I struck out on my own. I didn't have a ton of money, but I couldn't pass it up. It was the most money I ever spent on myself by a lot. My dad had a Mercedes growing up. He's since passed, so there's a nostalgia element to it as well. I remember seeing that car driven by the hottest people in the world. Now I have one sitting in my driveway that I roll around in Greenwich, Connecticut. The way the engine sounds, I'm not even really a car guy, but I love it.

Maik Hahn: I think it's the whole feel, the smell, the touch of these old cars.

Kevin Koenig: It's low to the ground. The way the engine rumbles. Just the coolest.

Maik Hahn: All analog. Not too much electricity going on.

Kevin Koenig: The windows are electric, which was probably a big deal back then.

Maik Hahn: So would you say that's your dream car?

Kevin Koenig: It's certainly one of them. I hope it doesn't go up on me or something. I've only had it two years. I think it's in pretty good shape. I got it checked out by some good guys. The other one that I love is the 1971 Jaguar XKE roadster. Cherry red or maybe the green. That's a beautiful car. There's a guy in my neighborhood who has one, and every time I see it, oh my God. For some reason, I always thought Porsche 911s were kind of basic and just like a boring rich guy's car.

Maik Hahn: (Laughing) I don't think I should put that in the article. You will have many enemies when I publish that.

Kevin Koenig: But the older I've gotten, the more they've grown on me. They tweak that design just a little bit every year, but it still looks like a 911. I've never been to one, but I'm sure it takes a corner like a motherf***er. The thing I like about them is that a lot of cars look great with a hardtop, but then they drop the top and look kind of weird. I think a Porsche 911 convertible loses nothing. It looks great.

Maik Hahn: When you talk about the 911, do you talk about the older models, or are you talking about the current ones?

Kevin Koenig: They've obviously changed, but that core DNA is always there. I love the old school models, like the ones in the 70s. Robert Redford had one in that movie “Spy Games.” The new ones are great too. I still got to put my kids through college.

Maik Hahn: Maybe they will be thankful that you didn't decide to buy the Porsche instead.

Kevin Koenig: Yeah.

Kevin Koenig: There is one more story about cars that I think you'll appreciate. I remember one of my first Fort Lauderdale boat shows. I walked down to the mega Yacht section, and they had the sports cars, the Bentleys and Ferraris. I remember looking at these boats on sale for like $50 million, $150 million. And then you look at the cars, which were really nice, a $400,000 car. But if you're buying that boat, you could just pluck that car off like it was an apple at the grocery store. That was one of my first moments where I was like, Holy cow, these people are rich.

Maik Hahn: You finally realize the dimensions.

Kevin Koenig: It was one of the things I was thinking about on that drive home. How ridiculous the levels of money get in the yachting industry in general.

I don't think there's anything in the world more expensive than a Yacht to own. Real estate doesn't come close. Art, maybe, if you have an enormous art collection. Even then, probably not. People spend seven, eight, nine, ten times that much on a boat. Jets don't cost that much. It's literally the most ultra-luxury industry in the world. And Yachts need more upkeep than any of these things. If you spend $100 million on a Yacht, you're spending about 10% of that annually just to have it exist.

Maik Hahn: That's tough. But I think those owners of these Yachts don't really worry about money.

Kevin Koenig: No. The thing I like to tell people is “Don't buy a Yacht if you couldn't give it away."

Maik Hahn: Last question: I noticed that you are a big barbecue guy. Is that right?

Kevin Koenig: Oh yeah.

Maik Hahn: Will you have a barbecue this weekend?

Kevin Koenig: Probably. I have a 20-year college reunion that I'm leaving for shortly. But I will be back on Sunday. I enjoy doing Skirt steaks because they're so simple to do.

Maik Hahn: Skirt steaks? You have to explain it to me.

Kevin Koenig: It's kind of like a flank steak. It's very thin, long, and very fatty and flavorful. I've never seen them in Europe. They used to be a cheap cut of meat. Now they're more expensive. I like to marinate it in soy sauce with fresh ginger, garlic, salt, and pepper. Then I throw it on the grill for two minutes a side, let it rest, and slice it up. It's summertime now, so we get great corn here. You can do tomatoes, mozzarella, and fresh basil salad. It's a perfect summertime meal.

If you want to learn more about Yachts you should visit Kevin @theyachtfella on Instagram.

Article credit: Maik Hahn - Photo Credits go to Kevin Koenig