Editor’s note, November 6, 2018: The original Lürssen online art auction, set for October 15 through 31, was postponed. However, it is now live. We have therefore updated our story from last month, as you will read below. What’s more, the shipyard has started the auction on a high note: Lürssen has placed a €5,000 starting bid for each painting. Subsequent minimum bids are €25, with just the amount you bid being what you will pay if you are the winner. Read on.
Imagine owning a Lürssen where top designers Tim Heywood (above), Pascale Reymond of Reymond Langton, and Carlo Nuvolari of Nuvolari Lenard all contributed. Now imagine you don’t have to wait years for delivery. In fact, delivery will take a matter of days. All you have to do is outbid other people, for a good cause. Lürssen is auctioning colorful paintings of its megayachts, with contributions from dozens of designers, clients, and more. Through the Lürssen online art auction, which starts today, you’ll help support a high-profile—and highly successful—ocean conservation charity.
Through November 20, at 10 p.m. Central European time, you can view four different painted artworks and bid via a dedicated website. Among the megayachts featured are Quattroelle and Elysian (ex-Ester III). The Lürssen online art auction results from a pretty creative act of crowdsourcing. Each day during the recent Monaco Yacht Show, Lürssen put up a canvas with an outline of one of the yachts. It then encouraged its industry partners as well as customers to take a paintbrush and let their creativity flow. (Even I took a turn, on the canvas of Quattroelle, as you can see in the photo below.) Everyone who contributed to a painting signed a signature board, too, mounted on the back of each work.
The way the auction works is different than what you might expect. Rather than the highest bidder paying the full bid amount, he or she will pay just the minimum increment. So, for example, if you bid the minimum €25, that is all you pay if you succeed in outbidding everyone else.
All auction proceeds benefit the Blue Marine Foundation, an organization that gets a good deal of support from the yachting industry. (The annual London to Monaco ride is one example.) The non-profit creates marine reserves as well as teaches sustainable models of fishing, worldwide.
Leave a Reply