This Is How the Gossip Blogs Always Let Us Down

Celebrity gossip-monger TMZ deserves a lot of credit for things like straight-up owning the Heather Locklear story (such as it is: it’s a wee bit ginned up, the old “actress won’t go to rehab, says ‘family’” tabloid line). But sometimes they fall down on the job. Take this morning’s… news: “Muscle god Chris Hemsworth celebrated the news that his gorgeous wife Elsa Pataky is pregnant with their first child just like anybody else would … by diving down an inflatable slide off a helicopter-carrying luxury yacht with Matt Damon in St. Barts on Wednesday.” Well, there’s near identical coverage: Popsugar, Just Jared, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, and everyone else, and by the time you get down to “Celebuzz!” you get “Chris Hemsworth spotted splashing around off the side of his yacht on January 18, 2012 in St Barts.” Haha, yeah, Chris Hemsworth has a yacht. Because he’s been in an Australian soap opera and like three movies that were released in the U.S. Don’t think so. So whose yacht is this, photo-buying gossip-mongers?

You can see the “pb” logo on the side of the boat; you can see the Bahamanian flag; you can start to make out the boat name; it goes something like P L — N — and then presumably there’s a B in there as well… It is not on the list of the world’s 82 longest yachts, of course, as it’s only about 50 meters, and that list bottoms out at 67 meters; it doesn’t seem to be on the best charter lists, but… oh ho! Duh! It’s the Plan B!

Formerly the HMAS Flinders, a “a hydrographic survey ship of the Royal Australian Navy,” then owned by a New Zealander, then sold again to a mysterious owner, a very mysterious owner, one much shrouded in mystery! The rumors were that it was owned by Brad Pitt, since his production company is named Plan B, but that seems terribly unlikely. According to the megayacht message boards, “their is only one owner well i guess there is two if you count his wife and her dog.” [uh, sic]

Ownership aside, equally importantly, it also has a submarine, as well as python and chinchilla cushions and the “Japanese symbols for luck and harmony painted onto a hessian background and mounted to the exterior wall of the Main Deck.”