hochfelder yacht

Amazing Photos Of The Two Super-Yachts That This Hedge Fund Manager Can't Sell

Apparently a whole lot of wealthy individuals bought super expensive yachts just before the financial crisis began, and because they take two or so years to build, they keep their old one until their new one is ready.

That method is typically hassle-free, according to the New York Times.

Except now, because of the crisis, sellers are finding no-one will buy their yachts - when back in the day, it was only a matter of time before you put your boat on the market, and someone snapped it up.

Hedge fund manager Peter Hochfelder, the founder of $3 billion AUM Brahman Capital Management, is in this predicament.

Check out photos of his two amazing yachts no one wants here >

Hochfelder already owned a yacht, a 134-foot Lürssen, built back in 1995.

The interior of the yacht, called Blind Date, was designed by a renowned interior designer, and Hochfelder even described it as "sexy, cosy and soothing."

Of that boat, he also once said :

I once ran into [Microsoft co-founder] Paul Allen, who owns the 413-foot motoryacht Octopus. I told him, ‘We have a lot in common. You own the largest Lurssen, and I own the smallest.’

Hochfelder ordered a new yacht in 2007 - a 161-foot Trinity - that builders completed two years later. But no-one will buy the old sailboat. And according to the Times, Hochfelder pays about $4 million a year to run his two boats.

So now he's putting both yachts - both named Blind Date ( because that's how he and his wife met ) on the market, hoping and praying that at least one of them will be bought.

The Lurssen had to undergo a $3.5 million price reduction because it wasn't moving, so now it has a $9.5 million pricetag .

The brand new Trinity will set back the purchaser $33 million - there's a video of it here.

The older one has a $9.5 million pricetag ; the brand new Trinity will set back the purchaser $33 million.

And if you're not in the buyer's market, the yachts can also be chartered .

This is Hochfelder's first yacht: A 134-foot Lürssen called "Blind Date" - it will cost you $9.5 million

This is the yacht's main living area - the interior was decorated by renowned designer Patrick Knowles

And this is the master bedroom - the yacht can sleep 8 people

The ensuite for the master bedroom...

This is one of the yacht's shady deck areas

And here's another with a bar and a ton of deck seating, which gets great sun during the day

This is Hochfelder's newer yacht, Blind Date II. It's a 161-ft Trinity and costs $33 million

The main living area has a bar and a huge flat screen TV

And this is one of the luxurious living areas, with another bar

This is the master suite. The yacht has five cabins and can sleep up to 12.

The master ensuite has a grand free-standing bath

All cabins have an ensuite bathroom

There's tons of lounging cushions to relax on, and look at the jacuzzi in the center of the deck

And another deck at the stern of the yacht has an al-Fresco dining table

And for those who aren't looking to buy, but still want to cruise around the Med come Summer, the yachts are available for charter

But we think we know a few guys who after 2010, may be in the market for some new toys...

These are the hedge funders that absolutely smashed it in 2010 >

• Main content

In pinched times, yachts become the hardest sell

What is tougher than having one sleek mega-yacht for sale in a glutted market? The answer, for the moment at least, is having two mega-yachts on the market.

In boom times, yacht enthusiasts would order a new dream boat and keep their old one for the two or three years the builder needed to complete the new boat. Then, they would quickly sell the older yacht to impatient new millionaires and billionaires eager for their requisite status symbols.

But that equation changed with the financial crisis two years ago and took the super-yacht market down with it.

Some of the wealthy have ended up like Peter A. Hochfelder, the principal and founder of Brahman Capital Management, a private investment firm in Manhattan. Hochfelder owned a 134-foot Lurssen, named Blind Date, that was built in 1995. He commissioned a second boat in 2007, a 161-foot Trinity yacht that he christened with the same name. It was completed in 2009.

Now, Hochfelder, who declined to be interviewed, has put both on the market, in the hope that he can sell at least one. He has been asking $9.5 million for the older yacht and $33 million for the new one, which is big enough to sleep 12 guests.

Maintaining a big yacht, after all, is expensive. Yacht specialists estimate that Hochfelder pays about $4 million a year to run his two boats.

"It was a fool's paradise," said Malcolm Maclean, editor at Boat-International.com, a website that tracks the yacht industry.

By one estimate, 300 new boats were sold annually worldwide from the mid-1990s until the 2008 collapse, when sales dropped to about 100. Gone are the days when a speculator could systematically put yachts up on the market and count on a quick sale. British car salesman Ian McGlinn, who died in June, made his fortune by lending Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop cosmetics chain, 4,000 pounds ($6,345) to open a second store. According to several brokers, McGlinn commissioned a series of boats during the boom and sold them at a profit to buyers unwilling to spend two years waiting for a boat.

Today, it certainly is a buyer's market, with everything from 100-foot yachts to those measuring more than 200 feet for sale. The 161-foot Mine Games, a boat built by Trinity Yachts of Gulfport, Miss., was put on the market for $27 million several months ago, for example, because its owner, Chris Cline, who heads Cline Resource and Development, a mine development company, had a larger boat on order.

The industry has picked up a bit in recent months, although most buyers remain on the sidelines. "There is more activity in the used-boat market," said William S. Smith III, vice president of Trinity, the largest custom yacht builder in the United States. "But there is still a lot of inventory, and as long as that is the case, people are keeping their hands in their pockets."

Fear is part of the problem. The wealthy are holding on to their money, and even speculators who built yachts are largely on the sidelines.

Nor has the drop-off been confined to the United States. "Lehman Brothers went down during the Monaco boat show of 2008," Smith said. "And all of these European brokers were smug at first because they thought the European market was decoupled from the U.S. market. But before the show was over, they were not so smug. It had affected everybody."

Some specialists contend that Americans, who long accounted for a majority of the yacht market, have lost so much money that they are leery of committing to any big-ticket items.

Whether that suggests a permanent shift toward buyers in the fast-growing economies around the world is still unclear.

The Chinese have not come into the market, although brokers are hoping that the ultimate status symbol will catch their attention. "It is a big question mark whether the Chinese will embrace yachting," said Bob McKeage, a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale. "So far it is mostly Hong Kong Chinese, not mainland people." It remains a question mark because forecasting cultural appetites for yachts is not simple. He noted, for example, that there was vast wealth in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, but only the Venezuelans were avid yacht buyers.

While rank speculation may be gone from the yacht market, there are still billionaires who like to sail the seven seas and are willing to pay for that pleasure.

Some yacht brokers say that Americans are holding back now largely because they fear being viewed as profligate when many people have lost jobs, and that they will soon return.

And there are signs of life. Maclean of BoatInternational.com said an American had ordered a 344-foot yacht from Feadship, the Dutch shipbuilder. Meanwhile, M/Y Musashi, a new yacht for Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle's chief executive, is undergoing sea tests. But given the long lead time to build boats, it was probably ordered before the financial crisis, as was the yacht Silver Shalis for real estate developer Larry Silverstein.

Certainly, the escalating prices for assets like art and antiques suggest that the super-rich are increasingly opening their purses and looking for investments that will hold their value.

But whether Americans will dominate the market when better times return is a matter of debate among brokers. Smith, for example, said: "The Russians are coming back and so are the Indians. I don't think Americans will dominate it as they once did."

For the moment, it is just as easy to charter as to buy. Chartering has come back faster than the business of buying boats, or, as Maclean put it, "Would you buy a house right now?" alluding to the uncertainties in that market.

Shannon Webster, a yacht broker based in Fort Lauderdale, said her business this winter had been good. "It is not tremendous, but it is up quite a bit from last year," she said.

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Investigation of Possible Hoax After a Report of a Yacht Explosion Off New Jersey

By James Barron and Michael Schwirtz

• June 11, 2012

It sounded as if a disaster were unfolding in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey, with injured pleasure-boat passengers piling into life rafts after an explosion. An emergency radio transmission said that a yacht had blown up and sunk, that 21 people aboard had made it into life rafts and that 7 were hurt.

That distress call, at 4:20 p.m. on Monday, set off an extensive search. Six rescue vessels headed to the location the call had mentioned, some 17 miles off Sandy Hook, N.J. Three helicopters from the New York Police Department were sent to join the search as emergency workers from numerous New Jersey fire departments converged on Sandy Hook, ready to treat the injured passengers or rush them to the closest hospital.

Four hours later, after the rescue vessels had turned back and the helicopters had gone home, the Coast Guard said it had found no evidence of a catastrophe. A Coast Guard spokeswoman, Petty Officer Jetta Disco, said that no debris had been spotted, no lifeboats had been seen, no passengers had been found in the area where the caller said the vessel had gone down. Also, no distraught relatives had called.

“We don’t know what became of these people,” she said, noting that the Coast Guard takes reports of trouble on the water seriously and investigates every one. One small Coast Guard boat remained on patrol as darkness fell, and by 10 p.m. officials said that the search had been called off and that the case was being investigated as a possible hoax.

“Making a false distress call is a federal felony,” the Coast Guard said in a statement, noting that it is punishable by a maximum penalty of 5 to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The Coast Guard said late Monday that there were no suspects. They said that hoaxes were not uncommon in the New York region, though statistics were not readily available.

More than 200 emergency workers had responded to help in the search. The Coast Guard sent in vessels from as far away as Jones Beach, on the South Shore of Long Island, and helicopters from Atlantic City. Another spokesman, Petty Officer Erik Swanson, said officials were calculating the cost of the operation. A news conference was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Coast Guard building at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.

If there had been anything to find, the chances were that it would have been found. Petty Officer Disco said the conditions for a search were good. She described the weather in the area as “pretty clear, no fog, good visibility, good search conditions.” The temperature in the water was 66 degrees, she said — warm enough that someone who was thrown in could probably have survived for a while, assuming he or she could swim.

The emergency call identified the vessel in trouble as the Blind Date. According to the Web site vesseltracker.com, three pleasure craft have that name, but it was not clear whether any of them had been in the area. One was a 134-foot yacht built in 1995 that was listed for sale last year — and, on Monday night, was still for sale with an asking price of $7.5 million, according to the Web site superyachts.com.

Another Blind Date was an even larger yacht, a 161-foot craft built in 2009 for the same owner, Peter A. Hochfelder, the founder and principal of a private investment firm in Manhattan. His young daughter, answering the phone at home, said she knew nothing about a yacht explosion.

The Coast Guard sent helicopters from Atlantic City and what it called “motor lifeboats.” But as the rescue workers milled around the dock in Sandy Hook, preparing to go home, some said they were more relieved than annoyed by what appeared to have been a false alarm.

“I’m just really glad nobody was really hurt,” said a rescue worker from Highlands, N.J., who would not give his name because he had been ordered not to speak to reporters.

Karen DeMasters and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Dispute continues between ex-partners at Cachet Hotel in Times Square

A longstanding dispute between former partners at the once-Playboy-themed Cachet Hotel in Times Square doesn’t seem to be coming to an end. 

Mikhail Gurevich’s Dominion Capital and Manhattan-based Merchants Hospitality had duked it out in state Supreme Court in Manhattan over control of finances and management related to the property in a suit filed four years ago. Though they’ve since settled, Gurevich claims he hasn’t been paid everything he says he’s owed per the agreement. 

Gurevich, a minority investor in the hotel, filed suit in February 2019 for access to financial records and claimed Dominion Capital had been shut out of major business decisions. He said he had found out about the decisions only because of a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by former Cachet Hotel Group Chief Executive Alexander Mirza. 

Related Articles

The termination suit alleged Mirza was fired for investigating sexual harassment claims against then-Merchants Principal Adam Hochfelder, though the litigation was suspended.

Gurevich and Merchants settled their differences outside of court, with Gurevich agreeing to a buyout of $7 million from Merchants to be paid in installments, according to documents filed with the court. 

Now Gurveich claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that Merchants has defaulted on the installment payments and owes him $700,000 in unpaid settlement fees. 

The hotel used to be home to the Playboy Club, a members-only establishment with a license to use Playboy branding, its logo and bunny costumes. Months after the initial dispute ended, in November 2019, Playboy stripped the property of its right to use those materials, but it’s not clear why the license agreement was terminated.

The Real Deal reported in 2019 that an insider with knowledge of the termination said Playboy was unhappy with how the Playboy Club had been managed. The termination came during Hochfelder’s tenure at Merchants. 

Hochfelder joined Merchants in 2012 after serving a two-year prison sentence for grand larceny and scheming to defraud his uncle, in-laws and other investors out of more than $18 million. In March 2019 he was charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with additional counts of fraud, to which he pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge. 

Still, he remained at the firm until he was fired in June 2020, when his partners at the company claimed in a lawsuit that he committed additional fraud and theft and was allegedly running a Ponzi scheme through his company email, taking money for investments that he never owned. 

Hochfelder denied all the claims in the suit, and that action was also discontinued.

A representative for Merchants Capital did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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Parent item expand the sub menu, retailers salute dries van noten, cara delevingne appears in stella mccartney campaign, walmart exec cites inflation hurting consumer sentiments, obituary: j. gene hochfelder, ex-beldoch ceo.

NEW YORK — J. Gene Hochfelder, former chairman and chief executive officer of Beldoch Industries, which under his leadership became one of the largest domestic sweater manufacturers and held the Pierre Cardin license for women’s apparel,...

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NEW YORK — J. Gene Hochfelder, former chairman and chief executive officer of Beldoch Industries, which under his leadership became one of the largest domestic sweater manufacturers and held the Pierre Cardin license for women’s apparel, died here Sunday.

Hochfelder, 82, had been ill for several years and died in his Manhattan apartment from complications from two strokes he suffered last year and in 1995, said Thomas Hochfelder, one of his five sons.

Known for his business acumen and dynamic personality, Hochfelder built Beldoch into a $70 million knitwear powerhouse in the Nineties. Beldoch, a proponent of domestic manufacturing, owned several sweater factories in West Hempstead, N.Y., and produced knitwear and sportswear under such labels as Alberoy, Beldoch Popper, Beldoch Petites and Pierre Cardin, as well as Knitmakers private label. Hochfelder sold the business to Donnkenny in 1995 and retired from the company.

Born in Cedarhurst, N.Y., in 1922, Hochfelder graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1943. He served as a captain in the U.S. Marines, where he spearheaded landings in Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, and was awarded the Silver Star, Presidential Citation and Bronze Star. After the war ended, he started Bogene Manufacturing, a housewares and garment bags business, which he sold to Scovill Manufacturing in 1969. In 1971, he joined his father-in-law Albert Beldoch’s business, Beldoch Industries, as president. The sweater company, which Albert Beldoch began in the Thirties, was originally known as Beldoch Popper.

Three of Hochfelder’s sons were involved in the Beldoch business: James joined in the Sixties and founded Alberoy, a hot juniors resource in the Sixties and Seventies; Thomas joined in 1971, at the same time as his father, and headed up the Knitmakers private label division, and Andrew joined in 1978 and ran Beldoch’s manufacturing. Andrew and Thomas left the business in 1999, and James left in 2002.

In the early Seventies, Gene Hochfelder brought Pierre Cardin into the fold. “He saw the future of designer apparel in America, and in 1973 got the license for Pierre Cardin women’s apparel,” said Thomas Hochfelder. “[Eventually] under Gene’s leadership, the corporation grew to over $70 million at wholesale.”

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“He was a very dear friend,” said Hal Upbin, chairman and ceo of Kellwood Co. “I met him 10 years ago when we were looking at his company to buy it. We didn’t reach a deal, but he was such a charming and smart guy, we remained friends.

“He was a good, but tough businessman,” added Upbin. “He was a bit of a mentor. We’d meet, have dinner and talk about the business.”

“He was a kind, gracious and dynamic leader,” added Laurence C. Leeds Jr., chairman of Buckingham Capital Management. “He built a business during a period where so many of his peers were failing, and he survived. He was smart, had a great sense of humor and he maintained the ability to laugh at himself.”

Hochfelder was active in the fight against imports and served as an officer in the National Knitwear and Sportswear Association. He was also chairman and an honoree of several United Jewish Appeal, Anti-Defamation League and Israel Bond drives. An avid golfer, Hochfelder was president of Glen Head Country Club and was a Scout Master and Little League coach while raising his five sons on Long Island. His first wife, Patricia Beldoch Hochfelder, died 22 years ago, and he is survived by his second wife, Carol Ostrow, whom he married in 1984. In addition to Thomas, James and Andrew, he is also survived by two other sons, John and Peter, 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Services will be held today at Riverside Memorial Chapel here at noon.

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You Think Houses Are a Slow Sell? Try a Yacht

What is tougher than having one sleek mega-yacht for sale in a glutted market? The answer, for the moment at least, is having two mega-yachts on the market.

In boom times, yacht enthusiasts would order a new dream boat and keep their old one for the two or three years the builder needed to complete the new boat. Then, they would quickly sell the older yacht to impatient new millionaires and billionaires eager for their requisite status symbols.

But that equation changed with the financial crisis two years ago and took the superyacht market down with it.

Some of the wealthy have ended up like Peter A. Hochfelder, the principal and founder of Brahman Capital Management, a private investment firm in Manhattan. Mr. Hochfelder already owned a 134-foot Lürssen, named Blind Date, that was built in 1995. He commissioned a second boat in 2007, a 161-foot Trinity yacht, that he christened with the same name. It was completed in 2009.

Now, Mr. Hochfelder, who declined to be interviewed, has put both on the market, in the hope that he can sell at least one. He has been asking $9.5 million for the older yacht and $33 million for the new one, which is big enough to sleep 12 guests.

Maintaining a big yacht, after all, is expensive. Yacht specialists estimate that Mr. Hochfelder pays about $4 million a year to run his two boats.

“It was a fool’s paradise,” said Malcolm Maclean, editor at BoatInternational.com, a Web site that tracks the yacht industry. Now, he said of the owners who cannot get rid of their boats, “They have caught very bad colds.” By one estimate, 300 new boats were sold annually worldwide from the mid-1990s until the 2008 collapse, when sales dropped to about 100 boats.

Gone are the days when a speculator could systematically put yachts up on the market and count on a quick sale. Ian McGlinn, the British car salesman, who died in June, made his fortune by lending Anita L. Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop cosmetics chain, £4,000 ($6,345) to open a second store. According to several yacht brokers, Mr. McGlinn commissioned a series of boats during the boom, all called Tigre d’Or, and sold them at a profit to buyers unwilling to spend two years waiting for a boat.

Today, it certainly is a buyer’s market, with everything from 100-foot yachts to those measuring more than 200 feet for sale. The 161-foot Mine Games, a boat built by Trinity Yachts of Gulfport, Miss., was put on the market for $27 million several months ago, for example, because its owner, Chris Cline, who heads Cline Resource and Development, a mine development company, had a larger boat on order.

The industry has picked up a bit in recent months, although most buyers remain on the sidelines. “The inquiry level is picking up,” said William S. Smith III, vice president of Trinity, the largest custom yacht builder in the United States. “And there is more activity in the used-boat market. But there is still a lot of inventory, and as long as that is the case, people are keeping their hands in their pockets.”

Fear is part of the problem. The wealthy are holding on to their money, and even speculators who built yachts, confident that they could find willing buyers among the new rich, are largely on the sidelines.

Nor has the drop-off been confined to the United States. “Lehman Brothers went down during the Monaco boat show of 2008,” Mr. Smith said. “And all of these European brokers were smug at first because they thought the European market was decoupled from the U.S. market. But before the show was over, they were not so smug. It had affected everybody.”

Some specialists contend that Americans, who had long accounted for a majority of the yacht market, have lost so much money that they are leery of committing to any big-ticket items.

Whether that suggests a permanent shift toward buyers in the fast-growing economies around the world is still unclear, but several boat brokers noted that among recent sales, one has been to a Mexican mogul and two to Malaysian businessmen.

Mad Summer, a 257-foot yacht with a helicopter pad and refueling station, two Jacuzzis, a movie theater and other luxuries, was sold earlier last year. Although the sale price was never disclosed, the asking price was 135 million euros ($179 million). Specialists say the actual purchase price was $100 million, and the buyer was a Mexican who has renamed the boat TV. Several yacht brokers say the new owner is Emilio Azcárraga Jean, the billionaire head of Grupo Televisa, the giant Mexican TV and telenovella company. Lourdes Dussauge, a spokeswoman for Mr. Azcárraga, declined to comment.

The Chinese have not come into the market, although brokers are hoping that the ultimate status symbol will catch their attention. “It is a big question mark whether the Chinese will embrace yachting,” said Bob McKeage, a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “So far it is mostly Hong Kong Chinese, not mainland people.” It remains a question mark because forecasting cultural appetites for yachts is not simple. He noted, for example, that there was vast wealth in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, but only the Venezuelans were avid yacht buyers.

While rank speculation may be gone from the yacht market, there are still billionaires who like to sail the seven seas and are willing to pay for that pleasure.

Some yacht brokers say that Americans are holding back now largely because they fear being viewed as profligate when many people have lost jobs, and that they will soon return.

And there are signs of life. Mr. Maclean of BoatInternational.com said an American had ordered a 344-foot yacht from Feadship, the Dutch shipbuilder. Meanwhile, M/Y Musashi, a new yacht for Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, is undergoing sea tests. But given the long lead time to build boats, it was probably ordered before the financial crisis, as was the yacht Silver Shalis for the real estate developer Larry Silverstein.

Certainly, the escalating prices for assets like art and antiques suggest that the superrich are increasingly opening their purses and looking for investments that will hold their value.

But whether Americans will dominate the market when better times return is a matter of debate among brokers. Mr. Smith, for example, said: “The Russians are coming back and so are the Indians. I don’t think Americans will dominate it as they once did.”

For the moment, it is just as easy to charter as to buy. Chartering has come back faster than the business of buying boats, or, as Mr. Maclean put it, “Would you buy a house right now?” alluding to the uncertainties in that market. Shannon Webster, a yacht broker based in Fort Lauderdale, said her business this winter had been good. “It is not tremendous, but it is up quite a bit from last year,” she said. “My price points are about $200,000 a week. That is for a boat that sleeps 12 people and has 11 in crew. It is 164 feet.” But she added that yacht owners were more willing to negotiate.

Certainly $200,000 a week is only for the very rich. But in comparison to a $20 million yacht, it is, some might say, a bargain.

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In just six years, Highfield Boats has become the world’s number one aluminum hulled RIB manufacturer. Highfield Boats has developed into worldwide boat builder with a complete line of rigid-inflatable hull boats (RIBs). Highfield now offers small tenders from 2.4m, all the way up to a full line of heavy duty RIBs at home on any ocean. With dealers and distributors in 38 countries, Highfield Boats has become the top choice world wide for families, yacht clubs, even international mariners.

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Cruising the Moskva River: A short guide to boat trips in Russia’s capital

There’s hardly a better way to absorb Moscow’s atmosphere than on a ship sailing up and down the Moskva River. While complicated ticketing, loud music and chilling winds might dampen the anticipated fun, this checklist will help you to enjoy the scenic views and not fall into common tourist traps.

How to find the right boat?

There are plenty of boats and selecting the right one might be challenging. The size of the boat should be your main criteria.

Plenty of small boats cruise the Moskva River, and the most vivid one is this yellow Lay’s-branded boat. Everyone who has ever visited Moscow probably has seen it.

This option might leave a passenger disembarking partially deaf as the merciless Russian pop music blasts onboard. A free spirit, however, will find partying on such a vessel to be an unforgettable and authentic experience that’s almost a metaphor for life in modern Russia: too loud, and sometimes too welcoming. Tickets start at $13 (800 rubles) per person.

Bigger boats offer smoother sailing and tend to attract foreign visitors because of their distinct Soviet aura. Indeed, many of the older vessels must have seen better days. They are still afloat, however, and getting aboard is a unique ‘cultural’ experience. Sometimes the crew might offer lunch or dinner to passengers, but this option must be purchased with the ticket. Here is one such  option  offering dinner for $24 (1,490 rubles).

If you want to travel in style, consider Flotilla Radisson. These large, modern vessels are quite posh, with a cozy restaurant and an attentive crew at your service. Even though the selection of wines and food is modest, these vessels are still much better than other boats.

Surprisingly, the luxurious boats are priced rather modestly, and a single ticket goes for $17-$32 (1,100-2,000 rubles); also expect a reasonable restaurant bill on top.

How to buy tickets?

Women holding photos of ships promise huge discounts to “the young and beautiful,” and give personal invitations for river tours. They sound and look nice, but there’s a small catch: their ticket prices are usually more than those purchased online.

“We bought tickets from street hawkers for 900 rubles each, only to later discover that the other passengers bought their tickets twice as cheap!”  wrote  (in Russian) a disappointed Rostislav on a travel company website.

Nevertheless, buying from street hawkers has one considerable advantage: they personally escort you to the vessel so that you don’t waste time looking for the boat on your own.

Prices start at $13 (800 rubles) for one ride, and for an additional $6.5 (400 rubles) you can purchase an unlimited number of tours on the same boat on any given day.

Flotilla Radisson has official ticket offices at Gorky Park and Hotel Ukraine, but they’re often sold out.

Buying online is an option that might save some cash. Websites such as  this   offer considerable discounts for tickets sold online. On a busy Friday night an online purchase might be the only chance to get a ticket on a Flotilla Radisson boat.

This  website  (in Russian) offers multiple options for short river cruises in and around the city center, including offbeat options such as ‘disco cruises’ and ‘children cruises.’ This other  website  sells tickets online, but doesn’t have an English version. The interface is intuitive, however.

Buying tickets online has its bad points, however. The most common is confusing which pier you should go to and missing your river tour.

“I once bought tickets online to save with the discount that the website offered,” said Igor Shvarkin from Moscow. “The pier was initially marked as ‘Park Kultury,’ but when I arrived it wasn’t easy to find my boat because there were too many there. My guests had to walk a considerable distance before I finally found the vessel that accepted my tickets purchased online,” said the man.

There are two main boarding piers in the city center:  Hotel Ukraine  and  Park Kultury . Always take note of your particular berth when buying tickets online.

Where to sit onboard?

Even on a warm day, the headwind might be chilly for passengers on deck. Make sure you have warm clothes, or that the crew has blankets ready upon request.

The glass-encased hold makes the tour much more comfortable, but not at the expense of having an enjoyable experience.

Getting off the boat requires preparation as well. Ideally, you should be able to disembark on any pier along the way. In reality, passengers never know where the boat’s captain will make the next stop. Street hawkers often tell passengers in advance where they’ll be able to disembark. If you buy tickets online then you’ll have to research it yourself.

There’s a chance that the captain won’t make any stops at all and will take you back to where the tour began, which is the case with Flotilla Radisson. The safest option is to automatically expect that you’ll return to the pier where you started.

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Restaurant-Yacht Chaika

Ratings and reviews, location and contact.

Pleasantly surprised, service is good so is the food. Great selection of Fusion food, a mixture of Italian, Japanese, European, Asian etc. A pleasantly nice dining experience, highly recommended, a must try!

Thank you for your feedback and invite you to have lunch or dinner again aboard the ship in an atmosphere of high standards of yacht hospitality.

everything was perfect - the food, the service, the desserts were the best, nice atmosphere and the location - magical

Best food, best view in Moscow. absolutely faultless from arrival to finish. Best risotto i had for many years absolutely perfectly cooked. The view on Ukrainian hotel and the white house by night is amazing

Had to wait for the food for 1.5 hours and then another 20 minutes for the check. Finally called for the manager and he offered... a 10% discount as a compensation. Simply pathetic! The food is mediocre at best. Not bad per se, but one... would expect something better considering the prices. There are many places to eat in area that are much better. Avoid this one at all costs. More

Hello, Alexander Your comment is extremely important for us, thank you a lot for it. We are terribly sorry for your time that you`ve spent waiting your order and we have already taken actions to improve quality of our service and it would be realy... More

Food is very expensive,very pretentious, doesn't worth that money. Portions are very small. We ordered ravioli and there were 4! Four raviolis! For almost 15 euros. Then we asked to bring us dessert menu but nothing, they didn't even bothered, so we payed and left... without dessert. Very poor service for that price. More

This is a very good restaurant. The food is really good, maybe the best in Moscow. The service is also good. The view from the restaurant is great. The prices are very high.

I often visit this restaurant and must say it’s one of the best in Moscow in terms of quality and service. Staff really try hard to make sure that you are happy and satisfied. Customer service is a huge problem in Moscow but Chaika sets... a great example for others in the industry! Food is delicious and the menu has lots of options for everyone! Atmosphere is great and view is beautiful on the embankment. Special thanks to German & Oleg! More

Thank you for your feedback! Again aboard the yacht restaurant "Chaika" in accordance with the high standards of yacht hospitality.

Highly recommended, great location in the city center of Moscow with a superb atmosphere. Too many menu choices, though all delicious!

Thx a lot for your review! We are looking forward to see you in our restaurants.

Visited this lovely restaurant with a friend of mine. It was relaxingly warm August evening - so the place on the river seemed like a good idea. We came quite early and the restaurant was not full. The hostesses kindly offered several places to sit... and we chose to sit on the sofas. We had some wine, which was good. We struggled a bit when deciding about the food as few options (scallops) were not available. Fish on ice on display did not look very fresh. To be honest it was an unusually hot August and it is probably understandable that some see food options were not available. However, we did manage to order something and sat waiting and looking onto the river. My long-legged friend struggled sitting at the low sofa and the manager noticed that, offering as a very good, proper table beside the open window. It was nice touch and I was very pleased by their polite observations and immediate reaction to solve the problem. Food was quite good and presentation was perfect. Perhaps I can something about the food, but 1 visit is not enough to criticize or make a definitive opinion. Overall, quality place, which of course, does not come cheap. I would recommend this restaurant without hesitation. More

Good afternoon! Thank you for your detailed feedback! We are looking forward to seeing you again, we are sure that you will be delighted with our dishes!

I've been here several times during two business trip in Moscow. The overall quality for both service and food is absolutely top-notch, plus the location is very unique.

Hello! Thank you for your feedback! We are looking forward to visiting again!

Located on a boat at Krasnopresenskaya River Bank this 5 Star Restaurant transforms into a party location due to multiple groups hosting events. Impressive wine selection, Asian and European kitchen...

Thx a lot! We are waiting for you!

It is a nice place to gather specially at the lounge The service and staff very good I like the river view The food is almost like all restaurants in Russia they serve different cuisine. Staring Russian appetizer till Asian dishes Presentation and taste amazing... I consider it overpriced little bit More

Good location. Nice views. Good choice of food and drinks. European and Asian menu. Nice service. Pricey enough.

Had a large group dinner here. Food was above average and service quite good. The real attraction is the view of Moscow from the river on a nice night. Great place for a larger group dinner. More

Hello, John We are really pleased by reading that you and your friends were satisfied by our service, client`s experience is the highest value for us. We will be happy to see you again, come and enjoy some new dishes from our chef and nice... More

The luxurious atmosphere of this place, the view and the location make it quite outstanding. We had dinner here with friends and the dishes were amazing, accompanied by a chilled bottle of Chablis, it really made me feel as if it was a part of... the classic Russian movie. More

RESTAURANT-YACHT CHAIKA, Moscow - Presnensky - Menu, Prices & Restaurant Reviews - Tripadvisor

• Service: 4.5
• Atmosphere: 4.5

It’s on again: Merchants, Hochfelder resume legal fight after ugly split

Settlement talks fall through, sending former partners back to court

After a two-day reprieve, the legal battle between Merchants Hospitality and former partner Adam Hochfelder is back on.

The dispute, first reported Monday by The Real Deal , centers on Merchants’ allegations that Hochfelder embezzled funds from one of the firm’s hotel projects in 2017 and was scheming on the side with his Merchants email account.

Hochfelder denies Merchants’ charges. He claims the disagreement traces back to his refusal to pay off debts on defaulted leases at several of Merchants’ restaurants where he was the guarantor and directed one of Merchants’ equity partners to withhold a $4 million payment.

Merchants initially levied its allegations in a complaint last week in New York Supreme Court, but on Monday the firm and Hochfelder voluntarily agreed to discontinue the suit.

“The case is settling,” wrote Justin Sher, a partner at Sher Tremonte who is representing Merchants, on Monday. But the settlement subsequently fell apart when Hochfelder demanded money and attempted blackmail, Sher later alleged.

Merchants and Hochfelder had been negotiating into the wee hours Monday morning to finalize the terms of the former business partners’ separation and resolve the litigation.

By Merchants’ account, the settlement they hammered out had two key elements: Hochfelder would agree to stop publicly mentioning his association with the Merchants brand, and would direct the equity partner, hotel magnate Robert Roche, to transfer the $4 million payment to Merchants.

In exchange for Hochfelder brokering the payment, Merchants offered to pay Hochfelder a $95,000 success fee, according to Sher.

After Hochfelder’s counsel sent an email Sunday night directing Roche to make the payment, Sher said he filed to withdraw the explosive suit.

The deal subsequently fell apart, however, because Hochfelder allegedly began demanding the $95,000 upfront, regardless of whether Roche transferred the $4 million, according to Sher. He also claimed that Hochfelder further threatened to file a damaging lawsuit of his own against Merchants unless it agreed to his terms.

“To my clients, it felt like blackmail,” said Sher. “Given all of this, we had no choice but to refile the complaint.”

On Wednesday, Merchants’ complaint reappeared in court records, unchanged from the initial one .

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Hochfelder’s version of events differs. He claimed there was a third element to the settlement, namely that Merchants agreed to pay his family trust $8.5 million for debts it owed him.

He admitted to threatening to file his own lawsuit against Merchants during the talks, but said he did so only after Merchants “reneged” on its commitment to make the payment.

“They got nervous that we were going to keep demanding that and refiled their frivolous lawsuit,” said Hochfelder in an interview.

Hochfelder confirmed he was supposed to direct Roche to pay Merchants the $4 million, but denied demanding $95,000 from Merchants. He said the sum was never payable to him, but to a third party that was holding the $4 million in an escrow account and required a release fee. He contended that Merchants had agreed to pay the sum upfront but later changed its position.

Merchants called Hochfelder’s assertions “patently false.”

Hochfelder also claimed Merchants tried to insert a clause into the settlement agreement that would give it the right to continue working with him, which he opposed.

The clause, according to Sher, concerned a contract between Merchants and Hochfelder. He said his clients want the right to participate in Hochfelder’s future deals as a means of recouping the $1.4 million that judges have ordered Hochfelder to pay the firm.

The on-again suit reveals a notable break between the parties, who had worked together for eight years.

Merchants’ principals, Abraham Merchant and Richard Cohn, publicly defended Hochfelder through allegations against him of sexual harassment and mismanagement, and the unraveling of projects he worked on, such as Merchants’ ambitious resurrection of the now-defunct Playboy Club .

After refiling the suit against Hochfelder, Cohn called him “a brilliant man but a tortured soul,” and said that Merchants “must and will protect itself” from its former partner.

“It is unfortunate, but what I have learned in dealing with someone like Adam, the truth is of no consequence to him,” Cohn continued in a statement. “He will literally believe his own twisted version of the ‘truth’ and will try and convince anyone in his orbit that the sky is green when we are all staring up at a bright blue sky.”

Hochfelder responded that Cohn and Merchant “do not come to the negotiation table with clean hands.”

“It is unfortunate that Merchant and Richard Cohn have chosen to falsely disparage me,” he said in a statement.