Make California Post a Preferred Source A colossal superyacht turning heads in Marina del Rey belongs to billionaire Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke, whose floating luxury retreat carries an estimated $150 million price tag.
The roughly 281-foot Aquila has been drawing curious looks along the waterfront, with its towering decks prompting an Instagram guessing game over who could afford such an extravagant ride.
Yacht industry website SuperYachtFan identifies Walton Kroenke, wife of Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke, as the vessel’s owner. The site estimates its annual operating costs at as much as $15 million.
In one Instagram video, a woman aboard a much smaller boat points toward the enormous vessel and asks the obvious question, “Whose yacht is that?”
The camera swings toward the superyacht, showing the hulking craft looming over the Marina del Rey waterfront. The amateur investigation then moves ashore.
“On the ground to inspect further. We heard it’s 280 feet!!” reads text accompanying footage of the approach from land.
The vessel’s sheer scale had commenters doing a double take and at least one contemplating the mother of all cleaning bills.
“Wonder how long it takes to detail it, probably a whole entire century,” one person wrote.
View this post on Instagram Another claimed to have encountered the yacht thousands of miles away.
“Saw this yacht in Sardinia this summer. It’s huge!”
The floating spectacle has had plenty of time to attract attention. VesselFinder lists Aquila’s arrival in Marina del Rey as Oct. 14, putting its harbor stay at more than three weeks. The tracking service identifies it as a British-flagged yacht built in 2010.
Behind the enormous boat is an equally enormous family fortune.
Walton Kroenke is the daughter of Bud Walton, who helped his brother Sam build Walmart into a retail empire. She inherited part of her father’s stake after his death in 1995. Forbes estimates her fortune at $14.8 billion.
Her yacht’s estimated $150 million value makes for a particularly lavish expression of that wealth, with the annual upkeep alone running into eight figures, according to SuperYachtFan.
And Aquila isn’t the first billionaire’s boat to send the marina rumor mill into overdrive.
Another mysterious superyacht that docked there recently belonged to “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.
That vessel, measuring about 290 feet, arrived with its name covered, fueling waterfront speculation about the identity of its wealthy owner.
Sources confirmed Rowling’s ownership to the Post, while one local described it as “the worst-kept secret on the Marina.”
The author herself had not been publicly spotted during the visit described in that report.
Now Aquila has given waterfront gawkers another supersized subject to inspect and another famous fortune to attach to it.
For a harbor accustomed to expensive boats, this one still manages to make a splash.
