Walk down to Superyacht Village at Pier Sixty-Six this week and the biggest boat at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is a grey, 305-foot ship with cranes on her stern and a decompression chamber where the spa used to be. Her name is Draak. Eight years ago, under a different name, she was one of the most talked-about yachts on earth, for all the wrong reasons.
Chapter one: Equanimity
Dutch builder Oceanco launched her at its Alblasserdam yard in 2013 and delivered her in 2014 as Equanimity, a 91.5-metre yacht with a helicopter pad, a plunge pool, a gym and a cinema. She was the first yacht designed and built to the Passenger Yacht Code, and she was valued at about $250 million.
The U.S. Justice Department says the money behind her came from 1MDB, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund. Prosecutors allege that Malaysian financier Jho Low bought the yacht with funds stolen from 1MDB and laundered through Singapore, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United States, part of more than $4.5 billion they say was taken from the fund between 2009 and 2014. Low has denied wrongdoing.
Chapter two: seized in Bali
On February 28, 2018, Indonesian police boarded Equanimity off Bali in a joint operation with the FBI. What followed was a legal tug of war. In April an Indonesian court ruled the seizure invalid and released the yacht; Indonesian police seized her again after a U.S. request for legal assistance. In August 2018 she was sailed to Malaysia and seized under Malaysian law.
On October 19, 2018, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that the yacht belonged to two 1MDB subsidiaries after her registered owner, Equanimity (Cayman) Ltd, failed to appear. While she sat at Port Klang, keeping her running reportedly cost the Malaysian government RM3 million a month. Malaysia put her up for sale through the brokerage Burgess at the end of October.
Chapter three: Tranquility
On April 3, 2019, Malaysia’s Attorney-General announced that the Admiralty Court had approved an offer of $126 million from Genting, the Malaysian casino and resorts group: about half her reported value. Genting renamed her Tranquility and put her on the charter market, where a week aboard cost up to $1.25 million.
Chapter four: Draak
In September 2023 the yacht changed hands again. Her new owner was Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve, the company behind Steam and Half-Life. Newell renamed her Draak and, in 2024, sent her back to Oceanco, now at its Zwijndrecht yard, for a rebuild with a completely different purpose. (In July 2025 Newell also acquired Oceanco itself.)
Draak’s new job is to work alongside Leviathan, Newell’s 111-metre Oceanco delivered in November 2025. Together they form the fleet of Inkfish, Newell’s ocean research and exploration operation. Leviathan is the main platform for research, living and expeditions, with a dive center, a laboratory, a hospital and a 3D printing workshop. Draak carries the dive teams, the tenders, the heavy equipment and the extra crew.
What changed in the rebuild
Oceanco says the team “effectively had to open up the entire yacht.” The headline changes:
- The helideck is gone. Removing it from the upper deck aft made room for a tender operations area on the main deck, which carries the dive boat Scylla, the RIB Minotaur, a Nautique Paragon sports tender and two Ribeye rescue tenders.
- Heavy lifting. A 12.6-tonne Van Driel jib crane with an 11-metre reach sits on the upper deck, and twin 6.7-tonne C-davits on the main deck are the largest Van Driel has built.
- The spa became a dive center. The former beach club and spa now hold diving equipment, a medical treatment room and the first decompression chamber ever installed on an Oceanco yacht: a six-person unit built with Hytech-Pommec that supports oxygen and Heliox decompression for deeper dives. It was custom-built to fit through the existing doorway, with millimeters to spare.
- A ship built around the crew. The main saloon is now a shared dining room and the upper saloon is a “Chef’s Lab.” Accommodation was reworked into an owner’s stateroom and eight guest cabins, with interiors by German studio Vedder.
- A little longer. An extended swim platform with a retractable boarding platform added just over a metre, taking her to 92.9 metres (305 feet).
Newell describes the communal mess as the heart of the ship. “It has the energy of a really good neighborhood café or bar,” he told Oceanco.
From Monaco to Fort Lauderdale
Draak relaunched in February 2026, ran sea trials in May and was redelivered in June. She made her public debut at the Monaco Yacht Show in September alongside Leviathan, then crossed to Florida for FLIBS, where Oceanco is showing her as proof of what its Life Cycle Support team can do with an existing hull. She is privately owned and no longer available for charter.
Draak is at Superyacht Village at Pier Sixty-Six South through Sunday, November 1. For everything else on the docks, read our FLIBS 2026 opening day guide, the full boat list and tickets and venues. Follow the Citywide.TV crew on Instagram at @livecitywide.
Sources: Oceanco (Draak at FLIBS 2026 press release), AP via CBS News, Wikipedia: Tranquility (yacht), Boat International, Yacht Charter Fleet, YachtBuyer, The Vibes. Photos courtesy of Oceanco.