Southern Spars quiet on billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' superyacht

Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon. Photo / Getty Images

West Auckland boat manufacturer Southern Spars has declined to comment on speculation the company is creating three huge masts for Jeff Bezos' super yacht.

The Herald understands Avondale-based Southern Spars is working on a high-tech mast solution worth tens of millions of dollars for the world's richest man and founder of e-commerce giant Amazon.

While Southern Spars confirmed it was working on a "significant project", a spokesperson denied this was linked to Bezos' yacht.

Pressed about the project, a spokesperson for the company, said: "We deal with the world's wealthiest." He would not comment further.

The Herald understands Southern Spars is bound by a contract in which it can not legally talk about the arrangement.

Amazon has been approached for comment.

Southern Spars, which specialises in masts and other marine rigging, was founded in 1990 and has built its profile by building boats and rigging for America's Cup teams, including Emirates' Team New Zealand.

The company built Team New Zealand's catamaran for the last America's Cup and is again building the masts and rigging for team for the upcoming 2021 regatta which will be hosted in Auckland.

It is also working on masts and rigging for other competitors such as Prada's Italy, among other teams.

The projects are kept hush-hush at Southern Spars' Avondale HQ with few staff at the company briefed on orders and specifics for each team.

America's Cup projects combined are worth in excess of $15 million.

Southern Spars has a group revenue of US$80m ($119m) and claims a 95 per cent share of the global race boat market.

Over the next five months through to June, the company will build the first rigs for the competing teams and send them off to Europe. The second release will be later next year and then another just before the racing starts.

Each mast is built over a period of 14 to 16 weeks, the equivalent of over 4000 hours of work in each.