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How the Spectacular Superyacht Scout is Making Waves

Named for one of her owners’ dogs, Scout is a base from which they can explore the world.

By Ellie Brade

In 2019, over 150 brand-new superyachts were delivered; one of the standout designs of the year was the 209-ft yacht Scout , built for owner James Berwind and his partner, Kevin Clark. Named for one of her owners’ beloved dogs, she is set to be a semi-permanent base from which they can explore the world — canine companions  and all.

The story of Scout begins with a simple napkin. “We started with a sketch on a napkin before interviewing any designers,” say Berwind and Clark. “Our wish list was to have a capable, comfortable explorer to travel the world, and we got a long-range ice-classed yacht with ample crew and guest areas, advanced systems for fuel efficiency, telecommunications and responsible waste management.” From the moment of that very first sketch, the couple was extremely hands on throughout every stage of the build, resulting in an incredibly personal yacht. “During the build we were involved 110%, in every aspect of the project,” they say.

Once they’d developed an initial concept for the yacht, a range of designers were approached, with UK-based H2 Yacht Design eventually being commissioned for both the exterior and interior design. “Jonny Horsfield was a fantastic collaborator; he and his team executed our vision impeccably,” say Berwind and Clark. The decision was made to build at Hakvoort Shipyard in the Netherlands; Scout is now the biggest yacht that the 100-year-old yard has built to date.

Scout ’s fun detailing and a quirky design approach, paired with a contemporary and practical layout, make the yacht eminently usable while still bursting with personality. “ Scout ’s design was influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis , the interiors of Jules Verne’s Nautilus submarine, every James Bond villain’s lair, with a touch of Looney Tunes ,” say Berwind and Clark. “Everything about the interior focuses on the outside views with abundant windows and sliding glass walls.”

[See also: Yersin: The Eco Superyacht for Sustainable Explorers]

Her distinct exterior design pairs hardy explorer capabilities, striking lines and a hint of trawler influence. While this sounds slightly odd on paper, in real life it works in a stunning way. This is a yacht with her own style — inside and out — that turns heads wherever she goes. Distinctive design elements include a high freeboard, exposed tenders in the bow with cut-down bulwarks and integrated forward-sloping windows.

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Her gray hull and white superstructure are complemented by playful pops of yellow. “She is a very unique vessel that really captures the owners’ passion for being on the water and their fun outlook on yachting,” says Captain Kynan McDonald. “It’s been an exciting project to be a part of.”

On board the yacht, in addition to her owners, Scout is able to welcome up to eight guests in four cabins, each with its own nautical-inspired theme. The main deck is a focal guest space, with a beautiful main saloon that includes an LCD ceiling that mirrors the outside scenes. Complementing the main saloon is a large winter garden — a social hub that is perfect for year-round use, thanks to frameless glass panels that provide shelter when needed and retract when not in use, plus full air conditioning.

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The winter garden space features a cocktail bar for sharing fresh beverages and a dining table for 14; it’s no surprise that this is a favorite spot for hosting. Aft of the winter garden is an intimate C-shaped fire pit that’s ideal for gathering around as the sun sets, with atmospheric flames flickering in front of the horizon.

A beautiful private owner’s apartment is accessed via a library studded with nautical-themed artifacts. The apartment is a stylish retreat with multiple spaces including an observation lounge forward — this characterful space includes a hidden bar area within a globe structure, seating around stone-topped tables inset with constellations and a carbon fiber squid sculpture by British artist Alistair Gibson hanging from the ceiling. The owners’ full-beam bedroom suite has two large bathrooms, walk-in closets and frosted full-length windows to port and starboard.

The master suite leads out to what the owners affectionately call “Puppy Park,” a custom-designed garden area for their two dogs, Scout and Brio, to enjoy. With their pets set to be on board for long stretches of time, it was very important to design the boat with this specialist usage in mind. “The dogs have their own ‘yard,’ all materials on board are pet-friendly, and all access points, such as the gates, scuppers and door sensors, are ‘puppy proofed,’” say Berwind and Clark. This passion for animals also extended to the construction of the yacht itself. “As animal rights activists, we used no animal-based materials — no fur, no hide, no bone, etc. — on board.”

Above the main deck, the bridge deck is home to the modern bridge, which has sophisticated operating systems and comfortable seating for those wanting to watch the captain at work. This deck also features another very personal space — dubbed the ‘greenhouse’ — which has been designed around the owners’ passion for gardening, and includes its own potting shed, sink and gardening equipment.

Outdoors, a favorite spot has proved to be the vast, multipurpose sundeck. “We live up there with our guests and dogs, and we also love the open fore to aft space,” say Berwind and Clark. The sundeck is an impressive open space, even by superyacht standards, with features including an inviting Jacuzzi and sweeping views across the ocean.

[See also: How Much Does a Yacht Cost to Build?]

[See also: Top 10 Explorer Yachts in the World]

A helipad on the foredeck allows guests to arrive and depart in style by chopper, while an impressive crane ensures easy deployment of the vessel’s two 26-ft tenders. A packed lineup of toys and water equipment ensures that Scout ’s guests can enjoy their ocean playground no matter where they cruise. The yacht’s custom limousine tender, built by Cockwells, has been finished in the same color scheme as Scout and can carry up to 10 guests while reaching a thrilling top speed of 37 knots.

While the average superyacht is used for just six weeks a year, Scout will buck the trend, with her owners hoping to spend up to seven months of the year on board: It will be a true home away from home. “We plan to use Scout as our primary home for the next several years and hope to travel extensively wherever, whenever, with safety as a primary concern,” say Berwind and Clark.

“Bucket list locations include the British Isles, the Far East and Hawaii .” With her ice-classed hull, very little of the world will be off limits, and there is no doubt that her owners are set to enjoy cruising on board just as much as they enjoyed the build process. Scout truly embodies the endless possibilities of custom yacht building where, if you can dream it, it can be made a reality.

Images: Jeff Brown — Breed Media

[See also: The Best Luxury Yacht Builders in the World]

Ellie Brade

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Scout Yacht 101: An Insider’s Guide

The Scout yacht was built by Hakvoort Shipyards in the Netherlands back in the year 2019. Both the interior and exterior design work was done by English design house H2 Yacht Design with naval architecture by Diana Yacht Design. Ownership of the yacht actually changed hands during the construction process in 2018. It started life as Project Zeus and then was changed to Project Brio when a new owner took over, before finally being christened Scout when it was finished. 

Who is the Scout Yacht Owner?

Scout is owned by James Berwind, philanthropist and heir to the Berwind Corporation. His net worth is estimated at around $500 million and, along with his partner Kevin Clark, he purchased the Scout for them and their rescue dogs. The name of the yacht is not one that sounds unusual at first, especially for an expedition yacht but it’s actually named after Berwind’s dog. One of the features of the yacht is actually a custom sculpture of Scout the dog.

Unlike some yacht owners, Berwin and Clark spend a lot of time on this yacht,essentially living on it as it suits their outdoor and travel-loving lifestyle. Berwind has said that the idea for the yacht came to him and Clark during a conversation about what they’d want and sketching it out on a napkin, well before they even spoke to a designer.

How Big is the Yacht Scout?

The Scout is an expedition yacht that clocks in at 209’1” in length. Not nearly the longest yacht in the world but definitely something that qualifies as a superyacht based on the length alone. In addition to the length, it’s got a beam of 36’9” and weighs in with a gross tonnage of 1,461 GT.

How Much Did the Scout Yacht Cost?

The Scout Yacht cost its owner a tidy sum of about $85 million back in 2019. It’s been reported that the annual running costs for the yacht are somewhere between $5 million and $8 million which is not unusual for a yacht of this size at all.

Is Yacht Charter A Possibility with the Scout Yacht?

At this time the Scout is not available for charter. 

How Fast is the Scout Motor Yacht and What Engines Does it Use?

The Scout has a cruising speed of 12.5 knots and it has a top speed of 15.2 knots although some sources report this a little bit lower at around 14.8 knots. It has a range of 4,800 nautical miles which it can achieve thanks to a pair of Caterpillar diesel (3512C) 1,575hp engines running at 1800 rpm. The yacht has 159,000 liter fuel capacity as well.

What’s the Interior of the Scout Yacht Like?

Because Berwind and Clark use the yacht as a home more so than simply a luxury toy, the interior design of the Scout is very comfortable and inviting. You’ll notice in the photos that, even though it does have that look of luxury, there’s also something a little more like a penthouse apartment than a fancy hotel feel. Things like the plush master suite and the on board garden show that there’s an interest in making this yacht a home more than what you might see on other luxury yachts and especially on charter vessels which have to be a little more impersonal. 

None of that is to suggest the Scout doesn’t have a lot of those great luxury features that make superyachts so enticing. Quite the opposite, in fact. There’s a lot going on with this vessel. It has room on board for 10 guests across five separate cabins.

The Master suite is accessed through a personally curated library of books, antiques and nautical-themed features that have appealed to the owners. It’s roughly the size of a studio apartment in Manhattan and stretches the full beam of the ship. It features two full bathrooms, walk-in closets and frosted, full-length windows at port and starboard. There’s also a private terrace for taking in views of the sea. The terrace also serves as a place for the owner’s dogs to play and get some fresh air on board.

In addition to the master suit, there are two VIP suites for guests as well as 2 double staterooms. 

Berwind and Clark were hands-on during the entire design process of the yacht and ensured that there were some serious pop culture influences at play. Berwind has stated that the design aesthetic was influenced by Fritz Lang’s classic science fiction film Metropolis, the interiors of Jules Verne’s Nautilus submarine, every James Bond villain’s lair, and even Looney Tunes cartoons. You’ll probably never find another yacht with a similar pedigree.

Amenities and Features

• The owner has hand-picked artwork throughout the yacht including many pieces by New York artist William Steiger
• A custom-designed one of a kind greenhouse can be accessed from the puppy park and features a wide array of hanging and potted plants tended by Berwind himself.
• A custom, high-tech security system, details of which are obviously not available, was installed to keep the vessel safe as it travels to all parts of the world and could potentially face some dangerous situations.
• A guest elevator to help navigate between decks
• A helipad at the foredeck allows guests to come and go via helicopter even when the vessel is at sea
• The steel hull over aluminum superstructure is built to be ice class, meaning it’s stronger than a typical yacht and can handle travel in sub-zero temperatures. This also means the propeller and rudder are designed to be more robust and capable of navigating frigid Northern waters as well. 
• There is both an on deck pool and sauna for relaxing located on a massive sundeck
• Like many similar yachts, the Scout features a gym, fully equipped with the latest gear, for working out.
• A cinema room for movie watching
• Both formal and casual dining areas depending on mood and occasion 
• The yacht was designed with an eye towards running greener and more sustainably than some other yachts. To that end the engines have improve fuel efficiency and waste management systems are also highly advanced to cut down on the yacht’s overall footprint
• The upper deck features a large sunbed and then features a large area for parties, dining, or just lounging
• The ceiling of the main saloon is an LCD screen that mirrors the exterior view, making it seem as though you’re outside despite being in
• The Scout has a pair of 26 foot tenders that can be brought on board or lowered into the sea viz the on-board crane system

The Scout also houses a number of nautical toys but a full list of things such as jet skis and seabobs has not been made public to allow us to know the extent of the items on board.

The Bottom Line

The superyacht Scout was built by Hakvoort yachts and is owned by James Berwind. It was launched in 2019. An expedition yacht with a hull designed to handle even the coldest temperatures, Berwind spends a lot of time living on the yacht with his partner and rescue dogs. This includes a dog named Scout, who the yacht was named after.

At just over 209 feet it’s a large yacht, though far from the biggest, and it’s believed to have cost Berwind $85 million. It has a maximum speed of just over 15 knots. Because it’s used not just as a pleasure boat but as a home, it has many features that make it more unique than a typical yacht which includes a lot of custom facilities designed to handle dogs, such as a puppy garden on an observation deck. In addition, there are features such as a garden that grows hanging and potted plants year round. 

My grandfather first took me fishing when I was too young to actually hold up a rod on my own. As an avid camper, hiker, and nature enthusiast I'm always looking for a new adventure.

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SCOUT yacht NOT for charter*

63.72m  /  209'1 | hakvoort | 2019.

Owner & Guests

Cabin Configuration

• Previous Yacht

Special Features:

• Guest elevator
• Impressive 4,800nm range
• Ice-class hull
• Two VIP cabins
• Lloyds Register Ice-Class classification

The award winning 63.72m/209'1" expedition yacht 'Scout' was built by Hakvoort in the Netherlands at their Monnickendam shipyard. Her interior is styled by English designer design house H2 Yacht Design and she was delivered to her owner in April 2019. This luxury vessel's exterior design is the work of H2 Yacht Design.

Guest Accommodation

Scout has been designed to comfortably accommodate up to 12 guests in 6 suites comprising two VIP cabins. Additionally, there are 2 staff cabins aboard. She is also capable of carrying up to 18 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

Her features include sauna, elevator, underwater lights, gym and air conditioning.

Range & Performance

Scout is built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, with teak decks. Powered by twin diesel Caterpillar (3512C) 1,575hp engines running at 1800rpm, she comfortably cruises at 12 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 15 knots with a range of up to 4,800 nautical miles from her 159,000 litre fuel tanks at 12 knots. Scout features at-anchor stabilizers providing exceptional comfort levels. Her water tanks store around 26,000 Litres of fresh water. She was built to Lloyds Register Ice-Class classification society rules, and is MCA Compliant.

*Charter Scout Motor Yacht

Motor yacht Scout is currently not believed to be available for private Charter. To view similar yachts for charter , or contact your Yacht Charter Broker for information about renting a luxury charter yacht.

Scout Yacht Owner, Captain or marketing company

'Yacht Charter Fleet' is a free information service, if your yacht is available for charter please contact us with details and photos and we will update our records.

Scout Photos

Scout Awards & Nominations

• World Yachts Trophies 2019 Best Layout Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Outstanding Exterior Motor Yachts - 50m and above Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Best Naval Architecture: Displacement Motor Yachts Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Best Interior Design Motor Yachts 500GT and Above Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Outstanding Lifestyle Feature Finalist
• Boat International Design & Innovation Awards 2020 Judges' Commendation For Holistic Design Winner
• The World Superyacht Awards 2020 Displacement Motor Yachts Between 1000GT and 1499GT Nomination

NOTE to U.S. Customs & Border Protection

Specification

M/Y Scout

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Distinct interior design, hardy explorer capabilities and bursting with personality: this is M/Y Scout.

A harmonious fusion of form and function makes for a yacht that fully embodies the spirit of adventure. Scout’s fun detailing and whimsical design approach, paired with a contemporary and practical layout, evokes a sense of nostalgia while remaining firmly anchored in the present. With an Ice Class hull, Scout is ready to explore all terrains.

M/Y Scout is the epitome of a refined life at sea

63.72 m / 209’09″ft

Jules Verne meets Ian Fleming

An extraordinary Hakvoort superyacht that seamlessly blends vintage maritime allure with imaginative design.

The collaboration between the shipyard, the owner’s team, and designers is evident in every detail, creating functional yet captivating spaces. SCOUT’s exterior highlights include a spacious sun deck with a magnificent Jacuzzi, while the main saloon exudes relaxed elegance.

Brochure Scout (pdf download 5,2 MB)

General plan Scout (pdf download 3,3 MB)

Specifications Scout

Full Description

Scout has been delivered in 2019 and measures 63.72 metres with a beam of 11.6 metres and a draft of 3.36 metres.

“The client was closely involved throughout the whole process and had a very clear idea of what aesthetic he was looking for both inside and out,” states Jonny Horsfield, Founder of H2 Yacht Design. “We were inspired by the underwater world, sea creatures, and this industrial, nautical design philosophy – with a hint of a Bond villain’s lair.”

Exterior design details such as SCOUT’s high bow, exposed tenders in the bow with cut-down bulwarks and integrated forward-sloping windows embody the trawler aesthetic of her design. Amongst some of SCOUT’s notable features include a helideck as well as an expansive sun deck complete with a large Jacuzzi and unobstructed views fore and aft.

In addition to a dedicated owner’s deck, SCOUT accommodates eight guests across four staterooms on the main deck, each designed with a specific nautical theme. 

Beyond its captivating exterior, SCOUT delights with an abundance of fun detailing and a quirky design approach. This infusion of personality adds a sense of whimsy and charm, setting the yacht apart from the ordinary.

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Yacht, IMO 1012816

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• Miscellaneous

The current position of SCOUT is at North East Atlantic Ocean reported 3 mins ago by AIS. The vessel arrived at the port of Dublin, Ireland on Jul 23, 08:42 UTC. The vessel SCOUT (IMO 1012816, MMSI 319154100) is a Yacht built in 2019 (5 years old) and currently sailing under the flag of Cayman Islands .

Position & Voyage Data

Map position & Weather

Recent port calls, vessel particulars.

SCOUT current position and history of port calls are received by AIS. Technical specifications, tonnages and management details are derived from VesselFinder database. The data is for informational purposes only and VesselFinder is not responsible for the accuracy and reliability of SCOUT data.

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Who is James Berwind and why is his $85m superyacht in Belfast?

Visitors to Belfast’s docks and Titanic Quarter may have been struck by the sight of a superyacht cruising up the Lagan this week.

The Scout is a 63 metre vessel valued at around $85 million (£67m), and has been popping up all around the island of Ireland in recent days.

It arrived in Belfast Lough on Wednesday and raised eyebrows as it sailed into Belfast Lough and docked next to the Odyssey.

The vessel has also been spotted in Cork and Dublin, just days after US Walmart heiress, Nancy Walton Laurie’s $300m superyacht took a similar tour up the east coast of the island.

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The boat belongs to James Berwind, a member of the US-based family-owned Berwind Corporation.

VIDEO: See inside the $85m superyacht moored in Belfast

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A member of the fifth generation of Berwinds involved in the business, the 59-year-old Florida resident is estimated to be worth around $500m.

His yacht, reportedly named after his dog, is estimated to cost between $5m and $8m per year to run.

The yacht was built by Hakvoort Shipyards in the Netherlands in 2018, with interior and exterior design work carried out by H2 Yacht Design in London.

The Berwind business, which dates back to 1886, was built on coal in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Almost 140 years on, the Berwind Corporation spans a multitude of business interests from pharmaceuticals and chemicals to plastics and resource management.

It also owns the TASI Group, which controls two dozen businesses worldwide, including Dundonald’s Sepha.

Set up in 1980, Sepha specialise in non-destructive leak test solutions, laboratory scale packaging solutions and deblistering machines for recovery of high value product.

It’s unclear whether James Berwind’s Irish coastal tour included a stop off in Dundonald.

It's understood the millionaire is currently on holiday in Ireland. His vessel remained moored in Belfast on Thursday evening.

Outside his business interests, the Florida resident’s interests include animal welfare and social causes.

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M/Y Scout: The Striking Black-And-Yellow Superyacht

The striking black-and-yellow Superyacht Scout is a very impressive vessel indeed. In this article, we cover some facts regarding the Superyacht, including her stats, design, and history. Read on to find out more.

The Process Behind Constructing Scout

Hakvoort built Scout in 2019, and H2 Yacht Design designed the vessel. The goal was to construct a capable, comfortable explorer in which to travel the world.

Before James Berwind purchased the Supyeryacht and named her Scout after one of his dogs, it was named ‘Project Zeus.’

Read more SYC: All About M/Y Marala: Winner Of The Rebuilt Yacht Category 2023

• Aluminium superstructure
• The sundeck features a shaded spa pool on the aft deck
• The main deck aft has sliding glass walls that create a winter garden, with overhead heaters if required
• The owner, a keen gardener, has his own greenhouse and potting shed aft on the bridge deck
• The exterior lounge area on the main deck has a fire pit, and the winter garden features a cocktail bar
• The main deck saloon features Giorgetti chairs and a sofa constructed on what appears to be a turbine
• Observation lounge
• A large globe in the observation lounge opens to reveal a bar
• A faux-riveted floor surrounds the lift and steel cable handrail

• Top speed: 14.8 kn
• Cruising speed: 12.5 kn
• Length: 63.72 m (in the top 5% by LOA in the world)
• Maximum cruising range: 4800.0 nm at 12.0 kn
• Can accommodate up to 10 guests (and a crew of 14)
• Gross tonnage of 1700.0 GT and a 11.6 m beam.

Alongside this, Scout carries a custom 8 m tender built by Cockwells .

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Scout Boats: The Story Behind the Marine Industry Leader

Scout Boats was founded by South Carolina-resident Steve Potts – a man that continues to this day to be on the shop floor daily working on the models – back in 1989. From the very first 14-footer to the now expansive offering of more than 20 class-leading models ranging from 17’- 42’, one of the many consistent items that sets Scout apart from other manufacturers is product quality.

Within the marine industry, there are numerous manufacturers producing all types of boats for consumers, but none with as much thought and effort as Scout puts into its models. Year after year, the Research & Development team create stunning new model after new model. So much so that Scout has introduced more than 25 new models in the previous six years alone. No one else in the industry has even come close. And not only are new models continually being developed, they are the most innovative, attractive and highest performing models in their class time after time.

Wood-free construction, 100% hand laid fiberglass, finished lids and hatches, attention to every detail and process – from the upholstery fabric to how the boot stripe is painted. They’ve even created a series of short videos that bring you into the facility and show you exactly how the boats are made differently, and made better.

Here are some great facts about Scout:

• Scout produces the most innovative, best looking, highest performing and most fuel efficient models in its class
• Scout is a debt-free company. They own the land they sit on, the buildings on this land, and even the transportation that delivers the models. Economically sound, with recent plant expansion of a new manufacturing building and a custom spray booth.
• Scout is one of the most respected boat builders in the marine industry, not only due to their cutting edge innovations, but also by the way they run their company and treat their employees.
• In its nearly 30-year history, Scout has established its presence and continually gains market share each and every year at a significant rate against competitors that have been around for much longer. Scout has revolutionized the coastal fish boat market.

Innovations

Scout models aren’t just stunning to look at…they’re also packed with many first-to-market innovations and features. Notable industry-first innovations over the years include:

• Reverse shoebox hull/deck design Scout pioneered the first reverse-shoebox hull/deck design, which increases overall hull strength and prevents water from penetrating through the hull/deck joint in rough conditions. The eradication of all wood in the manufacturing process is also a Scout trademark, as it produces rot-free composite stringers and transoms.
• Introduction of the industry’s first Hybrid model, as noted on Good Morning America Scout Boats are the highest performing and most fuel efficient boats on the water. Period. Their gas-saving hulls (like the NuV3 and Air Assist hulls) are coupled with state-of-the-art outboard engine advancements. These ultra-efficient designs allow them to create the most technologically-advanced models that offer the best strength-to-weight ratio of any boat in its class. And all Scouts offer piece of mind with 10-year limited hull and 3-year limited stem-to-stern warranties
• NuV3 hull design Scout’s NuV3 hull design is another engineering marvel. This ‘convex’ design is comprised of variable degree angles in the hull, offering immense fuel efficiency and the softest, driest ride in its class without sacrificing performance.
• Air Assist hull design Scout’s Air-Assist three-piece hull creates static stability, adds additional longitudinal buoyancy which enhances static floatation, decreases time to plane and vastly improves overall handling characteristics with the added benefit of increased fuel economy.
• Scout Stepped Hull Technology Scout’s Stepped Hull Technology achieves an approximate 10-15% performance increase over conventional hull designs with similar deadrise. By reducing the hull’s wetted surface, the overall effect creates a faster, dryer and better performing boat requiring less horsepower and increased fuel savings.
• Strata-Mount Engine Mounting System The “Scout Strata-Mount” is an advanced engine mounting system on select models. It’s comprised of a factory-molded bracket which allows for the two main longitudinal grid stringers to pass through the transom and be directly integrated into the engine mount. This allows for the natural stresses of the engine to be spread out over the entire hull, increasing strength, durability and performance.
• Patented T-Top/Glass Enclosure Scout has been first to market with its revolutionary T-top/glass enclosure, which was awarded a U.S. Design Patent. Scout redesigned the old style T-top/glass enclosure for a cleaner, more modern look, as well as incorporated tempered glass. The result is a more stylish, more user-friendly design that increases visibility, which in turn is also safer.

Performance with Class

You can’t talk about Scout without talking about its flagship model, the stunning 420 LXF. Scout’s LXF Collection is comprised of luxury sportfish models that showcase a unique blending of high-performance fish boats with high-end cruisers. The cross between these two popular recreational marine mainstays allows one to enjoy amenities on this collection normally only found on much larger sportfishers. The 420 LXF is the sixth model in this category to date, headlining the 255, 275, 300, 320 and 350 LXF models.

The 420 rivals even some of the larger luxury sportfishing machines with its appointments, technology and attention to detail. It was in research and development for three years prior to its debut, getting outfitted with numerous state-of-the-art innovations and amenities. Over 400 hours were put into testing the epoxy-infused double stepped hull developed for this model. Epoxy-infusion provides more stability in the hull while reducing the overall weight in the boat, countering the long term industry belief that a larger boat has to be heavy to perform. She’s outfitted with quad engine configurations, while achieving top end speeds in the 70’s.

Timeless styling, sleek aesthetics and technology are three main pillars of this flagship. Scout’s built a reputation for being first-to-market with innovations throughout its history, and the 420 carries the company philosophy forward with perks like the optional hydraulic port side beach platform with stowable pocket ladder – ideal for boarding/de-boarding safely away from the transom and engines – and the optional three Garmin 17” or 19” touch screens at the helm. (Three Garmin 8215 15” screens come standard.) From the helm and the key fob, the owner can control features throughout the model with the help of C-Zone digital switching technology as well. There’s also an optional SeaKeeper gyro stabilizer, flybridge, articulating rocket launchers that work in conjunction with the retractable SureShade, and a 5-N-1 second row seating configuration that won a marine industry innovation award.

Standard features throughout include a full transom walk-thru platform (with optional dive ladder); a side boarding door; gas shock-assisted hatches; flush mount cleats and rod holders; port and starboard floor fish boxes with overboard diaphragm discharge; a patented powder coated hardtop with curved glass enclosure; under hardtop/under gunnel LED lighting; a three-person aft facing cockpit seat; two retractable fresh water hoses; a retractable raw water hose; and Eco-Teak swim platform, transom door, bow table and helm footrest, just to name a few.

The boat also comes standard with a Garmin helm Wi-Fi router, Fusion stereo with eight seven inch speakers, amp, forward deck remote control and Bluetooth compatibility, a JBL Sound Bar in the cabin, AGM glass-pack batteries with two chargers, and dimming courtesy under bolster and hardtop lights. Other notable systems include an anchor windlass wash down hose, water heater, Kohler generator, electronic bow table with filler cushion, and air conditioning.

Access for service to the main systems on the 420 is made easy with the help of a midship systems room and a stern accessible room.

Down below, the appointments resemble the elegance of those on a private jet. You’ll find a two burner glass stove cooktop, microwave, flush mount 32” flat screen TV, DVD player, galley sink, drawer refrigerator, enclosed shower area with sump and an enclosed head area with a full size toilet and sink with hot and cold water. Stainless accents can be found throughout, while two single beds come together to make one large King berth. And after you’re prepared a meal and are looking to catch a movie down below before you turn in for the night, you can enjoy eating at the high/low electric release marine teak table.

The 420 also provides customizable features for its owner, such as custom painted engines and a SureShade integrated retractable awning. Underwater deck and bow cameras are available as well as underwater LED lights. Upgrade the standard upholstery package to the Brisa or Italia package, maneuver with confidence in tight spots with the proportional bow thruster, and enjoy a cockpit table or fighting chair alongside your optional electric grill.

For more information on Scout and any of its innovative model lineup; to request a brochure, quote or test drive; or to build your own Scout model, visit www.scoutboats.com today.

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64m Hakvoort explorer yacht Scout spotted in London

The 63.7-metre Hakvoort explorer yacht Scout has been spotted cruising along the River Thames in London following an extensive coastal tour of Scotland, Ireland and southern England. 

The vessel arrived in British waters in late May with multiple stop-offs along Dublin, Belfast and the Hebrides before eventually making its way to Tower Bridge over the weekend. 

According to BOATPro AIS data, Scout has scarcely had a moment to rest since emerging from a light refit at MB92's Barcelona facility in December 2022, where she promptly set off across the Atlantic to finish the winter season in the Caribbean. After a brief stint in West Palm Beach to provision, Scout embarked on her second transatlantic crossing within the span of six months for another fourteen consecutive days at sea.

Made of steel and aluminium, Scout was delivered in 2019 as the flagship vessel from the 100-year-old Hakvoort yard. She was designed inside and out by H2 Yacht Design with naval architecture completed by  Diana Yacht Design .

The explorer vessel was built for an experienced owner, whose brief included several cinematic references to classic films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Metropolis (1927). There is even an LCD monitor "skylight" in the main saloon that can be programmed with hundreds of images, taking inspiration from the underwater lair seen in the 1977 Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me .

According to the yard, the resulting yacht was meant to look like a conversion from a commercial vessel with a "strong vintage maritime aesthetic" that is "authentic to the owner's vision".

Other showstoppers onboard include a futuristic wheelhouse with a floating console, a mechanically unfolding bar in the observation lounge and even a bridge deck greenhouse. Meanwhile, five staterooms comfortably house a party of eight guests for long periods at sea, comprising four cabins on the main deck with a dedicated owner's deck above.

A true explorer, Scout also features a high Ice Class bow, a helideck and a hefty 4,800-nautical-mile range.

Scout is the latest in a string of high-profile superyachts to visit the capital city , such as the 110-metre Kaos this past May.

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He Was an Online Drug Lord. Now He’s a Crypto Entrepreneur.

After Blake Benthall was arrested for running Silk Road 2.0, the infamous illegal drug bazaar, things didn’t go the way you might expect.

Today, Blake Benthall runs a start-up that aims to help track digital currency transactions. Credit... Gili Benita for The New York Times

Supported by

By Ryan Mac and Kashmir Hill

Ryan Mac and Kashmir Hill covered the takedown of Silk Road 2.0 and Blake Benthall’s arrest a decade ago.

• July 24, 2024

At a cryptocurrency convention in Austin in May, Blake Emerson Benthall hustled for investor money alongside scores of other entrepreneurs. But none of them, it is safe to say, could pitch their experience as the leader of a multimillion-dollar criminal drug enterprise.

In the convention’s “Deal Flow Zone,” Mr. Benthall, 5-foot-4, cleanshaven and wearing a gray tee with his start-up’s logo, turned his laptop around at a lunch table and began giving his spiel to a bespectacled potential investor.

“I’m a lifelong entrepreneur,” Mr. Benthall said as he clicked through a presentation that detailed how he had run Silk Road 2.0 , the second iteration of the infamous online bazaar where 1.7 million anonymous customers signed up and used Bitcoin to buy methamphetamine, heroin and other illegal substances. He recounted his eventual arrest by the F.B.I. and the years he spent in the punitive employ of the federal government.

Now, with his sentence served and probation ended, Mr. Benthall, 36, is promoting a new business: a two-year-old start-up, Fathom(x), which aims to provide businesses and government agencies with software to track digital currency transactions and ensure legal compliance.

Mr. Benthall knows it’s rich for an ex-con to school companies about compliance. But in an industry crawling with hucksters and overnight experts, Mr. Benthall says his criminal experience can help unmask fraud before it leads to another scam like FTX , the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange whose founder is in prison.

While his business is far from proven, his presence at Consensus, the crypto convention, suggested that his decade-long path to legitimacy is close to complete. His story followed some surprising, sometimes baffling twists — from a Christian, home-schooled childhood to running a site that generated $8 million a month in illicit drug sales. Then, to pay for his sins, he spent nearly 10 years secretly helping the government crack down on crypto abuses.

It’s a journey that traces Bitcoin’s own evolution from a speculative digital currency associated with dark-web criminals to a Wall Street-approved investment asset. Even some of the skeptical government investigators who worked on the Silk Road cases have been converted into fervent crypto evangelists. One, a former F.B.I. agent named Vincent D’Agostino, even invested in Mr. Benthall’s start-up.

Consensus, which started the year after Mr. Benthall’s arrest with heady discussions about Bitcoin and blockchain among 500 techie types, has grown to an exposition of dozens of digital currencies and start-ups attended by more than 15,000 people. Some of them, like the venture capitalist who sat with Mr. Benthall, are looking for big returns in the industry’s ever-expanding goods and services.

After Mr. Benthall finished his pitch, he closed his laptop. The investor offered him a $150,000 handshake deal on the spot.

From Home-schooled Boy to Online Drug Lord

Mr. Benthall grew up in Houston, an only child, home-schooled by his parents, who were religious Christians. His mother, Sharon Benthall, a community college instructor, described her boy as “reserved, cautious and very bright.” His father, Larry, a software manager, would hold young Blake on his lap as he worked on a desktop computer that would eventually become his son’s preferred link to the outside world.

By age 7, Blake was making websites for hiccup cures and his Beanie Babies collection. At 14, he started a hosting company for online games with another teen he had met on AOL Instant Messenger. He used his mother’s PayPal account to order a computer server to the family home’s doorstep and promised to pay her back with his customers’ subscription fees.

“Looking back, there were some things that were just not normal,” Mrs. Benthall said.

His parents said they tried to rein in his internet use, but the young Benthall was hooked, finding online a camaraderie and thrill missing at church and Boy Scouts.

After briefly attending Florida College, a small Christian school near Tampa, Mr. Benthall moved to San Francisco in 2009 to chase his tech dreams. He worked for a start-up building a play-date-scheduling app for parents. It failed in four months.

He bounced back and forth between the Bay Area and Florida and from gig to gig, spending much of his free time going down internet rabbit holes. One of the deepest concerned Bitcoin, the digital currency then worth around $130 that allowed people to make anonymous online purchases. He read a 2013 interview with a mysterious figure calling himself the Dread Pirate Roberts who ran a site called Silk Road, a dark-web marketplace that trafficked mostly in illegal drugs. The site relied on Bitcoin and Tor, a software that anonymizes online identity to provide privacy to buyers and sellers — and authorities seemed helpless to do anything about it.

Mr. Benthall liked the idea of browsing the internet without his activity being linked to his computer. He downloaded Tor.

One October afternoon in 2013, Mr. Benthall was at an Equinox gym in downtown San Francisco when he saw breaking news on the overhead television: Law enforcement had taken down Silk Road and arrested the Dread Pirate Roberts, whose real name was Ross Ulbricht.

Mr. Ulbricht, 29, was a fellow Texan also living in San Francisco. He was arrested at a library within walking distance of Mr. Benthall’s home in the Mission District.

Mr. Benthall didn’t use drugs and had never visited Silk Road, but, gripped by the news that authorities had seized 26,000 Bitcoin, he quickly finished his workout and hurried home to indulge in “dark net popcorn,” as he put it.

The F.B.I. had already taken Silk Road offline, but the site’s forum was still active. Some users were freaking out about being identified and arrested, but to Mr. Benthall’s surprise, others were already talking about starting a new drug marketplace. Believing that the chatter could be erased at any moment, Mr. Benthall used a computer program to save the forum’s posts.

Thus began Mr. Benthall’s new career. A Silk Road moderator who saw that data was being copied from the forum demanded to know who was responsible. When Mr. Benthall revealed himself over an anonymous chat service, the moderator peppered him with technical questions and eventually offered Mr. Benthall $50,000 in Bitcoin to build a new site.

Collaborating on an illicit narcotics bazaar while the authorities snooped around sounded like a bad idea, but Mr. Benthall was low on money. He was interviewing for a job at SpaceX, Elon Musk’s up-and-coming rocket manufacturer, but didn’t have an offer. He convinced himself that the Silk Road gig was just some temporary coding.

“At 25, I didn’t understand conspiracy laws,” Mr. Benthall said. “I could be this nameless behind the scenes dev guy. It felt like very low risk.”

Nor was he thinking much about the criminals the site might be abetting or the harms associated with freewheeling drug use. Mr. Benthall bought into the libertarian argument made by the Dread Pirate Roberts that Silk Road could reduce the dangers associated with narcotics by allowing users to rate their product and sellers.

He spent the next three weeks coding what would become Silk Road 2.0, which opened a month after Mr. Ulbricht’s arrest.

Mr. Benthall planned to walk away, but the moderator who had hired him offered a 50 percent split of the profits if he continued running the site’s servers.

“I was definitely aware that it was illegal,” Mr. Benthall said. But the site received 100,000 sign-ups on its first day. “It was a great feeling like, oh, people are finally using something I’ve built.”

Then he got an offer from SpaceX to start as a flight software engineer in December. The pay wasn’t great, and he would have to commute from the Bay Area to the company’s Southern California headquarters every week, but he took it because it was his “dream job.” He was now doubly employed.

A Double Life

Silk Road 2.0 grew rapidly, but Mr. Benthall’s partner, later arrested and identified as a 19-year-old who lived in England , wanted out. Mr. Benthall had to choose between shuttering the marketplace or running it alone.

“I took over full leadership,” Mr. Benthall said. “Here I am, you know, suddenly in charge of the largest website selling drugs in the world, like overnight.”

The work kept him up through the night, and he struggled to focus at his day job. At one point, he crawled into a prototype of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule spacecraft to nap in the middle of the day.

By night he was raking in money. Silk Road 2.0 took a roughly 8 percent cut of every transaction, so he was making as much as $500,000 a month, part of which he used to pay a dozen anonymous users to help him with customer service.

In January 2014, he treated himself to a $127,000 Tesla Model S, paid for in Bitcoin. He lived it up, flying in turboprop planes to Lake Tahoe, attending the Coachella music festival and sharing spectacular views from boats on his Instagram account.

He never took the laptop he used for his dark net life into SpaceX, worried that corporate security would discover what he was up to. While he was at SpaceX one day in February, hackers broke into Silk Road 2.0 and stole Bitcoin worth about $2.7 million. He overheard a co-worker commenting on the hack in the company cafeteria: “Can you believe the idiots who relaunched this stupid site?”

Soon after, SpaceX fired Mr. Benthall for poor performance.

Mr. Benthall threw himself headlong into his criminal enterprise. The site announced that it would take no profits until customers were made whole.

As people continued to use the marketplace, Mr. Benthall relied more on his team of anonymous customer service agents. He said he felt a sense of responsibility to keep the site operating, in spite of the hacks, the constant work and his fear of the law.

But the law was closer than he realized.

Among the anonymous users whom Mr. Benthall hired to help with customer service was Jared Der-Yeghiayan, an undercover agent from the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Der-Yeghiayan had helped investigate the original Silk Road, posing as an eager community moderator to gain the trust of Mr. Ulbricht. Now he had to do it all over again.

Mr. Der-Yeghiayan knew Mr. Benthall only by his pseudonymous handle, Defcon, and he was impressed by Defcon’s technical acumen.

The agent burrowed into the Silk Road 2.0 operation over several months, but the breakthrough came from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Around this time, the researchers developed a method to expose the locations of the servers used to host dark websites that Tor had sought to obscure. Federal authorities subpoenaed their findings and were then able to tie Mr. Benthall’s name to the machines hosting Silk Road 2.0.

When investigators did a Google search and saw that Mr. Benthall had recently worked for SpaceX, they assumed someone had stolen his identity. They joked that “an actual rocket scientist” was operating the site, said Gary Alford, an I.R.S. agent who worked on the case.

They put Mr. Benthall under surveillance for five months to collect more evidence. Then, on a November afternoon in 2014, as he pulled away from his house in his Tesla, three vehicles blocked him in. Federal agents emerged and put him under arrest.

Mr. Der-Yeghiayan and Vincent D’Agostino, an F.B.I. agent from New York who had also worked on the original Silk Road case, led him back into his house, sat the handcuffed Mr. Benthall on his bed and got to work.

During the months of surveillance, Mr. D’Agostino felt as if he had a pretty good handle on who Mr. Benthall was. He’d read his forum posts, seen his tweets and watched him perform in a college cover band on YouTube. He didn’t strike Mr. D’Agostino, who previously worked the organized crime beat, as a hardened criminal.

Nor did he seem to the investigators to be cut from the same cloth as Mr. Ulbricht, a radical libertarian skeptical of government authority. Mr. Ulbricht, who was accused of commissioning the killings of five people he believed would reveal his operation (none of whom died), was eventually sentenced to life in prison for narcotics trafficking. (Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump recently said he would pardon him if elected.)

Mr. Benthall, on the other hand, didn’t seem dangerous. His main interest, Mr. D’Agostino said, seemed to be “making the site better.”

“Builders want to build, and sometimes builders lose sight of the context of what they’re doing,” Mr. D’Agostino said. “The just sheer joy of building something is the high that they get.” Those skills, he thought, could be useful to the government.

So inside Mr. Benthall’s apartment, Mr. D’Agostino and Mr. Der-Yeghiayan told Mr. Benthall that they knew he was Defcon and showed him chat logs that he thought had been long deleted. They told him they had already raided his parents’ home in Houston and urged him to cooperate.

Mr. Benthall knew he was in deep trouble. “I need to convince them that I am not a monster,” he said of his thinking at the time. After taking a moment to pray, he agreed to hand over the digital keys to the site and its Bitcoin wallets and huddled in his bedroom with the investigators past midnight, filling in gaps in their knowledge about how Silk Road 2.0 operated. He couldn’t name names, because everyone involved was anonymous, but he did create a tool to extract data they wanted from the site.

“There was an immediate remorse from him,” Mr. Der-Yeghiayan said, “and I felt like it was genuine.”

Working With the Feds

Mr. Benthall spent the first nights after his arrest in an Oakland jail, after a federal prosecutor, Katie Haun, argued against bail . At a hearing, a judge told him he faced a minimum of 10 years in prison. He was eventually moved to Queens Detention Center in New York, where he would be prosecuted.

A couple of weeks after his arrival, Mr. D’Agostino checked Mr. Benthall out of the detention center and took him to a windowless interrogation room in the F.B.I.’s office near Chinatown. After handcuffing him to the desk, the agent put a laptop in front of him and asked him to provide technical help. Mr. Benthall typed away with one hand, offering answers.

“It was a very high-pressure hackathon for my life,” Mr. Benthall said, realizing that he was being offered a rare opportunity.

The authorities’ raid on Silk Road 2.0 was the first of dozens of seizures of dark-net marketplaces . The F.B.I. was “drowning in data,” Mr. D’Agostino said, and needed someone with technical skills to help make sense of it.

With the blessing of federal prosecutors, the investigators began discussing a cooperation agreement with Mr. Benthall’s lawyer, Jean-Jacques Cabou. If Mr. Benthall assisted the government, a judge might, at some future point, grant him a more lenient sentence. “Most of the time you couldn’t afford someone like that in government,” said Mr. Der-Yeghiayan.

The meetings continued. Soon, Mr. Benthall was being left alone in the locked F.B.I. interrogation room to work, the handcuffs off but needing a chaperone to go to the bathroom.

One day, Mr. D’Agostino handed him a polo shirt to wear instead of his blue prison top. They drove to a mall in Queens and sat in the food court with their laptops. Mr. D’Agostino even gave the inmate a $5 bill and allowed him to roam the food court. The F.B.I. agent watched him as though Benthall was “a young child,” and asked for his change after Mr. Benthall came back with a Wendy’s coffee.

“Your goal is to slowly and gradually build a relationship with this person so that we can trust them more and with more information,” Mr. D’Agostino said.

In July 2015, Mr. Benthall pleaded guilty to four counts, including narcotics trafficking and money laundering. He signed a cooperation agreement formalizing his commitment to work for the government. After eight months of incarceration, Mr. Benthall was permitted to move to an apartment in Queens. He became a full-time, ankle-monitor-wearing cybercrime consultant, paid in freedom and a stipend that covered dollar pizza slices, toothpaste and subway rides.

Mr. Benthall helped investigate large-scale corporate hacks, traced Bitcoin transactions to try to identify criminals and even conducted a training at the F.B.I.’s office in Quantico, Virginia. “The U.S. government holds a ton of cryptocurrency, and keeping it all safe is a real concern ,” he said.

Mr. Benthall considers himself lucky that he had the skills the government needed at the right time. But Brian Farrell, who served six years in prison for his role as DoctorClu, one of the anonymous moderators Mr. Benthall once employed, views it as fundamentally unfair that he, “someone lower on the totem pole,” served a much harsher sentence.

Mr. Benthall generally declined to discuss specifics about his government work. He mentioned only one case: an individual who threatened to bomb a New York City school unless they were paid in Bitcoin. Mr. Benthall helped identify the person, he said, by tracing their crypto wallet address. (The F.B.I. declined to comment because, a spokesperson wrote, “there are no public documents detailing the actions by Benthall.”)

His quasi freedom came with paranoia. “Once you’re surveilled by a nation-state, it really changes the way you see the world,” he said. He felt he was being constantly monitored, and he feared being identified by angry Silk Road 2.0 customers. He went to therapy, paid for by the government.

But he also resumed something like a normal life. He sang and played guitar at open mic events. He started going to church again and made friends. But he kept his past hidden. Everyone knew him as Emerson, his middle name.

Michael White was then the executive director of CityLight Church in the East Village, which Mr. Benthall attended. “Because of my role as a pastor, people were typically an open book with me ,” said Mr. White. “But here comes this guy who I know his name is Emerson, but I know zero other details about him.”

A New Beginning?

Over the next five years, Mr. Benthall worked alongside some of the same agents who had taken down Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0. But as time went on, some of those government employees left for the private sector — more specifically, the crypto industry — as Bitcoin went mainstream and surpassed $10,000.

The most prominent was Ms. Haun, the federal prosecutor who had argued against Mr. Benthall’s bail. She joined the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz in 2018 to invest in crypto companies and raised her own $1.5 billion fund four years later.

Mr. D’Agostino, who had started out as a Bitcoin skeptic, came around to the idea that it was going to “change the world.” He set up Bitcoin-mining software at his home and eventually left the F.B.I. to join a private security firm, offering help to companies hit by ransomware attacks. Mr. Der-Yeghiayan now works for Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company.

As the authorities around him departed, Mr. Benthall wondered how much longer he would be tethered to government service. Technically, he was out on bail, but he had not been sentenced, and there was no set end date for his penance.

Daniel Richman, a former prosecutor and a law professor at Columbia University, said Mr. Benthall’s arrangement was uncommon, but it does happen in cases where someone’s “culpability has been deemed enough to prosecute, but not so much as to pose a risk while he’s out . ”

“It sounds like indentured servitude,” Mr. Richman added. “But it ends up being beneficial for both sides.”

The Covid-19 pandemic offered Mr. Benthall a potential escape. When everyone stopped going to the office in early 2020, Mr. Benthall asked a judge if he could live and work from his parents’ home in Houston.

The spring of the next year, hoping he had done enough, Mr. Benthall asked the court to formally sentence him for his crimes. In March 2021, he and his parents flew to Manhattan for the hearing.

Sitting in his suit and ill-fitting dress shoes, Mr. Benthall received the sentence he was hoping for: Time served with three years probation, during which he was required to keep working for the government, unpaid, as needed. The decision remained under seal, and Mr. Benthall avoided talking about it for fear of jeopardizing the arrangement.

Still, he had a criminal record, which made finding work difficult. He needed to pay back his parents, who had dipped into their retirement funds to cover his legal bills. He also had become a father while he was cooperating with the government.

After three job offers were rescinded, Mr. Benthall decided to start Fathom(x) in the spring of 2022. It was, he said, the fulfillment of a “lifelong dream” to be a founder — a legitimate one, this time.

Fathom(x)’s pitch is simple: It will verify whether a company has the cryptocurrency it claims to have and whether it’s clean. Its founder sees his years of government work as enhancing his credibility. He is also pleased to have Mr. D’Agostino as an investor in Fathom(x). “I made the agent who arrested me, a believer in me,” Mr. Benthall said.

The two men had stayed in touch over the years after Mr. D’Agostino left the F.B.I. When Mr. Benthall was still living in New York, Mr. D’Agostino invited him to a backyard barbecue where they sang karaoke.

When Mr. Benthall founded the start-up, he called Mr. D’Agostino for advice. The former F.B.I. agent wanted to invest. “The person I’m talking to now is not the person I arrested 10 years ago,” said Mr. D’Agostino.

Mr. Richman, the former prosecutor and law professor, was uncomfortable with that investment. “I don’t like the idea that when you’re working as an agent with a collaborator, there’s even a glimmer of a possibility that the two of you will be in business,” he said.

Mr. D’Agostino is not the only former “co-worker” Mr. Benthall has encountered in his new life. He has pitched his software to government agencies, including the I.R.S., where Mr. Alford, the Silk Road investigator, still works.

“It’s just so weird how life works like that,” said Mr. Alford, recalling a video meeting in which Mr. Benthall gave a presentation to him and other I.R.S. agents. While felons aren’t barred from working for the federal government, John Pelissero, a government ethics expert at Santa Clara University, said he was surprised that Mr. Benthall wasn’t placed on a “do-not-hire list” as part of his sentencing. Mr. Alford did not say if the I.R.S. is using Fathom(x).

Mr. Benthall won’t reveal his customers, nor how much the start-up has raised from investors. Fathom(x) is tiny, employing just two contractors, but Mr. Benthall said it is profitable.

He has also begun to grapple with the harm he might have caused to people by running a site that trafficked in dangerous goods. When he was living in New York, the overdose death of a new friend made him feel certain that, given the large number of Silk Road users, someone must have been hurt using narcotics they bought there.

On the way to the crypto convention, Mr. Benthall used his middle name when ordering at a coffee shop, partly out of reflex and perhaps partly because he’s still figuring out how to confront his past. He imagines that when he does start using his full name, one of his victims may confront him.

“People have every right,” he said. “So I am bracing myself for some really hard conversations.”

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

Ryan Mac covers corporate accountability across the global technology industry. More about Ryan Mac

Kashmir Hill writes about technology and how it is changing people’s everyday lives with a particular focus on privacy. She has been covering technology for more than a decade. More about Kashmir Hill

Inside the Biden Administration

Here’s the latest news and analysis from washington..

Funding for Climate Projects: The E.P.A. announced $4.3 billion in funding for 25 new projects proposed by states, tribes and local governments to tackle climate change, which could reduce greenhouse gas emissions  by 971 million metric tons by 2050.

A Fight Over Medicaid: A fierce battle with Georgia over a Medicaid experiment with stricter enrollment underscores the vast divide between parties  over how to cover lower-income Americans.

Slash Plastic Use: Calling plastic pollution one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, the Biden administration said that the federal government, the biggest global buyer of consumer goods, would phase out purchases of single-use plastics .

Limit Rent Increases: A proposal to make landlords’ tax breaks contingent on rent limits has drawn industry pushback , progressive applause and some alternative approaches.

Student Loan Payments: The Biden administration is pausing student loan payments  for eight million borrowers enrolled in its new repayment plan, known as SAVE, after a federal appellate court issued a ruling temporarily blocking  the program.

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