North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s largest luxury watercraft was seen on Monday being towed towards his sprawling Wonsan mansion complex on the east coast, according to NK Pro analysis of Planet Labs satellite imagery.

The custom 80-meter-long (260 ft.) luxury yacht — which features dual twisting waterslides and a multi-story lounge area — hasn’t been seen in use since Kim apparently had it completely renovated over the course of several months in 2020 in the middle of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

The boat is one of four similarly huge luxurious watercraft observed in recent years near Kim family properties around Wonsan, including a new beach villa complex built on the Hodo peninsula in 2019.

The waterslide yacht’s rare appearance away from its typical parking spot in the central Wonsan bay could be a sign that Kim Jong Un is in the region, since Kim was confirmed to be in Wonsan on two of the last three occasions it came out since 2018. Two of his other luxury boats also came out earlier this month to park at his main Wonsan mansion and at Tae Island off the Wonsan-Kalma coast just after his most recent public appearance in Pyongyang on May 6. 

The last time the waterslide boat was seen parked at the main Wonsan mansion’s private beach was in Aug. 2019. Kim Jong Un was busy guiding four major missile tests from in and around Wonsan that month, and he was only publicly revealed to have left the area on one occasion during that time — for another missile test from the west coast on Aug. 6.

In 2018, the waterslide yacht left its typical parking spot in the central Wonsan bay only twice: first for a short stint in early August at Tae Island, and again at the same spot for a month from late October to late November. Kim Jong Un was confirmed in the Wonsan area in late October that year, but not during the early-August stint.

Kim’s largest luxury watercraft appeared to leave its typical parking spot on May 24. | Image: © 2021 Planet Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission. Edited by NK Pro.

The boat has been in the Kim family for decades, but there is little known about its current state aside from what can be observed in satellite images.

Italian pizza chef Ermanno Furlanis, who was brought in to North Korea to cook pizza for former DPRK leader Kim Jong Il in 1997, apparently saw the waterslide yacht from a distance and described it as “a semi-mobile, floating amusement park … which was able to anchor in different places every day.”

Meanwhile, DPRK state media has spent this month pushing a new propaganda campaign that extols former leader Kim Il Sung for living in a “modest mansion” and reportedly rejecting luxurious amenities. The campaign also promotes Kim Jong Un as a noble leader for recently demolishing Kim Il Sung’s old mansion to build a new district of “luxury homes” for Pyongyang’s working class.

Edited by Arius Derr

Updated at 16:50 KST on May 31: Commercial satellite imagery was unavailable for later in the day on May 24 as well as May 25, making it difficult to determine the waterslide boat’s final destination after it left the central Wonsan docks. It then appeared back at the docks in Planet Labs imagery on May 26.