If you walked into a room and met Colin Jost and Pete Davidson, it would be pretty obvious who the more serious person is, right? The Saturday Night Live vets own a retired Staten Island Ferry boat, the John F. Kennedy, a $280,000 purchase they made together in 2022, along with other investors. Recently, the two hosted a comedy show on the boat and, by all accounts, it was a success. That doesn’t mean boat ownership has been all good for the investors. Davidson, for one, is grateful that Jost is involved. Otherwise, they’d be in trouble.
Both Jost and Davidson bring a very different kind of energy to the partnership, it seems. It’s Jost, naturally, who does all the serious stuff. Jost, a Harvard grad and the head writer on SNL, is certainly the one of the two you’d expect to take on the heavy lifting. Speaking about the event, Davidson praised Jost, telling People:
I’m so glad we have Colin because he’s so fucking smart. Without him, I think we would be in a lot of trouble. He talks to the Maritime people.
Jost added that he’s still learning the ins and outs of boat ownership, but it seems like he’s pretty into it.
Most people, when they buy their first boat, buy something smaller. Maybe a water ski boat or a small fishing boat. Not Jost and Davidson. Instead, they went big. Really big. Guys named Musk and Bezos might own big yachts, but even those pale in comparison to a Staten Island ferry, which the duo has nicknamed “The Titanic 2.” That means the hole in the ocean that boat owners throw money into is equally big, and while Jost and Davidson have managed to get the boat seaworthy and up to code, it’s come with struggles, along with some jokes from Jost’s wife, Scarlett Johansson.
Some have even said that the two should just sink the boat and make it an artificial reef. Speaking as a scuba diver myself, I can get behind that idea, but Jost and Davidson have very different plans. They want the boat to be an event space, and now they’re off and running in that aspiration. It’s a goal I can also get behind. I’ve seen a couple of concerts on boats in New York City, and it’s a very cool way to see a show.
That plan is going to cost them a lot of money, and there are sure to be many more jokes on SNL at their expense, but it sounds like Jost has a pretty good grasp of all the work (and cash) that the boat will be, and his partner is confident that Jost is up for the challenge.
