Photos show luxury boat with 50m pool and water slides near Kim Jong Un's summer retreat
What stands out is the 50m swimming pool along the deck, with a cluster of waterslides at one end.
After sitting idle for months at a maintenance facility, it relocated in early July to waters off a strip of coastline known as the Kalma Peninsula.
Former North Korean officials, defectors and experts say it would be difficult for anyone unconnected to the regime's leadership to own or freely use vessels of this size.
When summer came, they would bring them out and move them to Kim Jong Un's villa or towards Kalma, and use them for swimming and recreation," says Ri Jong Ho.
Most North Koreans, according to a 2025 UN report, live under "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations" with total state control, widespread forced labour, and chronic food shortages that leave an estimated 40% of the population undernourished.
Wonsan is where Kim Jong Un spent part of his childhood with his mother, according to biographers and intelligence reports, and one expert told the BBC the city has been associated with the family since his father Kim Jong Il's rule.
A defector who served for 13 years guarding residences used by then leader Kim Jong Il - through the 1990s to the early 2000s - told the BBC the villas around Wonsan were used as a retreat by the elite.
North Korean state media rarely publishes reports about Kim being on holiday, instead framing such visits as official inspections or guidance.
But defectors interviewed by the BBC appeared to be aware that the family spent holidays in Wonsan, suggesting that at least some North Koreans knew about it.
North Korean state media also claims Wonsan is home to high-rise hotels, restaurants, shops, sports facilities and water parks, and can accommodate nearly 20,000 visitors.
State media and Russian outlets have published images of small groups of Russian tourists visiting the Wonsan Kalma resort, which opened in July 2025.
A South Korean news report, citing an unnamed source, says some locals were offered four-night tour packages for around $100, a substantial sum for most North Koreans.
The country's per capita GDP - around $667 in 2024, according to the UN - is a small fraction of South Korea's $36,227.
Defectors told the BBC that workers, office employees and cooperative farmers are legally entitled to 14 days of annual leave, but this is rarely followed.
The BBC tracked four large vessels around Wonsan, measuring approximately 50m, 55m, 60m and 80m.
All four vessels repeatedly appeared around Kim's Wonsan villa this year.
Two of the other vessels - 50m and 55m - were repeatedly seen until the end of August around Tae and Sin islands, close to Wonsan.
Satellite imagery expert Jeong Seong-hak said the smaller boats ferried people, fuel and supplies to the larger vessel, adding that small islands like Tae and Sin offered "secluded maritime retreats where privacy can be maintained away from public view".
The 60m vessel was repeatedly seen near Kim's Wonsan villa until as recently as last week.
Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who visited the North in 2013, told The Sun that he had spent much of his seven-day visit with Kim Jong Un around Wonsan, where they went jet-skiing and horse riding.
"Kim Jong Un is supposed to be a 'leader of the people'," Ri Jong Ho says, "yet he has four luxury vessels like these while ordinary people are struggling just to get one meal a day."