8.4Billion on a yacht? A solid gold yacht?

By definition, "plating is a surface covering in which a metal is deposited on a conductive surface." This usually involves acid baths and electrical currents. I doubt plastic reacts well to either.

Look further into plating of non-conductive materials. Look into "electroless" plating, look into vacuum depostion. There are many ways to plate materials other than the old fashioned definition you provided. A lot has changed since the 1940s.

Uhz. I almost got used to reading BusinessInsider at times (as per OPs link), but it quickly developed that ugly yellow'ish hue that really makes it... hard to palate with a sober mind. Dang shame, was good site while it lasted.

It took three years to complete and is covered in 100,000 kilograms of precious metals, according to The Daily Mail.
+
http://goldprice.org/charts/gold_3d_b_k_USD.png

= 53,500 x 100,000 = 5,350,000,000

aka 5,3 billion. Which is still ridiculously short of 8,4.

I believe, depending on the country, multiplying by 10's is somewhere around 3-4th year of prelim. Making *cough* some nonsense-writing apes *cough* mathematically inferior to 10 - year -old children.

Yeah, but you didn't include labor!

Oh shame on me! As it goes, labor should roughly equal materials, right?