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Super-yachts like that reportedly ordered by Indian-born steel baron Lakshmi Mittal are a badge of power, often built amid intense secrecy so that the proud owner can personally flaunt his new plaything to an astonished world.
Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns the Chelsea football club, reportedly owns three. He took the 115-metre-long Pelorus to the World Cup in Germany, docking it on the Baltic and using the Pelorus’s own helicopter to fly off to the games.
There has been no independent confirmation yet of a report by the German weekly magazine Wirtschaftswoche that Mittal is the customer for Project Number 971 at the Hamburg shipyard Blohm and Voss, one of the two German yards that dominate the business.
The 94-metre vessel would cost billionaire Mittal nearly $200 million, the magazine said.
The shipyard, a unit of engineering group Thyssen Krupp, reportedly won the order thanks to its superb secrecy. It is set to deliver the vessel in spring 2009 after building it in a covered dock that is in the heart of Hamburg, but away from prying eyes.
The boat’s interior decoration would be by London design firm Michael Leach, which specialises in all-glass bars and the like. As with Pelorus, the vessel will be provided with its own helicopter. A heli-deck with elevator will lower the aircraft below the main deck.
Blohm and Voss, which also builds warships, routinely refuses to answer media queries about its super-yacht construction, with one employee saying, “This is even more secret than defence orders.”
Even the website of Blohm and Voss, a unit of Thyssen Krupp, offers far less information than that of its rival, the Bremen shipyard Luerssen, which publishes dozens of images of the flashy vessels.
Luerssen, which also makes naval craft, built the Rising Sun, which at 138 metres is rated by the New York-based magazine Power & Motoryacht as the world’s biggest privately owned super-yacht.
A year ago, Mittal was reportedly shown three times around the Rising Sun, delivered in 2004 to US billionaire Larry Ellison. That led to speculation Ellison was already tired of his toy, but no sale had been reported.
The Calcutta newspaper Telegraph said Mittal already has a yacht, which is sometimes used by his son, Aditya Mittal.
Super-yachts — the biggest of the category are dubbed “mega-yachts” — have little in common with sports yachts as they have no sails. They have large crews of both sailors and stewards.
While thousands of people turn up to stare at these ultimate badges of power when they visit port and jet-setters vie for invitations to parties on board, super-yacht owners miss out on the camaraderie of boating.
At marinas such as Port Grimaud in the south of France, mere multi-millionaires compare their assets every summer as bikini-clad beauties sun themselves on the decks of huge white launches.
But mega-yachts do not fit in many marinas and must often anchor offshore in splendid isolation, lowering tenders to shuttle visitors on board. In the Baltic port of Luebeck last month, Abramovich docked at an historic quay.
The German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt reported that Abramovich was said to be shopping in Hamburg for a fourth boat.
At 150 metres it would nearly rival the unfinished, 160-metre Dubai, which is being fitted out in the Gulf for Dubai’s crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum after a stop-start history. Royal yachts are excluded from the Power & Motoryacht rankings.
The newspaper said the Russian had been piqued to hear that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, whose 127-metre, 2003 super-yacht Octopus rates as the world’s second biggest private boat, was also planning to upgrade to a 150-metre yacht.
The unconfirmed report in the newspaper said that Abramovich, not to be outdone, immediately increased the size of his order to 160 metres.
· Jean-Baptiste Piggin
