Eclipse Yacht
Megayacht Eclipse
The mega-yacht
Eclipse (above and below) may look as large as a warship, but
it isn't.
Eclipse is in fact larger than a warship. The U.S. Navy's Arleigh
Burke class of destroyers are 505 feet (154 meters) long and displace less than
10,000 tons.
Eclipse, a private yacht, is 533 feet (163 meters) long and displaces about 13,000
tons.
While
Eclipse lacks cruise missiles and torpedoes, it does have an
early missile detection system that gives time for the yacht
to change course or for the VIPs to escape.
Eclipse is equipped
with a submarine that can dive to 160 feet, two helicopters and helipads, a
medical ward, and armor plating and bulletproof windows around the yacht's bridge
and the owner's suite.
Eclipse also has a discotheque, a movie theater, a fitness center, an aquarium, two swimming pools,
several jacuzzis, and fourteen luxury suites that can accommodate up to
twenty-eight guests, who are served and protected by a crew of seventy.
Eclipse was designed by Terence Disdale of Surrey,
UK and built by Hamburg, Germany's Blohm & Voss, which also
built the megayachts
Enigma/
Katana
and
Dubai, as
well as Bismarck, the German Navy's legendary 50,000 ton battleship that
could have changed the course of the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II had its rudder not been jammed
at the last minute by one nearly-obsolete British biplane
torpedo bomber.
Eclipse is owned by Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who also
owns two 377 foot mega-yachts,
Luna
and
Pelorus. When Abramovich received
Eclipse in 2010 for $485 million, it was the world's largest yacht, a
title that passed to
Azzam in 2013.
A resident of the United Kingdom with ties to Russian
president Vladimir Putin, Roman Abramovich also owns the
English Premier League's Chelsea soccer/football team and is protect
around-the-clock by a private army of forty armed guards, more than the number
of Secret Service agents who accompany the U.S. president on some outings.
How much did Abramovich overspend on his 485
million dollar yacht?
