At last the Hamburg shipyard Blohm and Voss has delievered the biggest and the most expensive in the world yacht Eclipse to it's owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. This wonderful moment took place one year later than planned.

The fact of the prolonged yacht construction has pleased tourists and residents of Hamburg. The big yacht in the dock attracted the worldwide attention. The numerous boats has been passing the Elbe as close as possible to the Eclipse, so the tourists could take a picture of Abramovich's new "toy". But the real show was its trials in the sea, as the yacht could turn around with the help of two tugs only. And there is no doubt it was an interesting spectacle! The 557-foot Eclipse comes with features including two helipads, a submarine, multiple hot tubs, 24 guest cabins, two swimming pools, several hot tubs and a disco hall. According to Wikipedia, it also comes equipped with three launch boats, and a mini-submarine that is capable of submerging to 50 meters. Approximately 70 crew members are needed to operate the yacht. For security, Eclipse is fitted with intruder detection systems and a German-built missile defense system, also the master suite and the bridge are fittered with bullet-proof glass and both are armor plated. There is also an anti-paparazzi electronic "shield", that detect any charge-coupled device and shine a light right at the camera to prevent taking a normal picture. This yacht is the largest yacht in the world, beating the 532-foot yacht Dubai, owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Eclipse is longer than the standard soccer field and its almost 20 meters bigger than the largest class of frigates Bundesmarine Sachsen.

The construction of the ship took 5 years. The original plan implied to pass the yacht to the customer in December, 2009, but it became possible only now. There are many reasons for this delay. Abramovich intoduced many changes during the work, these intentions took many time and incrased the value of Eclipse. For example, one of the helipads had to be moved for a few meters. There are rumors that the lenght of the vessel has been increased twice to overshadow the world's largest boat Dubai. Also the shipbuilders had their own technical problems during the shipbuilding.

Eclipse is estimated at 400 million euros. The half of this price is the cost of the interior design. Terece Disdale is the favourite Abramovich's designer, he prefers to use very exotic materials such as leopard skin, river pebbles and fossils of ancient piece of wood. It's interesting to note that the walls of the bedroom are covered with shockfish skin.

Abramovich, the Russian oil magnate, ranked by Forbes as the 11th richest man in the world, with $18.2 billion, has an armada that would rival some national navies. Abramovich's private fleet consists of three motor yachts: Eclipse; Pelorus; and Sussurro. According to the Internet sources, he gave his previously-owned Le Grand Bleu to his associate and friend Eugene Shvidler in June 2006. He also sold his yacht Ecstasea in June 2009, to an unknown American.

As it was noticed by Megayachts Interntet resourse, "with Eclipse Abramovich is not only setting a new high-water mark in the "mine-is-bigger-than-yours" world of mega-yachting. He's also helping to solidify the reputation of the Russians as the new world leaders of global conspicuous consumption. The gusher of oil money and flood of cash from commodities has created a steady stream of new oligarchs, even as the rest of Russia struggles with poverty, high mortality rates and widespread corruption. The average life expectancy in Russia is now 66 years — 14 years below the European Union average."

Meanwhile, the shipyard Blohm and Voss just started to work on another Russian order, that will cost only 150 million euros. It is said that this is another Abramovich fad, but he could possibly may not be the customer.

Sources:

www.rg-rb.de
www.flb.ru
www.megayachts.ru
www.wikipedia.org
www.huffingtonpost.com
Ksenia Dzha