The battle of the super yachts
From Too Much weekly, Oct. 25 2010
Back in 2003, Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen’s newly constructed 414-foot yacht, the Octopus, rated as the world’s longest pleasure boat.
Allen’s boat would soon lose that distinction to United Arab Emirate sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, whose yacht, the Dubai, runs 531 feet.
Now the Dubai is playing second-fiddle to the recently completed Eclipse, the latest plaything of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. The length of the Eclipse: 533 feet.
Does Abramovich fear that some jealous yachtsman is going to try to blow his boat out of the water? Could be. TheEclipse, Forbes noted last week, boats a “military grade missile defense system and an escape submarine.”