Oligarch’s paradise boat visits Marbella

ONE of the megayachts previously owned by Chelsea supremo Roman Abramovich docked in Marbella on Friday, July 8.

Launched in 2000, Le Grand Bleu is one of the largest private yachts in the world at 113 metres in length, and Abramovich bought it from US businessman John McCaw Jr in 2002, refitting it to his own opulent inclinations, which included installation of a five-metre swim platform.

The whopping watercraft can accommodate up to 20 well-to-do guests, with 35 crew members on hand to attend their every need, while the addition of a ‘beach club’ to the port side in 2010 saves passengers from the guttural wailings of the poor by eliminating the need to disembark for sun tanning purposes.

The boat also boasts a pair of additional vessels which are carried on the aft and fitted with their own individual cranes, one a 22-metre sailing yacht and the other a 21-metre speedboat, while there are also two helipads on the roof.

Abramovich is so ludicrously minted that he simply gave Le Grand Bleu to its current owner, his friend and business partner Eugene Shvidler, in 2006.

He won’t be worried, though, since the yacht’s eye-watering value of €81 million pales in comparison when compared with his current nautical squeeze, Eclipse, which is said to have cost €340 million and comes with its own anti-missile defence system, plus a paparazzi-zapping laser that scans the horizon for cameras and fires beams of light into their long lenses, destroying them completely.