Eclipse

On my return to work this morning I passed a monstrosity of a yacht moored in Hamilton Harbour. It was flagged as Bermudian, with 'Hamilton' written in neat letters on it's stern. 

The yacht is called 'Eclipse' which rang a bell with me and after a Google, I remembered that the 533 ft, $1 billion super yacht belongs to a certain Roman Abramovich. 'Eclipse' is one of the Russian gazillionaire's five boats but the one sat in Hamilton just outside of my office window is the world's largest private yacht, 1 ft 8 in longer than the 'Dubai,' which belongs to Sheikh Mohammed. It is ladies all about the length.

Abramovich's super yacht arrived here last Tuesday I am told and no one is sure whether the Chelsea owner is here, or was in fact in Docksiders on Saturday morning watching Chelsea get beat over a bacon sandwich and a pint of Guinness.

One person told me that Abramovich was due to fly in and land on one of at least two helicopter pads, the details of the inside of the yacht are a bit of a secret, but it is said to have two swimming pools, steam room, disco, library, a private submarine, six-foot movie screens in all guest cabins, 20 jet skis and some 6,000 sq ft of living space and a full sized football pitch for Roman to explain tactics with whoever is the Chelsea manager (I made that last one up by the way).

The 'Eclipse' is in it's first ever visit to the country of it's nationality. Many, many private vessels are registered with a flag of convenience such as Bermuda which asks nothing more than some money to protect the owner's privileges and details and of course offers a nice little tax advantage. I was thinking I might take a run at getting on later but with it's 70 crew, motion sensors, armour plating, anti-paparazzi shield, special missile detection defense system and missile-proof windows I might give it a miss and get the ferry home instead!