A new yacht, the Azzam, designed by engineers from the German shipbuilding company Lurssen, has taken over the title of the world's largest super yacht, according to CNN. A yacht owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich previously held the title.
The Azzam is 590-feet long, which is 57-feet longer than Abramovich's yacht, the Eclipse. The yacht is much longer than a football field, and larger than the U.S. Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, as well as many cruise ships.
The ship was launched from a shipyard in Germany, where a team of tugboats guided it out, after being kept secret throughout its three years of construction.
The owner of the ship is unknown, though it's speculated to belong to a Middle Eastern billionaire.
The yacht cost $605 million to build, not accounting for the extremely high cost of yearly upkeep, a cost that author G. Bruce Knecht described, saying, "operating and maintaining a yacht is at least 10 percent of what the thing cost." Using that equation, the Azzam will run $60 million a year to maintain.
"The yacht is still under construction, and I doubt that we will get permission to shoot her even when she is ready," a spokesperson for Lurssen said.
Experts on yacht believe the interior may be more opulent than the yacht owned by Abramovich, which is itself equipped with two helipads, two swimming pools, a cinema, a disco and a mini-submarine that can dive to 150-feet to explore the ocean floor. It also has bulletproof glass and armor plating in the master bedroom, as well as its own missile defense system.
"For a yacht of this size, I think that she looks amazingly elegant and sleek," Peter Seyfferth, of TheYachtPhoto, said.
The yacht can travel at over 30 knots, which is about 34 mph, which makes it the fastest super yacht.
The Azzam isn't the first yacht to overtake the title, which has been traveling along a line of ships, from the Prince Abdulaziz, at 482-feet prior to the Eclipse, and the Rising Sun before that, a yacht that runs 454-feet long and cost $200 million.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
