Roman Abramovich’s £1.2m a week yacht

Fancy something different for your holiday this summer? Cruise the Med in Russian billionnaire Roman Abramovich's super-yacht the Eclipse - it will only cost you £1.2m a week.

It seems I'm not the only one to find the cost of running a yacht increasingly prohibitive (see Blowing it', passim). In recent years, even oligarchs have started to rent out their mega-yachts to help with the vast running costs. The latest to join the group is Roman Abramovich. He is offering the chance to relax on his 533ft Eclipse for a mere £1.2m a week.

I made the mistake of buying a boat some years ago. Over the years I have enjoyed brief trips on it. Mainly, though, I've ploughed in a lot of money vainly attempting to keep the vessel seaworthy. But my costs pale into insignificance compared with the money involved in keeping Eclipse out of the dry dock. The world's largest private yacht cost Abramovich £300m to build. It's so big that when it turned up unannounced in Venice last month, locals and tourists complained that it was ruining the city's best views. It chews up an estimated £50m a year just in running costs just filling up with fuel will set you back £400,000.

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