How rich Russians are racing to hide their yachts from sanctions

That’s where the party has ended for Abramovich and his boat-owning comrades. A marine cat and mouse has begun as Russian oligarchs hurriedly sail their prize possessions across the world to avoid seizure by governments enforcing sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More than a dozen have already sought refuge in the Maldives, Dubai and the Seychelles, beyond the reach of western sanctions and the US president Joe Biden’s KleptoCapture task force that is specifically targeting private yachts. Last week Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said officials were trying to establish the ownership of a “small number of yachts moored in this country”, in case they were connected to people on the sanctions list.

Sailing Yacht A, owned by Andrey Melnichenko, was sanctioned and seized in Italy

STEFANO RELLANDINI/REUTERS

Normally the end of March heralds the annual superyacht two-week transatlantic migration to the Mediterranean, the yachts sailed over by the crew or shipped in large marine transport vessels. This would be followed by a frenzy of preparation before owners fly into places such as Sardinia’s Porto Cervo or Monaco by private jet. Top of the stops is normally the Amalfi coast, where pastel-hued villages drip from vertiginous clifftops and fresh platters of risotto ai frutti di mare are served at the water’s edge.

A typical Italian yachting itinerary would feature boats hopping around the volcanic Aeolian Islands, famed for their undulating landscapes, then dropping anchor at the foot of Stromboli to enjoy the sight of its fiery, lava eruptions by night. But there will be no strolling through Positano’s steep and winding streets, enjoying Sorrento’s far-reaching vistas across the Bay of Naples and quaffing unlimited carafes of chilled rosé from the on-deck Jacuzzi for the Russian boat owners this year.

The Italian government has wasted little time seizing sanctioned owners’ yachts found in their waters. The steel and mining businessman Alexei Mordashov’s 65.5m superyacht Lady M, thought to have cost £42 million to build, was impounded in Imperia. The private investor Gennady Timchenko’s 52m superyacht Lena, for which he took delivery in 2020 and which has an infinity pool, spa and 90 sq m sundeck, was seized in San Remo. And the billionaire industrialist Andrey Melnichenko’s iconic 143m Sailing Yacht A — its sleek lines drawn by the starchitect Philippe Starck — has been sequestered at the northern port of Trieste. Built by Nobiskrug in Germany, the £445 million vessel is the world’s largest (power-assisted) sailing yacht, though it’s rarely spotted travelling under sail.

Abramovich’s Eclipse, which recently left the Dutch Caribbean island of St Maarten, is at present cruising off the coast of Italy. Eclipse isn’t Abramovich’s only boat. He also owns Solaris, which is 25m shorter than Eclipse but has a helipad, multiple swimming pools and an unfathomable level of comfort for 36 guests and 60 crew. Solaris left the port of Barcelona for Tivat, Montenegro, on March 9. It got out just in time. Six days later, Spanish authorities seized the 85m superyacht Valerie (reportedly chartered by Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in July last year), which was docked in Barcelona and belongs to Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB officer who heads the state conglomerate Rostec.

Yachts at sea are legally required to show their co-ordinates or risk being in breach of international maritime regulations — and yacht spotters will be familiar with the app Marine Traffic. (It has enabled the American teenager Jack Sweeney, who began by tracking the movements of Elon Musk’s private jet, to show the Russian oligarchs’ yachts via his now trending Twitter account @RussiaYachts.) But not all yachts are traceable. There’s a growing collection of yachts that have “gone dark” (four at the last count), including 70m Galactica Super Nova owned by Vagit Alekperov, president of the Russian oil company Lukoil. The yacht ceased to broadcast its tracking signal shortly after departing from Montenegro on March 1.

Wherever they turn up, the superyachts may not be enjoying their usual summers of indulgence. The four biggest superyachts at present located in the Maldives, anchored off the capital Malé, are all Russian owned. They include the steel magnate Viktor Rashnikov’s 150m Ocean Victory, with its six swimming pools, a floodable tender garage and underwater observation room. But it won’t be all sunshine and coconut cocktails because from late April the Indian Ocean’s wet weather arrives. Any boat spending the summer here will be enjoying wind, storms and entire days, if not weeks, of rain.

And those that remain in the Caribbean, such as the 81m Alfa Nero, owned by Andrey Guryev, founder of Europe’s largest phosphate fertiliser manufacturer, and now sanctioned by the EU, may soon run into problems when the Caribbean’s winds arrive. The Alfa Nero is docked in St Maarten, along with the 113m Le Grand Bleu, which is thought to be owned by Eugene Shvidler, another billionaire. Shvidler has not been sanctioned but a private jet linked to him has been impounded at Farnborough airport in Hampshire.

Montenegro has long courted the yachting fraternity, buoyed by the delights found at the luxury superyacht marina Porto Montenegro. Nestled in the Bay of Kotor, a Unesco world heritage site, it is flanked by 295km of arresting coastline, rewarding all yachts that visit with a picturesque marina village, high-end hotels and private residences that come with their own yacht berths. Though late to the party, Montenegro joined the EU’s sanctions on Russia on March 1. And Abramovich’s Solaris is certainly on the move again. It is predicted to be heading for Israel where Abramovich was granted citizenship in 2018 and owns a mansion in the central city of Herzliya. He was sighted on March 14 on Tel Aviv airport CCTV.

Montenegro’s craggy neighbour, Croatia, with its island-strewn Adriatic shore, was a popular 2021 destination for charters (those who don’t own yachts can spend hundreds of thousands of pounds for a holiday on board one) thanks to its swiftness to reopen to travel during the pandemic. A yachting holiday in the east Mediterranean normally starts in Venice, before heading to Croatia’s cluster of 1,000 isles and ending at Montenegro’s delights. It’s where the Russian businessman Dmitry Kamenshchik’s 136m superyacht Flying Fox — the largest and most expensive charter yacht in the world — is scheduled to spend this summer. However, it is still moored at Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic.

Flying Fox costs a mere £2.5 million per week to charter (not including food, fuel and extra fancies). It has a 400 sq m two-floor spa with the first cryo-sauna to be installed on a yacht, a small fleet of nine tenders, an outdoor kitchen with rotisserie, barbecue and multiple teppanyaki grills (because one is never enough). Then there is the onboard hospital. Oh, and the professional dive centre with a three-person decompression chamber. Previous charterers include Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who were spotted cruising the French Riviera aboard Flying Fox in September last year.

The yacht is normally staffed with 54 crew comprising sports instructors who are former Olympic athletes and dive instructors who are former Marines. All the crew have military experience, favoured for the discipline that it brings, not to mention extra security measures. Kamenshchik has not been sanctioned — although life is becoming increasingly difficult for any ultra-high-net-worth Russian, sanctioned or not.

Lena, owned by Gennady Timchenko, was also sanctioned and seized in Italy

FABRIZIO TENERELLI/EPA

Dmitry Rybolovlev, owner of France’s Ligue 1 football club AS Monaco, has also not been sanctioned and has announced donations to the Monaco Red Cross to provide aid in Ukraine. His yacht, the 110m Anna, is anchored at Canouan Saint Vincent in the Grenadines. Rybolovlev’s second boat, meanwhile, the sailing superyacht Skorpios, has already arrived in the Adriatic Sea, having set sail from Antigua after winning the monohull category of the Royal Ocean Racing Club Caribbean 600 race last month.

A question mark remains for guests looking to charter a Russian yacht this summer as to whether there will be any crew left to supply the expected seven-star service. Several yacht crew are rumoured to have walked off Russian-owned boats in the Caribbean. One Ukrainian crew member tried to sink his Russian owner’s yacht — Lady Anastasia, owned by Alexander Mijeev, another employee of the arms supplier Rostec — while it was docked in Mallorca, before departing to join the fight in Ukraine.

Monaco is also a favourite Mediterranean yacht spot, gifting handfuls of Michelin-starred restaurants and a generous sprinkling of haute couture. Come May, when the historic Monte Carlo Grand Prix comes to town, superyacht owners of all nationalities, including Russians, jostle for the most coveted trackside berths in the world. Further along the coast, Cap-d’Ail sits pretty against a Mercantour Alps backdrop. Across the Bay of Cannes lie the Îles de Lérins, where perfumed eucalyptus forests cloak the cluster of islands. And in Nice, the heart of the Côte d’Azur, velvet sands of the Baie des Anges beckon. It’s near here that Igor Sechin’s 86m yacht Amore Vero was impounded on March 3 in the small fishing port of La Ciotat.

A yacht of Amore Vero’s size would make quite a stir in a place like La Ciotat, but oligarchs’ boats tend to make a stir anywhere they go, because although Russian-owned yachts are estimated to account for just 10 per cent of the total yachting market, they dominate the upper end of the size bracket. From the total fleet of Russian-owned superyachts, only about 20 are available for charter. The rest are reserved for private use, such as the sanctioned business magnate Alisher Usmanov’s 156m superyacht Dilbar — the largest yacht in the world by volume thanks to a 15,917 gross tonnage, at present in Hamburg. Dilbar’s 80-strong crew and captain have reportedly resigned after sanctions meant wages could not be paid. The port says the boat has not been seized but it is unlikely to be going anywhere.

Free to roam is the Russian banker Oleg Tinkov, who has not been sanctioned and who has spoken out against the invasion. Before the invasion he was a billionaire but the invasion of Ukraine, and sanctions against Russia, caused a 90 per cent drop in the value of his bank’s shares. Tinkov’s 77m La Datcha, which is in Mexico, has not one but two helipads. Any superyacht worth its salt will carry a smorgasbord of the latest and greatest water toys, from flyboards and e-foils to inflatable waterslides and climbing walls, not to mention a small army of towables designed to whip guests into an adrenaline-fuelled frenzy. Four-seater banana, anyone? But La Datcha was designed to venture further and encourage guests to dream bigger. Built by the Dutch shipyard Damen, it’s an ice-breaking feat of engineering. It’s also the only yacht to offer charters in the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka where virgin-powder heli-skiing is the order of the day, and two helicopters are a legal prerequisite.

What will the sanctions mean for shipyards like Damen, which is working on two new yacht builds for Russian owners? And what of the small nation of crew around the world who are on the front line of yacht seizures and may well be in breach of sanctions if they continue to provide services to a yacht? That complex web of intricacies is yet to be determined, although a handful of super-sized, partly built yachts (whose Russian owners may imminently default on payments) could soon be available to buy at a shipyard near you.

With most of Europe off the holiday menu for Russians, there is always Russia. Although it is yet to gain destination status among the yachting elite, even with Russian owners. That’s apart from Graceful, a superyacht built at a shipyard used by the Russian navy and that many believe belongs to Putin (it spends a convenient amount of time anchored near Putin’s holiday house in Sochi), which moved from a repair yard in Hamburg to Kaliningrad, a Russian Baltic port, two weeks before the invasion. But what was once considered an off-the-beaten-track region may soon become one of the only areas left to oligarchs and their yachts. Best get snow boots and vodka at the ready.