It is bold, sleek and so large that it dwarfs everything else around it. It is also the answer to the question “what does a man do with his money when he is worth more than £6 billion?”
For the Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko, the answer is to build the largest sailing yacht in the world.
He has already built the extraordinary Motor Yacht A, the Philippe Starck-designed monster that stunned the sailing world with its radical design.
Not content with one seaborne revolution, Mr Melnichenko, 43, whose wife, Aleksandra, is a Serbian ex-model and singer, has now turned his attention to sail power. Sailing Yacht A is, in the words of the magazine Boat International, “a monument to invention”.
It is also very big and very expensive.
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Strictly speaking a sail-assisted motor yacht, it is 142 metres long, and has the largest masts ever made. Built by the British company Magma Structures, the 50-tonne masts involved years of research and testing, with the largest of the three masts being 100m above the water line.
The yacht has some quintessentially Starck-like features. For instance, the angled section at the top of the masts, like a tick at 45 degrees, is purely stylistic. It has no function.
The yacht, which is just under 25m across at the widest point and has eight decks, represents an investment so far of about £300 million, although Mr Melnichenko, who started off in banking before diversifying into energy, mining and other industries, hopes to recoup some of that by exploiting the technological innovations on the boat.
The yacht, which was designed by Starck after he replaced the original designer, Jacques Garcia, uses several techniques never seen before in the shipbuilding industry.
“It will be one of the most technologically advanced boats on the ocean,” Mr Melnichenko’s spokesman said.
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It features the largest piece of curved glass ever made, 15m by 1.2m, or 18 sq m, which runs along one of the decks instead of railings.
The German company that made it also made the glass for the underwater observation pod, which is at the stern of the yacht, 8m below sea level. The three sails cover a total of 3,747 sq m — larger than a football pitch.
Work on the project began in 2008. “He wanted to create a massive sailing yacht on a motor yacht hull,” Mr Melnichenko’s spokesman said.
“It is not about having the biggest boat. It is about doing something that is beautiful, that is absolutely different and technologically advanced. He wants to do something that has never been done before.”
Starck, who also designed the superyacht Venus for the late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, said: “I am honoured and happy to bring to life the owner’s dream of what will be the summit of high technology and poetry.”
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Built at the Nobiskrug shipyard in Germany, the yacht, which will have a crew of 54 and accommodate up to 20 passengers, is about to start sea trials, and is scheduled to be launched late next year.
Few details are known yet about her interior, beyond that it is bound to be spectacular. Motor Yacht A features a dance floor in a room with a glass ceiling, which is the bottom of a swimming pool on the deck above, one of two pools on board.
She also boasts six luxury guest suites — each with its own whirlpool bath — a helipad and fingerprint recognition technology to open doors.
However, Mr Melnichenko, who owns the Harewood estate at Ascot, Berkshire, will no doubt be hoping that the final delivery will not be marred by the same disappointment that marked the completion of Motor Yacht A.
He complained that the finish on the paintwork looked cloudy, and sued the owner of Dulux, AkzoNobel, for £62 million.
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The case is understood to have been settled.