Dubai Yacht
Dubai's interior is unique
even among
megayachts. The showpiece of
Dubai's
interior is a stunning spiral staircase (right),
whose color-changing glass steps turn it into a kaleidoscopic seven-story
stairway to
heaven when natural light floods
into the yacht from the top deck.
Designed by the Interior Design and Decoration
department of Platinum Yachts,
Dubai's
interior, which features many lounges, dining rooms, hot tubs,
etc., accentuates
esthetics and relaxed socialization over adrenaline pumping ocean-going
adventures. Among
superyachts,
Dubai is more a Rolls Royce than a Range Rover.
But that's not to say that
Dubai is all relaxation and no games, as
the yacht does have
two water toy rooms full of aquatic sports gear, used mostly by the grandchildren
of the current owner, who is approaching 70 years of age.
The yacht that eventually became
Dubai was originally commissioned in
1995 by Jeffrey Bolkiah, the troubled prince of Brunei, but its
construction by Germany's Blohm & Voss Shipyards, which built
Zeus
and Roman Abramovich's
Eclipse,
and Lürssen Yachts, which built
Paul
Allen's Octopus, David Geffen's
Rising Sun, and Alisher Usmanov's
Dilbar
II, stopped even
before the hull and superstructure were completed.
In 2001, the yacht's unfinished hull and superstructure were bought by Mohammed bin al Maktoum,
the emir of Dubai and the vice president of the United Arab Emirates,
when he was still the crown prince. Mohammed bin al Maktoum commissioned
Platinum Yachts to turn the hull and the superstructure into today's
Dubai.
That work took five years, and when delivered in 2006, the 531 foot (162
meter)-long, $400 million
Dubai became the world's longest and the
most expensive yacht - a title that passed onto
Eclipse
in 2010,
Azzam
in 2013, and will soon pass to the
Gigayacht.
Dubai can carry over a million liters of fuel, has a range of 8,500 nautical
miles, and four MTU 20V 1163 TB93 engines that generate a combined thrust of 33,000 horse power,
enough for the 9,150 ton megayacht to reach speeds of up to 26 knots (above). But
Dubai has been moored next to the summer palace of al Maktoum to
serve as a floating palace for his children.
How did al Maktoum 400
million dollar yacht
affect the children?
