Lürssen Yachts in Bremen, Germany, announced today that it has launched the 590-foot Azzam, which officially, well, eclipses the 536-foot Blohm + Voss Eclipse as the world’s largest luxury yacht.
Multiple news reports indicate that the cost to build Azzam is $620 million. Lürssen said the project has thus far taken 28 months since the initial steel was cut, and that Azzam is on schedule to be delivered to her owner after sea trials and detailing are complete.
“When she will be delivered later this year, she will have been in build for only three years following one year of engineering,” Lürssen Managing Partner Peter Lürssen stated in a press release. “She truly represents another milestone in not only our history but yachting history as well.”
Azzam’s sheer size is breathtaking. She would span the length of more than two city blocks in most parts of Manhattan. Looked at another way, she’s the length of about 11 railroad shipping containers laid end-to-end along a straight track.
Azzam is expected to have a top speed of more than 30 knots, driven by two diesel engines plus two gas turbines that combined provide 94,000 horsepower. That is just shy of the 100,000 horsepower generated by the world’s largest reciprocating engine, the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C. That engine is 89 feet long and 44 feet tall, and weighs more than 2,300 tons. It is designed for large container ships.
Not to be outshined in the size department, the beam of Azzam is 68 feet, and her draft is 15 feet, 8 inches. The main salon alone is 95 feet long by 59 feet wide—with an open layout and no pillars. That’s right: If the Middle Eastern owner of Azzam wanted to do so, he could have a “regular size” motoryacht model as a sculpture in his formal living room.
The exterior of Azzam is by Nauta Yacht Design, which is based in Milan, Italy. Its brief was to create a yacht with strength of character and a sense of purpose, as well as with timeless elegance and incorporating all elements of contemporary and modern design.
Interior décor is by French designer Christophe Leoni, whose brief was for Empire style, meaning early 1800s neoclassicism that emerged under the rule of Napoleon. (Think Arc de Triomphe and Bonaparte’s bedchamber at Versailles.)
The technical project management for Azzam is by Burgess Yachts. Mubarak Saad al Ahbabi is the overseeing engineer who assembled the team that created the yacht, from concept through construction.
Click here to see more photos of the Azzam.
