The costs of the Sailing Yacht A's detention in the Gulf of Trieste are rising rapidly.
The cost to the Italian state for the maintenance of the mega sailing yacht, which in the meantime, for the first time in two years, left Trieste for just 24 hours last week, is estimated at around 18 million.
Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko's sailing yacht 'A', which has been seized and docked in the Gulf of Trieste for exactly two years because it was included in the European Union's blacklist of Russian assets following the invasion of Ukraine, is once again in the news on this anniversary.
The Trieste chronicle of The small Recall that Melnichenko argued that the yacht is not his property but rather a trust managed by an independent trustee, who has no connection with him. On this basis, the European Court of Justice would be responsible for ruling, and the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (TAR)—where the state-ordered freeze has been challenged—has requested a preliminary ruling from this body as early as April 2023.
The three-masted sailing yacht designed by Philippe Starck, almost 143 meters long – second in the world only to Jeff Bezos's Koru – and valued at approximately 530 million euros, is still under the direct control of the Italian state, which is responsible for its maintenance, and has cost the state approximately 18 million euros to date.
The issue of the burdensome cost of yacht maintenance on the Italian State has been frequently reported by the press, including international ones, underlining however its inadequacy for the purposes of its effectiveness given the fact that for a vessel of this kind the annual expenditure should be around 50-60 million euros, therefore much higher than that sustained today; in this regard in recent months even news had come from the website Luxurilaunches that Melnichenko himself, to avoid damaging A, wanted to contribute to its proper maintenance.
The latest news learned from the Youtube channel of eSysman SuperYachts Instead, they concern a move of A from the port of Trieste that occurred between Wednesday and Thursday last week due to bad weather, which led to the belief that it would be safer to temporarily divert the megayacht from the Trieste dock—where it has been moored for two years—to a quay in the port of Venice. The unexpected journey was escorted by Guardia di Finanza vessels (including GDF222) and would have lasted 24 hours for the outward and return journey.
A is currently moored again at the quayside of the port of Trieste, protected by an ordinance that prevents any vessel from approaching.
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE SUPER YACHT 24 NEWSLETTER
