Gigayacht Nord passes through Hormuz despite crisis
Despite US sanctions, the 142-meter hull built by Lürssen in 2021 is sailing freely in the Persian Gulf
The nearly 142-meter-long Nord gigayacht, launched in 2021 by the German shipyard Lürssen, crossed the Strait of Hormuz on the night of April 24-25, departing Dubai for Muscat, Oman. Tracking data processed by MarineTraffic left no room for ambiguity regarding the vessel's route, which traveled one of the world's busiest and most geopolitically sensitive shipping lanes. The vessel is believed to be owned by Alexey Mordashov, president of Severstal, a Russian steel and mining giant, and is listed on the US blacklist in 2022. The vessel's estimated value, according to a shipping broker cited by CNN, is at least $500 million.
The transit through Hormuz is taking place while Western sanctions against the assets of Russian oligarchs remain formally in place, but are showing increasingly evident operational flaws. The Nord is not the first vessel linked to Mordashov to come under scrutiny: in 2022, Italy seized the Lady M Yacht, a vessel attributed to him, in the port of Imperia, as part of the asset freezing measures ordered by the Financial Security Committee pursuant to the EU regulation on sanctions against Russia.
The superyacht Nord, however, has remained beyond the reach of European authorities. Built in 2021, it had already left Western waters before the sanctions were tightened. Since then, it has been operating in a geographical area—the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean—where the application of US and European restrictive measures remains essentially theoretical. The United Arab Emirates, the port of departure for the transit, has not joined the sanctions regime and continues to attract vessels of this profile.
Technically, the Dubai–Muscat route via the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most direct sailing options for vessels of this size operating in the Gulf. With a draft and length that are out of scale with many ports in the region, the available ports of call for a 142-meter vessel are further limited, making Muscat a suitable destination, as it can accommodate vessels of this size and operates in a jurisdiction that has not joined the Western sanctions regime.
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