On their way home from a trip to Croatia, someone spotted something odd in Italian waters. "This $600.000.000 dollar yacht was sitting in trieste on my way home from Croatia in october 2024," the original poster shared to the r/Sailing Reddit forum.
The yacht in question is Sailing Yacht A, owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, per SuperYacht Fan. It's the world's largest sailing yacht, with eight decks and room enough for 40 people. It costs about $60 million annually to maintain even while seized by the EU since 2022, according to Luxury Launches, and uses a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system when fully operational.
Why the hatred? Well, there are plenty of reasons, but one unignorable downside is its environmental impact.
Don't let Sailing Yacht A's hybrid system fool you. While hybrid motors are environmentally beneficial in cars, the toll superyachts take on the planet far outweighs any possible positives.
It takes a massive amount of energy just to keep a ship of that size running. According to Oxfam, superyachts are exempt from EU carbon pricing and International Maritime Organization emissions rules, allowing them to release even more pollution than they would otherwise.
In 2024, Oxfam conducted a study on 23 superyachts, estimating that each one released 5,672 tons of carbon annually. It would take an average person over eight centuries to reach that level of pollution.
Plus, this yacht doesn't count as a true sailboat. As one commenter pointed out: "It is a Sail Assisted Yacht as it cannot fully power itself to hull speed without a motor."
Though Sailing Yacht A technically isn't running, it could still be doing damage. Another sanctioned superyacht, dubbed the "floating fortress," needs one ton of diesel daily just for routine maintenance.
"Sailing Yacht A has become an expensive burden for its captors," Luxury Launches said. "Maintained by a skeleton crew of around twenty, funded entirely by the Italian state, this dormant giant continues to drain resources. Three years of immobility for a ship of this magnitude has led to astronomical bills."
Commenters were not happy to see it. "What was it someone in here said a long time ago? 'A yacht so ugly it lowers property values around the marina'?" one joked.
"If you're getting down votes, it's nothing personal. We all hate this thing," another said.