M/Y A was delivered in 2008 at 119m LOA, built by Blohm+Voss in Hamburg, designed inside and out by Philippe Starck, and reportedly built at a cost north of $300M. She has never chartered. She has never been listed for sale through a brokerage. And the question of who owns her, where she sits, and what she means as a design object has been argued continuously for 18 years. We are not going to settle that argument here. We are going to lay out what is publicly verifiable, what is not, and why a yacht that is permanently off the charter and brokerage market still shapes the way clients think about the 100m+ class.
Specifications
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| LOA | 119.0m (390.4 ft) |
| Beam | 18.9m |
| Draft | 5.1m |
| GT | 5,955 |
| Year built | 2008 |
| Builder | Blohm+Voss, Hamburg |
| Naval architect | Martin Francis |
| Exterior and interior design | Philippe Starck |
| Class | Lloyd's Register, MCA Large Yacht Code |
| Flag | |
| Guests | 14 in 6 cabins |
| Crew | 37 |
| Main engines | 2 x MAN diesel-electric, 9,650 kW total |
| Top speed | 24 knots |
| Cruising speed | 19 knots |
| Range at 19 knots |
The design argument
The first thing every yacht editor wrote about A in 2008 was that she looked like a warship. That was the point. Starck and Francis designed her with a tumblehome hull, a knife-edge plumb bow, and an almost complete absence of curved superstructure surfaces. The 2008 brief was reportedly "stealth," not "luxury," and the result reads more like a destroyer concept than a Mediterranean charter yacht. Whether you regard that as great industrial design or a 119m design joke depends on your priors. We think she is one of the four or five most important superyacht designs of the 2000s, even if we would not have specified her for a charter brief.
The interior is the part most people argue about less because most people have not seen it. Published images show heavy use of stingray skin (the Starck signature), a circular bed in the master that rotates, and a flooring system in the saloon that is fully glassed. The pool on the foredeck reportedly has a glass bottom that doubles as a skylight to the disco below. The master cabin is 230m² and was, at delivery, the largest single owner's cabin afloat. Several of those interior choices have aged. The rotating bed has aged worst.
The build
Blohm+Voss delivered A at a time when the yard was simultaneously delivering Eclipse, Dilbar I (the predecessor to the current 156m Dilbar), and naval programs for the German Navy. The yard's 2005-2010 superyacht orderbook is probably the most concentrated run of significant deliveries in the 100m+ class to date, and A was the most divisive of them. The hull and superstructure were built in Hamburg, with outfitting at the same yard. Martin Francis, the naval architect, also did the engineering on Larry Ellison's Rising Sun and was the architect on the 162.5m Eclipse. He is a Blohm+Voss regular for a reason.
The diesel-electric propulsion configuration is interesting in retrospect. A was using diesel-electric in 2008, well before the rest of the 100m+ market accepted that hybrid propulsion would be the default for the next generation. Whether that ages her well or whether the system has needed expensive intervention depends on data we cannot independently verify, but the configuration itself was forward-thinking.
The ownership question
A was built for Andrey Melnichenko, the Russian businessman behind fertiliser group EuroChem and coal group SUEK, and his wife Aleksandra. That part of the story is not contested. The contested part begins in 2022, when Melnichenko was placed on EU and UK sanctions lists in response to the invasion of Ukraine, and the ownership structure of A and her larger sister Sailing Yacht A became the subject of multiple jurisdictions' enforcement action. Sailing Yacht A was impounded in Trieste in March 2022 and remains under Italian administration as of May 2026. M/Y A has been the subject of less public action, in part because of ownership-structure complexities that we will not pretend to understand fully.
For a charter or buyer audience, the relevant fact is that A is not on the market and is unlikely to be. If she ever comes to market, she will come with an ownership-history disclosure pack that will price her like nothing else in the 100m+ class. We would expect at least a 40% discount to comparable 119m hulls of her age, and we would expect a long closing on flag and beneficial-ownership grounds.
The two yachts called A
Worth saying clearly because it confuses people. M/Y A, the subject of this piece, is the 119m motor yacht delivered 2008 by Blohm+Voss. Sailing Yacht A, often shortened to S/Y A, is the 142.8m sail-assisted yacht delivered 2017 by Nobiskrug. Same owner, same designer, different yard, different category, different decade. Anyone selling you "A charter" is selling neither, because neither charters.
For comparison, Sailing Yacht A has eight decks, three carbon-fibre masts (the tallest 100m), an underwater observation pod, and 12,558 GT. She is the largest sailing yacht in the world by a wide margin and has not moved under her own power since 2022.
What needs work
The five things we would have argued with Starck about in the design review, with the benefit of 18 years of hindsight:
The pool location. The foredeck pool on A is symbolic and unusable underway above 12 knots. A foredeck pool on a 119m yacht is a 50m² steel structure that does the job of a 10m² beach-club plunge pool. We would have moved the volume aft.
The interior glass floor. Engineering achievement, daily-use disaster. Crew member testimony in the press over the years has been consistent that maintaining a perfect optical surface across that span is a continuous job.
The lack of tender garages. A carries her tenders on deck cradles. On a yacht of this volume and this design language, the right answer is an interior garage, and the wrong answer is a deck cradle that breaks the lines Starck spent so long establishing.
The single helipad position. The aft helipad is a touch-and-go, not certified, and the geometry of the superstructure makes a second helipad impossible without re-engineering the bridge deck. For a 119m yacht intended for global operation, the single touch-and-go is light.
The disco. Yes, fine, 2008 was 2008. Two of the three other 100m+ yachts launched that year have had their dance floors quietly removed in refit. A has not.
What we would not change
The bow. The tumblehome hull. The deliberate ugliness of the upper decks. The completeness of the design language. The single-architect, single-designer authorship. Whatever else you say about A, she is a complete idea. Most 100m+ yachts of her decade are committee-designed in a way that A never was, and that completeness is why she still gets argued about.
Charter and sale status
She does not charter. She is not listed. The Melnichenkos retained her through the 2022 sanctions period at least nominally, and her physical location in 2025-2026 has been reported variously as Russian waters, the Persian Gulf, and a yard in. We will not put a number on her current market value because the market for her right now does not exist. If you are buying in the 100m+ class, the closer comparators are Lana (107m Benetti, charter), Madsummer (95m Lürssen, charter), and the more recent Feadships. A is a museum piece in waiting, not a closing comp.
The Starck question
Philippe Starck has now designed five yachts of significance: A, Sailing Yacht A, Wedge Too (the 65m predecessor, 2002, completely different aesthetic), the 90m Motor Yacht A concept that never built, and the Sailing Yacht A concept variants. A is the only one that fully reads as a Starck object. Wedge Too is more conventional than her reputation suggests, and Sailing Yacht A is more Nobiskrug's engineering than Starck's signature. If you only see one Starck yacht, see A.
The current generation of 100m+ yachts has reverted to the Espen Øino / Tim Heywood / Terence Disdale exterior tradition almost completely. Espen Øino designed nine of the ten largest yachts launched since 2018. Whether that is a healthy state of the industry or an aesthetic monoculture is a debate we will continue elsewhere. A's lasting contribution is that she is the strongest argument that the monoculture is not the only option.
Frequently asked questions
Where is M/Y A right now?. Yachts of this size and this ownership history do not broadcast AIS continuously.
Can I see inside M/Y A? No. There has been no public visit, walk-through, or detailed interior photography released since the original 2008 launch coverage. The interior has reportedly been refitted at least once since delivery, with no public documentation.
How does M/Y A compare to Eclipse? Eclipse is 162.5m, also Blohm+Voss, also Martin Francis on the architecture, delivered 2010. She is 43m longer, has different propulsion, has missile-defence systems that A does not have, and has a more conventional Terence Disdale interior. A is the more interesting design object. Eclipse is the more capable platform.
Will M/Y A ever charter? Almost certainly not under current ownership. If the yacht changes hands following sanctions resolution or auction, a new owner could in principle commercialise her, but the cabin layout (6 cabins for 14 guests, with one 230m² master taking disproportionate volume) is suboptimal for a charter rate-per-guest calculation. She was not designed to be a charter yacht. She was designed to be a private statement.
Is there a successor? The Melnichenkos commissioned Sailing Yacht A as a successor of sorts, delivered 2017. Beyond that, there have been periodic rumours of a 130m motor yacht commission. Nothing public.
Verdict
We do not list A. We are writing about her because clients who are shopping in the 100m+ class invariably ask about her, and because the question of why a yacht like A exists is more interesting than the answer for any specific charter on the market this summer. If you are thinking 100m+ in May 2026, the live questions are Madsummer's 2024 refit calendar, Lana's 2026 availability, and whether Feadship's Project 824 lands its summer delivery. A is the question of what 100m+ design could be, separate from what it currently is. Both questions are worth answering.