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Eclipse is 162.5m long, was built by Blohm+Voss in Hamburg, and was delivered in December 2010 to Roman Abramovich. She has 18 guest cabins, two helipads, a 16m pool, and a complement of 70+ crew. She has never been a charter yacht. There is no central agent, no MYBA contract, no advertised week-rate. The reason readers still search for "Eclipse yacht charter" is that for almost a decade she was, by most published lists, the largest privately owned yacht in the world, and the question of whether you could write a check large enough to spend a week aboard became part of the folklore.
The answer is no, and the answer was never yes. Sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United Kingdom in March 2022 made the question moot for European brokers. But the more useful frame is this: even before sanctions, Eclipse was not in the charter fleet, and the yachts that come closest in size and complexity, like Flying Fox at 136m and Lana at 107m, are the answer to the question Eclipse only seems to ask.
This piece is a status update and a redirect. What is publicly known, what is not, and which 90m-plus charter yachts give you the closest approximation if the original instinct was "the biggest one available."
What we know about Eclipse, with sources where it exists
The vital statistics are public because they appeared on the IMO register and in the German shipyard's records at delivery. Eclipse is 162.5m LOA, 22m beam, and 5.9m draft. Gross tonnage is 13,564 GT, which puts her above the 10,000 GT threshold that triggers SOLAS commercial-shipping safety requirements. She carries two helicopters in dedicated hangars, has a touch-and-go and a certified helipad, and her tender garage holds at least three large tenders plus jet skis. Propulsion is diesel-electric across four MTU diesels driving generators, with electric pod drives. Top speed at delivery was reported at 22 knots, cruise around 19. Range at economical cruise is in the band.
Interior layout reflects the era. Mews-style master suite on the upper deck. Beach club at the stern. Cinema. Two pools. An on-board nightclub on the bridge deck. A multi-bed medical facility staffed at sea. The persistent reports of missile-defense systems and laser-disruption equipment for paparazzi cameras are widely repeated but unverified by the shipyard. Most reporting on those features traces back to a Sunday Times piece from 2010 that no shipyard or owner has confirmed.
Ownership has been on public record since delivery. Roman Abramovich held beneficial ownership through Blue Ocean Yacht Management (Cyprus) and several intermediate vehicles. After the March 2022 sanctions package, Eclipse moved out of UK and EU port reach. She was reported in Turkish, Maldivian, and later Caribbean waters during 2022 and 2023, and has since been seen. The legal status of any sale or beneficial ownership change post-sanctions is contested and remains a reporting target rather than a known fact.
Why she was never on charter even before sanctions
Yachts above 90m generally fall into one of three operating models. The first is private-only, where the owner uses the yacht 8 to 14 weeks a year and the yacht sits at anchor or moves on a guardian basis the rest of the time. The second is hybrid, where the owner books a primary window of 6 to 10 weeks and the yacht is offered for charter through a central agent the rest of the year to offset running costs. The third is charter-managed, where the owner has built a yacht specifically to charter and uses her two or three weeks a year personally.
Eclipse was always in the first model. Operating costs are not public, but yachts in her class run between $50M and $80M per year fully loaded including crew payroll, fuel, insurance, dockage, refit reserves, and depreciation. Charter income at €2.5M per week, if she had ever been offered, would have offset perhaps 20 percent of annual operating expense on a 10-week charter schedule. For an owner with the means to build her, that 20 percent was not worth the operational complexity of charter clients, charter-related insurance, MYBA contract obligations, and the dilution of staff continuity. This is the same logic that keeps Azzam off charter, kept Dubai off charter, and keeps roughly a third of the global 100m+ fleet entirely private.
What sanctions changed and did not change
The March 2022 sanctions designations against Roman Abramovich were issued by the United Kingdom on March 10, 2022, and by the European Union on March 15, 2022. The United States Treasury did not designate him directly, which is part of why Eclipse was able to relocate to Caribbean and other non-EU/non-UK ports without being detained the way Dilbar was in Hamburg or Phi was in Canary Wharf.
What sanctions did not change is the underlying operating model. Eclipse was not a charter yacht in February 2022 and she did not become one in any subsequent quarter. What sanctions did was foreclose any future legal pathway to put her on the European charter market under her existing ownership structure. Any future charter would require a clean change of beneficial ownership, EU and UK clearance, and a new flag state. None of those has happened on the public record.
What you would charter instead
The honest read is that "Eclipse charter" is shorthand for "I want the biggest, newest, most equipped yacht available for a week." The actual market at the top end is shaped by three yachts, and we cover them in detail elsewhere on the site. The short version is below.
Flying Fox, 136m, Lürssen 2019. The largest yacht consistently on the global charter market as of 2026. Asking €4M to €4.5M per week peak Mediterranean, €3.5M to €4M Caribbean, plus 30 to 35 percent APA. Twenty-five guests in 11 cabins. Two helipads, full medical centre with hyperbaric chamber, 12m pool. Operated by Imperial Yachts. She books 12 to 18 months out for July and August. See Flying Fox status and booking pattern for the detail.
Lana, 107m, Benetti 2020. The most-booked sub-110m charter yacht in the Mediterranean. Twelve guests in seven cabins. Asking €1.9M to €2.2M per week peak as of May 2026. Imperial-managed. The booking pattern is roughly 14 months out for the prime July to early September window. Full notes on Lana's charter cost and what a week actually delivers.
Madsummer, 95m, Lürssen 2019. Lower profile than Flying Fox and lower rate than Lana per meter, but operated to the same standard. Twelve guests in eight cabins. Asking €1.4M to €1.5M per week peak as of May 2026. Charters with more flexibility and shorter lead times than Flying Fox. The full picture is in Madsummer's charter signature.
None of these is Eclipse. None of them carries 18 guest cabins, and none of them has the dedicated medical, security, and air operations infrastructure of a yacht specifically built around an owner who travels with permanent close protection. But for a charter client, the practical delta between 162m and 136m is much smaller than the price tag suggests. Both have helicopter operations, beach clubs, hospital-grade medical, and crew-to-guest ratios above 2:1. The 136m sleeps fewer because she was designed for charter, where 24 guests is a regulatory cap and the layout optimises for cabin size rather than count.
What needs work
The framing readers bring to "Eclipse charter" is almost always wrong. The instinct is "biggest available." The better question is "what is the right size for the trip and the group." A 14-person family travelling two generations on a 14-day Med charter does not benefit from 18 cabins. They benefit from 7 cabins of equal quality, a full beach club, two tenders, and a crew that has run the same itinerary 30 times. That is a 95m to 110m boat, not a 162m one.
The reader who genuinely wants the helicopter, the medical centre, the certified helipad, and the security infrastructure is, in most cases, a buyer rather than a charter client. We would steer that conversation to our brokerage hub and the best 100m-plus charter yachts guide rather than persist with Eclipse.
What we have passed on
We have passed on the standard treatment of Eclipse: a recitation of the brochure features, a reference to the rumoured anti-paparazzi laser, a tour of the on-board nightclub, and a fantasy week-rate. None of that helps a charter client choose a yacht. The exercise of explaining what is publicly known about a yacht that is not on charter is useful only if the conclusion is the redirect: which yachts are on charter, at what rate, with what booking pattern.
We have also passed on republishing photographs from yacht-spotter sources where provenance is unclear. The shipyard photographs from Blohm+Voss at delivery, and a handful of port-by-port sightings cited in major financial press, are the reliable sources. Yacht-spotter Instagram is not.
Last updated
May 2026. We update this page when Eclipse's ownership or location materially changes on the public record. As of this writing she is, with no central agent assigned and no charter listing.
FAQ
Can I charter Eclipse if I am a US citizen? No. The US has not designated Roman Abramovich for sanctions, but Eclipse is not on the charter market regardless of nationality. There is no broker authorised to take inquiries.
What is the largest yacht I can actually charter? Flying Fox at 136m as of May 2026. There are larger yachts in private use, including REV Ocean at 183m and Azzam at 180m, but neither is offered for charter.
Is there a public charter rate for Eclipse? No, and there never has been. Hypothetical rates published online estimating €5M to €7M per week are speculative.
Who manages Eclipse? Historically managed by Blue Ocean Yacht Management, headquartered in Cyprus. Current management arrangements post-sanctions are not on the public record.
What flag does Eclipse fly? Eclipse historically flew the Bermuda flag (Red Ensign). Any change of flag post-2022 has not been publicly confirmed.
If you are looking for a 100m-plus charter and want a short-list rather than a tour of the unavailable, start with our charter yacht index filtered above 100m, or read our best Mediterranean charters above 100m for 2026. If you are travelling to Monaco around the show and want shoreside, the team next door at HotelsForKings has the Monaco list that pairs with a yacht week.