Chelsea owner’s new plaything provides a healthy mix of pleasure and paranoia

Despite paying Shevchenko extortionate amounts to do little else except go out and purchase ill-advised eastern European-style clothing, Roman Abramovich still has a few quid tucked away for other projects. The latest indulgence to drive prices at Stamford Bridge even further into the stratosphere is the M/Y Eclipse, the world’s largest privately owned yacht, currently being built under a cloud of secrecy (the candid spy shot you see above was taken on one of the few occasions the vessel has been in plain view - they only test it at night and behind closed doors).

The £200m massive yacht, being built by Blohm + Voss off the German Baltic island of Ruegen, is 550 feet long, some 200 feet longer than his current biggest vessel, the Pelorus (the combined global crew for his four yachst will total several hundred, and when the new ship launches later in the year, he will have a fleet nearly as large as that of the Irish navy).

Features of the Eclipse include:

* A small hospital staffed by a private medical team
* Bulletproof glass, underwater cameras and a missile detection system