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With 113 Meters in Length, Double Helipads, Private Cinema, Spa, and Even a Land Rover on Board, Le Grand Bleu Became Famous After Rumors That Roman Abramovich Had Lost It in a Billion-Dollar Poker Bet.
In 2006, the world learned about one of the most talked-about stories among Russian billionaires. The luxurious yacht Le Grand Bleu, valued at US$ 125 million, gained media attention for a supposed unusual episode: it was allegedly lost in a poker game among friends.
The protagonist of the story was Roman Abramovich, then owner of Chelsea FC in the Premier League.
The yacht, measuring 113 meters in length, features seven cabins, spa, private cinema, beach club, circular swimming pool, and gym. The vessel also includes two helipads, a 20-meter tender yacht, a 22-meter sailboat, and even a Land Rover on board — a setup worthy of a floating resort.
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Erected in just 30 minutes over the water that had already engulfed the courtyard, a motorized floating bridge from China evacuated more than 6,000 students trapped inside a school surrounded by the flood in the south of the country, after Typhoon Maysak turned the region into a flooded area.
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Employee buys a ticket that a customer left behind, discovers a million-dollar prize, tries to claim the fortune, is fired after 20 years, and ends up in a legal dispute with the company.
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China returned almost 20 Brazilian ships with soybeans and is now back to buying from the USA, but stocks above 9 million tons raise suspicions of a political move, not a commercial necessity.
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Japan will have a bullet train that levitates at 500 km/h and will cross 90% of the route through tunnels; the project promises trips in just 67 minutes but faces billion-dollar challenges and unprecedented environmental obstacles.
The Alleged Game Among Billionaires
According to reports released at the time, Abramovich had welcomed his friend Eugene Shvidler on board the Le Grand Bleu.
During a night of fun, they bet on cars, houses, and luxurious mansions. Close sources stated that Shvidler won a poker game in which the superyacht was at stake, becoming its new owner. Abramovich, however, denied the story, and no official confirmation has emerged about the truthfulness of the episode.
The Million-Dollar Exchange Between Art and Luxury
Years later, another nautical mystery caught the public’s attention. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, commissioned the superyacht Topaz in 2012, built by the German shipyard Lürssen Werft in Bremen. The vessel, measuring 147.25 meters in length, was valued at around US$ 450 million.
However, in 2019, the yacht was renamed “A+” with no record of sale or transfer of ownership. The curious detail is that, in 2017, Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud purchased the painting “Salvator Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci for US$ 450.3 million, an amount equivalent to that of the yacht. Shortly thereafter, the prince gifted the painting to the United Arab Emirates, fueling rumors of a symbolic exchange between the artwork and the vessel — one of the most intriguing mysteries in the world of luxury.
