Lurssen Azzam: World's Largest Yacht

Published: Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 12:44 [IST]

On 5th of April, 2013, the world's largest private yacht made its way into open water from the ship building yard. The Lurssen Azzam measures 180 meters long, which makes it look more like a cruise ship than a yacht.

Typically, when it comes to ultra expensive and ultra large yachts owners forbid builders from releasing information regarding the construction. Fortunately, Azzam's owner, who ever it is, was fine with the world getting official images of the yacht. It is after all the largest in the world.

Azzam's dimensions are as follows: Overall length 180 meters, Beam: 20.8 meters and Draft: 4.3 meters. Azzam also features a 29 meter long saloon.

Azzam bests the previous record holder, Eclipse, by 17 meters.

While technical engineering for the construction of Azzam came from Lurssen, the construction was headed by Mubarak Saad al Ahbabi. The exterior and interior designing are the works of designers from Nauta Yachts and Christophe Leoni respectively.

Details about Azzam are at present limited. But we do know that the behemoth is powered by two gas turbines and two diesel engines.

The engines power the propulsion system, powering the 180 m long yacht to a top speed of 30 knots, which is equivalent to 55.5 km/h.

From the few images of Azzam we can see it has its own helipad on the foredeck. Images of the interior have not yet been released.

Lurssen took an year to engineer Azzam, after which it took three years to complete construction, which is a record time. Work on the yacht is still not complete though.