A Sailing Boat That Isn’t Allowed To Sail

The author is Neil Chapman, founder and CEO of Boatshed.com, an international yacht and boat brokerage group operating more than 70 offices across 18 countries. Chapman is also author of a Substack called Boatshed Neil, where he publishes stories such as this, which first appeared on November 2, 2026 and is reprinted with permission. Chapman is a Brit, by the way.

I remember when “Sailing Yacht A” first appeared. She was extraordinary. Three enormous carbon-fibre masts, a futuristic hull, and engineering on a scale that challenged almost everything we thought we knew about sailing boats.

People argued about whether she was beautiful or hideous. I remember thinking that whatever your opinion, somebody had actually built this remarkable thing. She was a celebrity before she’d sailed a mile.

And now I look at photographs of her sitting in the Italian port of Trieste, where she’s been detained for more than four years. According to a recent CNN investigation, Italian taxpayers are spending around $30,000 a day maintaining her.

My first reaction wasn’t outrage at the money. It was sadness. What an extraordinary waste of a sailing boat.

$30,000 a Day

CNN reports that Sailing Yacht A, valued at approximately $600 million, costs nearly $11 million annually to maintain. That sounds like an astonishing amount of money.

Until you do the arithmetic. Eleven million dollars is less than two percent of the boat’s reported value.

Anyone who’s owned boats for long enough knows the familiar exercise of convincing yourself that annual running costs will be relatively modest. They rarely are.

Ten percent of a boat’s value annually is a familiar rule of thumb. Sometimes it’s considerably more. Superyacht operating budgets can run into tens of millions annually, although the figures vary enormously depending on size, use, crew, refits and the original cost of the vessel.

Of course, maintaining a detained boat isn’t the same as operating one commercially or privately. There may be less cruising fuel and fewer hospitality expenses.

Maintenance doesn’t disappear. Mooring lines and fenders chafe. Salt accumulates. Deck fittings deteriorate. Pumps, seals, hydraulics and electronics need attention. Engines and generators require servicing, and many systems need regular operation.

A boat alongside isn’t a machine switched off in a warehouse. In many respects, remaining stationary can introduce problems of its own.

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So the question that bothers me isn’t necessarily why Italy is spending $11 million a year. It’s whether $11 million is enough. Are the authorities preserving a $600 million engineering masterpiece, or simply paying to keep her afloat and presentable?

We don’t know. But it’s a question worth asking.

Ships Belong to the Crew

There’s another aspect of this that I find more troubling than the money—the crew. CNN reports that twenty people are employed aboard Sailing Yacht A.

Twenty sounds like a substantial number, until you consider the complexity of a 143-metre vessel. It’s not simply about numbers.

Good captains don’t merely operate a boat. They develop a relationship with her. They know how she behaves, what sounds right, what doesn’t, which systems need watching and which jobs are worth doing before they become expensive problems.

The chief engineer knows the machinery. The deck crew know the rigging, fittings and routines. Together they accumulate a body of knowledge that rarely exists in any single maintenance manual.

And then there’s pride—pride in the boat, pride in the crew and pride in the standards they maintain.

Throughout maritime history, that relationship has been fundamental to good seamanship. A captain’s standards become the ship’s standards. Now imagine that continuity being interrupted.

The owner loses control of the vessel. The original captain and engineers may leave. New people take responsibility under entirely different circumstances.

They may be excellent professionals. We have no evidence that the current crew are anything other than competent and conscientious. But there’s a difference between employing people to maintain an asset and maintaining the continuity of a ship’s working life. That’s something money alone cannot guarantee.

History Lives Aboard

Every boat carries a history that isn’t immediately visible. Not just where she’s sailed or who has owned her, but the accumulated knowledge of everyone who’s looked after her.

Why a particular pump was replaced. Which hydraulic circuit has been troublesome. What happened during the last major service. The small warning signs that an experienced engineer recognises immediately.

Lose the people, lose the records, and much of that knowledge can disappear.

It’s one reason I find the idea of a vessel’s memory so important. Not simply a digital folder of invoices and service records, but a continuing account of the boat’s working life, her condition, the decisions made and the people who made them.

That matters when a boat changes ownership, changes skipper or sits unused for years. It matters just as much to a modest second-hand sailing boat as it does to a $600 million superyacht. The physical vessel may survive, while much of the knowledge needed to care for her properly disappears.

Why Not Sell?

That was my next reaction. If the boat is costing taxpayers millions, why not sell her?

The answer is considerably more complicated than it first appears. Sanctions aren’t the same as confiscation. A government may have the authority to prevent somebody from using, moving or benefiting from an asset without acquiring ownership of it.

The underlying principle is that sanctions impose restrictions while particular circumstances persist. They don’t automatically transfer private property to the state. If the restrictions are eventually lifted, the owner may be entitled to recover the asset.

That’s an important distinction, even when the owner is unpopular. A forced sale creates problems of its own.

Suppose somebody commissioned a boat for $300 million. Years later, under distressed circumstances, it might fetch $150 million. Those are illustrative figures, but the commercial problem is real.

Superyachts are highly individual assets. Buyers are relatively scarce, valuations can be uncertain and a rushed sale may crystallise an enormous loss. Builders, brokers, lenders and owners all have legitimate interests in avoiding unnecessary damage to the market. There have been exceptions.

The superyacht Axioma was sold through judicial proceedings in Gibraltar in 2022, but that followed creditor action over a loan default. It wasn’t simply a government selling a boat because its owner was sanctioned.

The law can provide routes to a sale, but they depend on the circumstances and the legal authority involved.

Temporary but Permanent

The motor yacht Phi, detained in London since March 2022, provides another example. In July 2025, the UK Supreme Court upheld her detention.

The court considered the financial consequences, including maintenance expenditure, lost charter income and deterioration in the vessel’s condition and value. It also recognised that arrangements could be made for maintenance movements under suitable security conditions.

The legal system isn’t necessarily ignoring the practical consequences of detention, but it accepts that economic pressure on the owner is part of the purpose of sanctions. That’s where the contradiction lies.

Some financial damage is exactly what sanctions are designed to cause. But is every consequence of leaving a boat immobilised for years necessary to achieve that purpose?

Sanctions may be legally reversible. Deterioration isn’t always. Four years is a long time in the life of a boat. Eight years would be longer. Ten years?Equipment ages, technology becomes obsolete, maintenance bills accumulate and the people who once knew the vessel move on.

The boat may eventually be returned to its owner, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be the same boat that was detained.

Think Differently?

Perhaps we’ve become too accepting of the idea that these boats have only two possible futures.

Remain detained indefinitely, or be confiscated and sold. Or are there other possibilities worth exploring. What if the Italian authorities invited properly qualified, financially backed teams to propose ways of maintaining Sailing Yacht A as a working sailing vessel?

Not simply keeping her safe alongside, but exercising her systems, preserving her sailing capability and maintaining the knowledge and skills associated with operating her.

Could controlled sailing within Italian waters be authorised? Could some form of government-supervised charter operation contribute towards maintenance costs, with any revenue handled under appropriate legal restrictions?

Imagine giving a professional captain and crew the responsibility, resources and opportunity to keep one of the world’s most remarkable sailing boats doing what she was built to do.

There are substantial obstacles. Sanctions restrict economic use, not merely movement across national boundaries. Any such arrangement would need proper legal authority, insurance, safety oversight and safeguards to prevent prohibited benefits reaching the owner.

It might not be permissible at all under the present arrangements.

Commercial operation would introduce costs and risks of its own. But I’m not proposing this as a ready-made solution. I’m suggesting that perhaps we should be asking more imaginative questions.

If we’re already spending $30,000 a day, could that expenditure support a programme that preserves the boat as a functioning sailing machine, rather than simply as an immobilised asset?

And could that be done without undermining the purpose of the sanctions? Surely those possibilities deserve examination.

What Is Preserved?

I keep coming back to the photographs. When Sailing Yacht A first appeared, she represented extraordinary ambition. Naval architects, engineers, designers, builders and sailors had combined their skills to create something that had never existed before. You didn’t have to like her appearance to appreciate the achievement.

And now she’s become a problem for lawyers, politicians, insurers, accountants and port authorities.

Each has a legitimate responsibility. The law must protect property rights while enforcing sanctions. Governments must consider public expenditure. Insurers must manage risk. Port authorities must ensure safety.

But somewhere in that process, the purpose of the boat seems to have been lost. She was built to sail, not to spend year after year tied to a quay while people argue about who should pay the bill.

I don’t know whether the Italian authorities are maintaining her adequately. I don’t know whether a different arrangement would be legally possible or economically sensible.

And none of this is an argument against sanctions or an appeal on behalf of her owner. It’s simply a recognition that an extraordinary piece of maritime engineering has a value beyond its price tag.

There is value in the knowledge of her crew, the skills required to operate her, the engineering she represents and the experience of sailing her. Those things are difficult to put on a balance sheet, and once lost, they aren’t necessarily recoverable.

Perhaps that’s what troubles me most about the whole story. We’ve become very good at identifying who owns an asset, who controls it, who pays for it and who is legally responsible for it.

But perhaps we’re not always as good at remembering what it was created for.

You can freeze the ownership and use of a boat. You can preserve her machinery. You can even protect her financial value. But can you preserve the spirit of a sailing boat that nobody is allowed to sail?

Sources and background

• Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, 1 November 2026, Italian taxpayers are paying millions to keep Russian yachts afloat. Read the article
• R (Dalston Projects Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport [2025] UKSC 30, concerning the detention of Phi.
• Reuters, September 2022, reporting on the judicial auction of Axioma in Gibraltar.

A note on AI: This article was created in collaboration with AI. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we argue. The ideas, opinions and final decisions are mine.