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Don’t Gloat Over the Sinking of the Superyacht My Saga

Last weekend, after a distress signal was sent out in the middle of the night, a 130-foot (39.4-meter) superyacht began to take on water and tilt sideways off the coast of Italy. Some time later, it sunk while still hooked to the tugboat that had come to rescue it.
My Saga superyacht sinks off the coast of Italy 11 photos
Photo: Guardia Costiera
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That yacht, My Saga (previously YuKo, but also known simply as Saga), is a complete loss, superyacht vlogger eSysman says (see the video at the bottom of the page). Saga went under in the Gulf of Squillace, where the water is some 500 meters (1,640-5 feet) deep, and that makes recovery efforts so difficult that they would verge on impossible.

As of the time of press, trade publications list it as a complete loss, which seems to confirm that no recovery will take place.

And here’s where the story gets a bit wilder: given the current international context and the desperate rush of Russian oligarchs to hide assets, there’s strong buzz online that Saga went down so it wouldn’t fall in the hands of authorities. As in, the owner sank it so he could claim insurance money, and give the finger to authorities. This buzz links back to reports in the Italian media, which name multi-millionaire Gennady Ayvazyan as the owner. Ayvazyan is a heavy player on the coal market, since he is the founder of Krutrade and served as director of the World Coal Association.

My Saga superyacht sinks off the coast of Italy
Photo: Guardia Costiera
As you must know, in March this year, Russia invaded Ukraine on made-up pretenses that we won’t get into here. A couple of weeks later, many countries, included EU members, the United States, the UK and Australia, updated their sanctions lists to include Russian oligarchs, whose assets would be seized right away. Since then and up to the time of press, billions of dollars worth of superyachts, private jets and custom cars, as well as prime real estate have been seized by authorities world-over.

Some (lucky) Russian oligarchs included on those lists got to stow away many of their assets: in the case of superyachts, for instance, they rushed them across the world to dock them in friendly-waters in Dubai or Turkey. Others went dark by disabling mandatory tracking on their vessels, and some of them are still floating around in neutral international waters.

Because of this, the old, usual habit of superyacht-watching attained a certain but very distinctive note of evil glee: for the first time in a long time, something was being done to punish those who had acquired riches in dishonest ways and, more importantly, were using those riches to finance a war. Hearing about another superyacht or megayacht getting seized was reason for joy. Eat the rich, and all that.

Many have come to a more reasonable perspective since, mostly because most these assets are still in legal limbo, accruing debts that will be covered by the taxpayers of the countries that arrested them. In one high-profile case, that of Axioma, it’s a bank that benefits from the seizure, and not the people of Ukraine.

My Saga Super Yacht
Photo: Boat International
This brings us back to Saga: people are rejoicing that it sank, because some Russian owned it, and most are clamoring against him claiming insurance when the fraud is so obvious. But this just goes to show that maybe you shouldn’t take everything you read or see online at face value.

For starters Ayvazyan is not on any sanctions lists that we can find. There are some bits and pieces of information that put his net worth at $500 million, and reports that link him to Putin, but nothing is confirmed. If he were targeted by sanctions, he couldn’t – and wouldn’t – have docked in Gallipoli, the port Saga departed, destination Milazzo. Italy is one of the countries with the highest record of asset seizures, so Saga would have pinged on authorities’ radar right away.

Then, there’s this: as a multi-millionaire, Ayvazyan would probably chose a bigger boat, even if this one was the biggest vessel built by Monaco Yachting & Technologies in 2007. Superyacht Fan says that Ayvazyan owns a $50 million superyacht named Life Saga, which could be either the 138-footer (42-meter) by Heesen Yachts or the larger 213-footer (65-meter) built by Admiral, neither of which has gone under.

There is no trace of the owner of My Saga in publicly-available industry databases, but maybe the mystery will be solved once the investigation into the causes of the breach is completed. Until then, let’s end on a restrained note: before we jump for joy that some evil Russian oligarch has been deprived of his luxury toy, let’s not.

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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