Brin's 142m Dragonfly Is Too Big for Menorca's Marina

Why did Dragonfly berth at Menorca's cruise pier instead of its yacht marina?

Dragonfly moored at Mao's Moll de Ponent on 4 August 2026 because Marina Port Mahon, the port's dedicated superyacht facility at Sa Punta de Cala Figuera, has 30 berths running 25 to 60 metres, less than half her 142.1-metre length.

Local paper Menorca.info reported the arrival directly: the yacht could not use the standard luxury berths at Sa Punta de Cala Figuera because she simply did not fit, and moored instead at the cruise-ship dock, the Moll de Ponent, on the north side of the harbour close to the town centre. Marina Port Mahon's own published berth range, 25 to 60 metres across 30 slips, confirms the gap: even the marina's largest berth is well under half of Dragonfly's length. The yacht is not a rare oversized visitor to Menorca by accident; her owner's other cruising has shown a similar pattern of anchoring or using non-standard berths wherever the standard marina cannot take her.

The stopover briefly turned into a local event. Menorca.info described the yacht as having become an attraction in the port, and by 10 August, six days later, she had been sighted anchored off Deia on the north-west coast of Mallorca, continuing what appears to be a Balearic Islands cruise through August 2026. Local reporting did not record any statement from the Balearic Ports Authority explaining the berthing decision beyond the practical fact of the marina's size limit, and none of the outlets that covered the stop published a quote from Brin's office or crew.

What is the Moll de Ponent, and why could it take a 142-metre yacht?

The Moll de Ponent sits inside Mao's naval station under a 4 July 2000 agreement between the Balearic Ports Authority and Spain's Ministry of Defence, and a 2003 project specifically adapted its western pier for cruise-ship berthing, which is what gave it the length and depth to take Dragonfly.

Public tender documents from the Balearic Ports Authority (Autoridad Portuaria de Baleares, or APB) record the arrangement in detail: the 2000 agreement lets the APB make temporary use of naval station facilities, and a 2003 project titled the adaptation of cruise berthing at the western pier of the naval station in the port of Mahon built the infrastructure, mooring points and services that later let large commercial and cruise vessels tie up there. The APB has since put the Moll de Ponent's mooring management out to a 20-year concession, worth around EUR 6 million, underlining that the berth is run as commercial cruise infrastructure rather than as a yacht facility.

That history is why the quay could absorb a 142-metre yacht on short notice: it was engineered for vessels far larger than any superyacht marina, just not for yachts specifically, and it sits alongside an active naval base rather than in a marina basin. For an owner, the practical read is that the berth exists because of a defence-ministry agreement and a cruise-terminal build-out, not because Mao markets it to yachts, so its availability to a private vessel is discretionary rather than bookable in the way a marina berth is.

Why was Dragonfly built as Project Alibaba, and how did she reach Brin?

Construction began in 2019 at Lurssen for Novatek billionaire Leonid Mikhelson under the yard name Project Alibaba; after Mikhelson was added to international sanctions lists during the build, he could not take delivery, and Lurssen instead delivered the completed 142.1-metre hull to Sergey Brin on 3 December 2024 as Dragonfly.

Multiple outlets tracking the build, including Autoevolution and SuperYachtFan, report the same sequence: Project Alibaba was laid down in 2019, before sanctions on Mikhelson took effect, and construction continued at Lurssen's Bremen-Vegesack yard even after he was added to sanctions lists. Industry reporting on the sale says Lurssen most likely secured a waiver to sell the finished vessel to a non-sanctioned buyer once it became clear the original owner could never take delivery, and the yacht changed hands to Brin during that period. She launched in December 2023 and was formally delivered on 3 December 2024, renamed Dragonfly, reportedly one of the biggest superyachts to reach the water that year.

The finished yacht carries exterior lines by German Frers and interiors by Nauta Design, on a steel hull and aluminium superstructure with a beam of 20 metres and a draught of roughly 6 metres, for a gross tonnage of 9,408 GT. Two MAN diesel engines rated at 7,300kW (9,789hp) each drive her to a top speed of 24 knots. She carries twelve cabins for 24 guests and a crew of up to 53, across five decks with around 2,000 square metres of interior and deck space, two helipads, a glass-bottom pool and a shaded pool, a beach club, gym and beauty salon. Estimates of her build cost cluster around USD 450 million, though neither Lurssen nor her owner has confirmed a figure.

Are more owners of 100-metre-plus yachts running into the same marina shortage?

Ten superyachts over 100 metres were delivered in 2025 alone, averaging 110.9 metres, and Mediterranean marina capacity has not kept pace, so an owner of a 140-metre-plus hull increasingly has to plan around anchoring out or an exception berth rather than a standard marina slip.

The fleet at the very top of the size range has grown fast: 2025 alone delivered ten yachts over 100 metres, a record year, averaging 110.9 metres and 5,295 GT. Most Mediterranean marinas were not built with that scale in mind. Industry reporting on the wider berth shortage describes Mediterranean slips for larger vessels now leasing at rates that rival prime real estate, and a shortage that is most acute precisely in the size brackets growing fastest. A yacht the size of Dragonfly is not competing for a slip against other superyachts so much as being excluded from the pool of marinas that can physically take her at all.

That exclusion is a design constraint most owners never see written down until they hit it: a 60-metre berth ceiling at a well-regarded Balearic marina is not unusual, it is close to the regional norm, and it applies regardless of budget. The workaround, using a converted naval, commercial or cruise quay by informal arrangement, depends on a port having that kind of infrastructure at all and being willing to offer it to a private yacht, which is not guaranteed anywhere and was not, on the public record, formalised in advance for Dragonfly's stop in Mao.

Where can an owner of a 140-metre-plus yacht expect to find a real berth?

Only a short list of Mediterranean marinas advertise berths past 140 metres, among them Port Tarraco in Spain, whose deep-water berths run to 160 metres, so most owners of hulls in Dragonfly's size class plan their season around anchoring out or a small number of named ports rather than assuming they can dock on arrival.

Port Tarraco, on Spain's Costa Dorada, publishes 64 deep-water berths from 30 to 160 metres, making it one of the few Mediterranean facilities that could take Dragonfly on a standard commercial booking rather than an exception. Porto Montenegro markets itself as the Mediterranean's largest superyacht homeport by berth count, with 450 berths, but the bulk of its published range runs 30 to 80 metres, so its capacity is about volume at the mid-size end rather than depth at the very top. D-Marin's Zea marina in Greece advertises berths to 150 metres. Beyond that short list, an owner planning a season on a yacht Dragonfly's size is generally choosing between a handful of named ports, anchoring off popular islands and running tenders, or, as happened in Mao, an ad hoc arrangement with whatever commercial or naval infrastructure a port happens to have.

None of that makes a 140-metre-plus yacht impractical to own or charter; it changes what an owner's captain has to plan for a season, since a marina call cannot simply be assumed the way it can on a 50 or 60-metre yacht. What is not published anywhere in the reporting on Dragonfly's Mao stop is the fee she paid for the naval-quay berth, or how far in advance the arrangement was agreed with the Balearic Ports Authority; both would tell a future owner how repeatable the workaround actually is.