Oman's 155m Al Said, 15,850GT, appears in France for the first time
A 155-metre that almost nobody has photographed
Al Said was seen this month on the French Riviera, anchored off Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat between Nice and Monaco. YachtBuyer, which put a drone over her on 19 July, describes it as her first known visit to France and says the flight showed deck arrangements that have gone largely unrecorded since she was delivered. She is the flagship of the Omani Royal Yacht Squadron and spends most of her life in the Gulf, which is why a yacht of this size has almost no photographic record.
Lurssen delivered her in 2008 at 155 metres, with a 23-metre beam, a 5.5-metre draft and 15,850 gross tons over six decks. Espen Oino drew the exterior and RWD did the interior, the same British studio that has since worked on Lurssen's 78-metre Odisea. Eighteen years on there is no major refit on her public record, which is unusual for a yacht of her age and a fair indication of how she has been maintained.
Where 15,850 tons of volume actually goes
She carries 70 guests and up to 174 crew. That ratio, better than two crew to every guest, is the first thing an owner should notice, because it tells you where the gross tonnage went. A yacht at this size is mostly crew accommodation, galleys, laundries, stores and machinery, and the guest areas sit on top of a service building that never appears in the brochure.
The rest went into single large rooms rather than more cabins. Al Said carries a concert hall sized for a 50-piece orchestra, built on vibration isolation so the machinery underneath does not reach it, along with a 50-seat cinema and a certified helipad. Those are volume decisions, not length decisions, and they are the reason a 155-metre hull does not simply mean more suites.
What the top of the fleet says to a buyer below it
Her performance figures are modest for the money. Top speed is 22 knots, cruising is 20, and range is 7,700 nautical miles. Nothing in that package is chasing a record. She was specified to move a household and its staff comfortably over long distances, which is the brief most yachts of this size are actually written to, whatever the concept renders suggest.
She is not for sale and has not been marketed since a brief listing in 2022. The tier she belongs to runs to roughly a dozen hulls worldwide, and each of them stays out of view for years at a time. When one of them does turn up off Cap Ferrat, it is one of the few chances anyone gets to check what the ceiling of the market is built like, rather than what it is said to be.