dione sky yacht

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By Kim Kavin
Updated: August 26, 2013

Expedition yacht Dione Sky

She splashed with the thunder of immense potential at the Palmer Johnson shipyard in 1996, a Vripack-designed yacht built specifically for expeditions to the world’s least-visited cruising grounds. It didn’t take long for her to fulfill the owner’s vision and then some, among other things becoming the first motoryacht to circumnavigate North America unaided, with a Northwest Passage transit in 2001.

Her original nameplate, Turmoil , seemed utterly nonsensical. She proved as solid, strong and steady as a yacht could be. Now called Dione Sky after an interlude as Putty VI , this 151-footer is a veteran of multiple circumnavigations, nearly 200,000 miles of trouble-free cruising and a series of three owners who kept her in the kind of condition that you’d want if you were somewhere off the coast of Alaska or Patagonia.

The biggest refit of Dione Sky was in 2007, a near rebuild in Holland that included a new air-conditioning system, a new engine room firefighting system, the addition of Naiad zero-speed stabilizers, a sundeck makeover, the installation of VSAT and Wi-Fi, an upgraded audiovisual system and more. The current owner continued the upkeep during refits at the Derecktor yards in Connecticut and Florida during 2010-11, replacing her generators, pulling her shafts and rudders to fit new bearings, cleaning her tanks and more. In March 2013, her twin 820-hp Caterpillar 3508 DITA C engines were rebuilt to Caterpillar zero-time specs.

“She has never been chartered, and she’s had excellent owners with no expense spared,” says Ann Casebourne, owner of Yacht Connection Ltd., which has listed_ Dione Sky_ for sale on the brokerage market at $18.9 million. “They put maintenance before the bottom line. Interest in expedition yachts is picking up, and she’s ready to go right now. She doesn’t need rebuilding. She doesn’t need refitting. She needs an owner who is tired of sitting around St. Tropez.”

And while Dione Sky has a no-nonsense exterior and systems, her interior is as classically elegant as you’ll find, with rich cherry woodwork everywhere from the owner’s deck to the paneled library walls. She accommodates 10 guests, including the owner on an entire owner’s deck that includes a private sundeck. There are also cabins for eight crew.

Dione Sky is currently lying in Barcelona, waiting for her fourth owner to create the next chapters in her storied cruising history.

“The perfect owner would be a bit adventurous,” Casebourne says. “She needs someone who is looking for a turnkey yacht to go a bit farther than the norm in safety and comfort.”

Learn more at www.yacht-connections.co.uk.

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Global Explorer Dione Sky Undergoes Price...

Global Explorer Dione Sky Undergoes Price Reduction

Dione Sky (ex Turmoil), a Palmer Johnson built & Vripack designed 150ft exploration vessel has proved to be a veteran of worldwide cruising and multiple circumnavigations. She was the first yacht to circumnavigate North America unaided with a Northwest Passage transit in 2001; and the Northwest Passage is where she comes into her own.

“The perfect owner would have a zest for adventure and maybe tired of sitting around Antibes and Monaco,” Ann Casebourne says. “She needs someone who is looking for a turnkey yacht to go a bit farther than the norm in safety and comfort. Interest in expedition yachts is picking up, and she’s ready to go right now.”

Her previous owners kept her in the kind of condition that you’d want if you were somewhere off the coast of Alaska or Antarctica. “She has never been chartered, and she’s had excellent owners with no expense spared,” says Ann Casebourne owner of Yacht Connection Ltd., which has listed Dione Sky for sale on the brokerage market.

Dione Sky is under the Yacht Connections banner and listed for an asking price of $13,000,000 US or €10,000,000 Euro.

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Explorer yacht DIONE SKY – Image courtesy of Vripack

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Motor Yacht

Pioneer is a custom motor yacht launched in 1996 by Palmer Johnson Yachts, in the United States and most recently refitted in 2015.

Palmer Johnson has emerged from modest beginnings in 1918 as a builder of wooden fishing boats to become a world leader in the construction of luxury high-performance superyachts.

Pioneer measures 46.00 metres in length, with a max draft of 3.20 metres and a beam of 8.80 metres. She has a gross tonnage of 499 tonnes. She has a deck material of teak.

Pioneer has an aluminium hull with an aluminium superstructure.

Vripack is a professional design, engineering, naval architecture and brokerage firm that handles all aspects of the yacht building process. The Dutch-based company was established in 1961 and today counts many renowned international yards as its clients and works alongside other leading marine designers.

Her interior design is by Van Der Meulen.

Pioneer also features naval architecture by Vripack.

Performance and Capabilities

Pioneer has a top speed of 14.00 knots and a cruising speed of 12.50 knots. She is powered by a twin screw propulsion system.

Pioneer has a fuel capacity of 161,857 litres, and a water capacity of 16,277 litres.

She also has a range of 7,000 nautical miles.

Accommodation

Pioneer accommodates up to 10 guests in 5 cabins. She also houses room for up to 8 crew members.

Other Specifications

Pioneer is MCA compliant. She has a Blue hull, whose NB is PJ 217.

Pioneer is an ABS class yacht. She flies the flag of the Cayman Islands.

Yacht Builder Palmer Johnson Yachts No profile available
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Exterior Designer Vripack View profile

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This Yacht is not for Charter*

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Amenities & Toys

PIONEER yacht NOT for charter*

46m / 150'11 | palmer johnson | 1996 / 2015.

Owner & Guests

Cabin Configuration

Previous Yacht

Special Features:

Classic interior style
Upper level sundeck with panoramic views
Sundeck Jacuzzi, wet bar and tranquil lounge
Newly reconfigured main salon
Go-anywhere cruising capability
Multiple water toys

The 46m/150'11" expedition yacht 'Pioneer' (ex. Turmoil) was built by Palmer Johnson in Monaco at their Sturgeon Bay, WI shipyard. Her interior is styled by design house Axel Vervoordt and she was delivered to her owner in April 1996. This luxury vessel's exterior design is the work of Vripack and she was last refitted in 2015.

Guest Accommodation

Pioneer has been designed to comfortably accommodate up to 10 guests in 5 suites comprising two VIP cabins. She is also capable of carrying up to 8 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

Her features include deck jacuzzi, WiFi and air conditioning.

Range & Performance

Pioneer is built with a aluminium hull and aluminium superstructure, with teak decks. Powered by twin diesel Caterpillar (3508 DITA) 8-cylinder 819hp engines, she comfortably cruises at 11 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 15 knots with a range of up to 7,000 nautical miles from her 161,967 litre fuel tanks at 10 knots. Her water tanks store around 16,260 Litres of fresh water. She was built to ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) A1, Yachting Service, AMS classification society rules, and is MCA Compliant.

*Charter Pioneer Motor Yacht

Motor yacht Pioneer is currently not believed to be available for private Charter. To view similar yachts for charter , or contact your Yacht Charter Broker for information about renting a luxury charter yacht.

Pioneer Yacht Owner, Captain or marketing company

'Yacht Charter Fleet' is a free information service, if your yacht is available for charter please contact us with details and photos and we will update our records.

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NOTE to U.S. Customs & Border Protection

Specification

M/Y Pioneer

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CONSTRUCTEUR

YACHT PIONEER | PALMER DIONE SKY (1996)

OPTIMISE YOUR INSURANCE | ASK FOR A QUOTE

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YACHT PIONEER DESCRIPTION

Motor Yacht PIONEER is a DIONE SKY model built in 1996 (last refit in 2015) by american ship builder PALMER JOHNSON. M/Y PIONEER has a Hull and Superstructure built with amumium. She has a length of 152,5 feet, (46,5 meters) for a beam of 29,1 feet, (8,9 meters) and a draft of 10,5 feet, (3,2 meters). She can welcome up to two guests and employed up to nine crew. M/Y PIONEER is powered by two CATERPILLAR 3508 DITA engines developing up to 1640 horse power for a cruising speed of 10 knots and can reach a max speed of 15 knots.

ABOUT M/Y PIONEER INSURANCE

The age of M/Y PALMER JOHNSON may require a recent survey in order to quote your yacht.

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Russia-Ukraine War Ukrainian Drones Hit 2 Bases Deep in Russia

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Saratov Oblast, Russia Explosion rocks Russian military base. EYEPRESS via Reuters
Kyiv Residents take shelter in the Metro. Laura Boushnak for The New York Times
Irpin Winter in Ukraine. David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
Kherson region Salvaging a refrigerator from the ruins of a home. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
Borodyanka A makeshift center for those whose homes have been destroyed. Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Kharkiv Police officers look at collected fragments of Russian rockets. Libkos/Associated Press
Bakhmut Chopping wood in a basement shelter. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Donetsk An office building destroyed in shelling. Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
Eastern Ukraine Soldiers on the front line. Yevhen Titov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Follow live news updates on the Russia-Ukraine war .

Ukraine attacks military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine executed its most brazen attack into Russian territory in the nine-month-old war on Monday, targeting two military bases hundreds of miles inside the country, using drones, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and a senior Ukrainian official.

The drones were launched from Ukrainian territory, and at least one of the strikes was made with the help of special forces close to the base who helped guide the drones to the target, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to convey sensitive information.

The strikes signaled a new willingness by Kyiv to take the fight to bases in the heart of Russia, raising the stakes in the war, and demonstrated for the first time Ukraine’s ability to attack at such long distances. Shortly after the attacks on the bases, Russia sent a barrage of missiles streaking toward Ukrainian cities.

The Kremlin said that the weapons launched by Ukraine were Soviet-era jet drones and were aimed at bases in Ryazan and Engels, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. It said that its forces had intercepted the drones, and that “the fall and explosion of the wreckage” had “slightly damaged” two planes, killing three servicemen and wounding four others.

The Engels airfield, on the Volga River in southern Russia, is a base for some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers, including the Tupolev-160 and Tupolev-95. Ukrainian officials say it is also a staging ground for Russia’s unrelenting campaign of missile attacks on infrastructure, which have left millions of Ukrainians with intermittent light, heat or water — or none at all — at the onset of winter. Security footage from an apartment complex near the base showed a fireball lighting up the sky.

The other explosion occurred at the Dyagilevo military base in the central city of Ryazan, only about 100 miles from Moscow, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. It was there that the fatalities and injuries occurred, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Ukraine’s government declined to publicly acknowledge the strikes, in keeping with its practice with other attacks on Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea.

The Engels air base and the Ryazan military installation are between 300 and 450 miles from the Ukrainian border, which is beyond the range of any known missile in Ukraine’s arsenal.

Even before Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of sending drones to attack, the blast at the Engels airfield had prompted some of Russia’s influential pro-invasion bloggers to call for more strikes against Ukraine, and to renew criticism of the Russian armed forces. “Sometimes we feel that even if you put a bomb into these people’s pockets — they wouldn’t notice anyway,” Voenniy Osvedomitel, a popular commentator, wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

After the explosions, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, appeared to note the strikes obliquely, as Ukrainian officials have often done after unexplained explosions inside Russia.

“The Earth is round — discovery made by Galileo,” he wrote on Twitter . “If something is launched into other countries’ airspace, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to departure point.”

Only a few hours after the explosions, Ukrainian officials said that more than a dozen Russian bombers had taken off from the Engels air base.

Ivan Nechepurenko and Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

— Andrew E. Kramer , Michael Schwirtz and Marc Santora

Russia fired a barrage of missiles across Ukraine on Monday.

Russia launched a volley of missiles at Ukraine’s energy grid on Monday, knocking out power in several regions, officials said, the latest in a monthslong campaign of strikes by Moscow targeting civilian infrastructure.

Ukrainian air defense systems fired into the sky in multiple areas of the country but not all missiles were intercepted. Four people were killed by the Russian strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, and officials reported damage to energy infrastructure.

When air-raid warnings were issued for most of the country, Ukrainians followed a grim routine and headed for bomb shelters in Kyiv and other cities. Shortly after the all-clear was given, Mr. Zelensky addressed the nation to praise both the military and utility workers fighting to keep the lights on.

“Air defenses shot down most of the rockets, energy workers have already started to restore electricity,” he said. Ukraine’s Air Force later said that it had shot down more than 60 missiles out of more than 70 fired.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that it had targeted power plants and other sites in Ukraine. Ukraine’s prime minister said energy facilities were hit in the Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Odesa regions, according to the Ukrinform news agency.

The strikes occurred hours after explosions were reported at two military bases deep inside Russia, including one that Ukraine said has been used as a staging ground for aircraft in previous attacks against Ukraine’s energy grid. Russia’s Ministry of Defense later accused Ukraine of using drones to attack the bases.

By midafternoon in Ukraine, multiple reports had surfaced of inbound missiles. A New York Times reporter south of Kyiv saw a cruise missile in flight traveling toward the capital. Another New York Times reporter observed what appeared to be a surface-to-air-missile launched outside of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine. The extent of damage, and of casualties, was not immediately clear.

The governor of the Kyiv region, the administrative district around the capital, said that air defense systems had fired at incoming missiles. “Stay in shelters and safe places,” the governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, wrote in a statement on Telegram.

Ukraine’s national energy company, Ukrenergo, said that the “mass missile attack” had damaged electrical facilities. In a statement posted on Facebook , it said emergency energy shutdowns would be imposed to help balance the grid.

Blackouts were reported in several regions, from Sumy in the north along the border with Russia to Odesa in the south on the Black Sea coast.

The Russian military typically launches missiles from multiple directions and in successive waves, a tactic intended to overwhelm or avoid Ukraine’s air defenses, Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, told a Ukrainian television news show.

Russia began firing missiles at Ukraine’s energy grid in October after its forces lost ground on the battlefield in two Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the south and northeast.

Ukrainians have responded to the wave of strikes on infrastructure by building emergency heating shelters in towns, dispatching linemen to repair the grid as swiftly as possible and powering restaurants, stores and hospitals with generators . In hard-hit areas, residents stockpile water in bottles in their homes.

And Ukrainians have adapted. In Kryvyi Rih, a central city that is a hub of the iron-mining industry, miners evacuated to the surface on Monday, lest electricity for their elevators be lost, the city’s mayor said. After past strikes, miners had been trapped underground.

Ukraine has greatly increased its capacity to shoot down incoming missiles, aided by air defense systems supplied by the United States and some European countries..

Carlotta Gall and Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.

— Andrew E. Kramer and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

When the air raid sirens ring out, residents of Kyiv head underground.

KYIV, Ukraine — In a city where daily routines have been wrecked by unrelenting Russian missile strikes, unpredictable power cuts and unreliable water supplies, residents of Kyiv know that, at any time, they might have to spend a few hours in an air raid shelter.

It had been 13 days since the last large-scale barrage of Russian missiles fired at targets across Ukraine, the longest stretch without blasts in and around the capital since Moscow began its assault on the nation’s energy infrastructure in early October. For days, Ukrainian officials had been warning that another attack was imminent.

So when the air raid alarms sounded across Kyiv early on Monday afternoon, many people were not surprised. The sirens were followed by warnings that missiles were inbound, and soon after the thunder of air defense systems could be heard over the capital.

“To be honest I feel relief this time,” said Olha Kotrus, 34. “For two weeks there were reports that it might happen and then you live in constant tension.”

Ms. Kotrus was sitting on the floor of a Kyiv metro station with her mom, a cat in a cage and her dog. The dog, dressed in a blue outfit to keep it warm in the winter chill, was visibly stressed. Ms. Kotrus was angry and fed up.

She joined a crowd of hundreds people deep underground at the metro station Golden Gate, named after the main fortification that served as the entrance to the city 1,000 years ago.

By evening, however, the famed gate was not illuminated, forced into darkness like much of the city. Monday’s barrage of rockets targeting sites around the country was the eighth such wave of attacks on key energy infrastructure targets, according to the national utility operator, Ukrenergo.

“Unfortunately, energy infrastructure facilities have already been hit and there have been emergency power outages related to this,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.

At least ten rockets were aimed at Kyiv on Monday, according to local officials. Nine were shot down above the capital, the officials said.

Like everyone interviewed in Kyiv, Ms. Kotrus’s anger was directed at Russia and her frustration was the result of many days filled with anxiety and long, dark nights with no power.

Anna Sokolova, 21, said she had endured cuts in power and water supplies for two weeks, ever since the last wave of missiles. Ms. Sokolova lives near a local utility headquarters that has been targeted in recent Russian strikes and said she always takes shelter when the alarms sound.

But she did not want to complain about her own hardships, saying it is nothing compared to what her friends, soldiers fighting on the front lines, are experiencing.

Lyumyla Vonifatova, 66, agreed.

“We all understand that without electricity, life becomes impossible,” she said. “Yet, we will just have to find a way to get through it.”

She was passing the time in the subway shelter by looking at a small display of photos of this war and others that came before it.

“Despite all the loss of human life and economic hardship, we will stand until the end,” she said. “Because this is a fight for our freedom.”

But Tetyana Tkachenko’s six-year-old son is too small to understand that. She said he is terrified every time the alarms sound.

“He was crying, running around,” when the alarms began to sound, Ms. Tkachenko said. He quickly put on warm clothes and begged to “go to the subway,” she said.

She grabbed two foldable chairs, previously used for the park or beach. But now they were part of the family’s new routine, for when the sirens sound and they head deep underground.

— Marc Santora and Maria Varenikova

Putin inspects a bridge linking Russia and Crimea, two months after a damaging explosion.

President Vladimir V. Putin inspected repairs to a bridge that links the country with the Crimean Peninsula on Monday, two months after an explosion partly destroyed it in an embarrassing blow to the Russian leader and Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

The October attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a pet project of Mr. Putin’s that became a key supply route for Moscow’s forces in southern Ukraine, was a critical moment in the war. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of orchestrating the blast, which underscored Russia’s inability to protect a key strategic asset and prompted Moscow to unleash a wave of airstrikes on Ukraine.

Video published by the Kremlin showed Mr. Putin driving a Mercedes car over the bridge. Accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who is in charge of the repair, Mr. Putin inquired about the progress of the work and said he hoped the road and rail bridge would be fully restored by the middle of the summer vacation season.

Pointing at the still-charred railway section of the bridge, he said that “this was a big explosion.”

When the bridge opened in 2018, it was a powerful symbol of the connection the Kremlin was attempting to forge between Russia and Crimea, a Ukrainian region illegally annexed by Moscow four years earlier. Mr. Putin took personal credit for its construction, driving a truck along its 12-mile span at the head of a convoy.

On Monday, he also took credit for building two railway tracks and two traffic lanes each way, as the redundancy allowed traffic to be partially restored soon after the explosion hit in October.

While Ukraine’s government did not claim responsibility for the blast, which sent part of the bridge crashing into the sea on Oct. 8, a senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a government ban on discussing the blast, confirmed that Ukraine’s intelligence services were behind it .

The Kerch attack came during a period of setbacks for Russian forces in Ukraine, including the loss of territory it had captured in the northeast of the country. Two days after the attack on the bridge, Russia escalated a strategy of pounding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with waves of missiles launched at power stations and other facilities.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Ivan Nechepurenko

A woman is shot and killed trying to cross into Ukrainian-held territory in Kherson.

KHERSON, Ukraine — A 65-year-old woman was shot to death on Sunday evening as she tried to escape in a boat from Russian-occupied territory in Kherson, Ukrainian officials said, illustrating the perils of Ukraine’s call for civilians to evacuate Russian-held areas in the heavily contested southern region.

Ukrainian officials blamed Russian soldiers in the killing; there was no immediate comment from the Russian side. The woman was crossing the Dnipro River, attempting to thread a gantlet of Russian and Ukrainian troops dug in on opposite banks near the city of Kherson, when she was killed in a hail of automatic gunfire, according to a statement from the City Council.

Both armies have been heavily shelling each other across the river, which has become a front line three weeks after Ukraine reclaimed Kherson city on the west bank and Russian forces withdrew to defensive positions on the eastern side. On Saturday, Ukrainian officials encouraged people to flee Russian-occupied areas on the eastern bank, warning of a “possible intensification of hostilities.”

But even before the woman was killed, many Ukrainians had complained on social media channels that the evacuation plan, which required individuals to use private boats to cross a dangerous river, was poorly organized. The announcement on Saturday did not specify the areas people should flee from or whether the advice applied in towns still occupied by Russian troops.

One of those towns, Hola Prystan, which lies several miles downriver from Kherson, was the area that the woman who was killed tried to escape, according to a statement released by the Kherson City Council on Sunday night.

“A 65-year-old woman who was crossing the Dnipro River with her husband on a boat, leaving a country house in the Hola Prystan district, was wounded by automatic fire. Unfortunately, the woman did not survive,” the statement read.

On Monday, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesman for the Kherson regional military administration, said that the area was not covered by the evacuation plan.

“Navigation there is not open,” he said. “It is still banned to cross river there by boats. People can move there at their own risk.”

The area around Kherson and Hola Prystan is a watery landscape of river channels and small marshy islands, some with summer homes on them. The Kherson authorities’ plan was to have evacuees come to Kherson’s main river port, which itself has come under heavy shelling in the past week. Until the evacuation was announced, the Ukrainian military had prohibited people from traveling by boat on the river. The plan was to allow daylight river crossings for three days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The mood in Kherson has turned grim in the three weeks since Ukrainian forces swept in, when the city throbbed with jubilation as people poured into the streets, hugged soldiers, waved flags and snapped selfies. As Russian forces continue to shell the city relentlessly, more than 18 people have been killed in the past two weeks and dozens more wounded, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian forces have been eager to push the Russians farther away and get Kherson out of artillery range. Over the weekend, a Ukrainian military unit released a video purporting to show the raising of a Ukrainian flag on the eastern bank of the Dnipro. Although there was no indication that Ukraine had established a permanent military presence at the site, the video was an apparent sign of Kyiv’s intent to continue its counteroffensive in the south.

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting.

— Jeffrey Gettleman

An E.U. embargo of Russian oil and the G7’s price cap take effect.

Europe and the United States started enforcing on Monday two of the toughest measures aimed at curbing Russia’s income from oil, the principal source of cash used to fund its nearly 10-month-old war in Ukraine.

The first, a price cap initiative led by the United States, aims to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin while avoiding a global oil shock . The limit was set at $60 per barrel, and was endorsed by the Group of 7 countries, Australia, and members of the European Union.

The second is an embargo under which European nations will no longer be able to buy most Russian crude as of Monday. It was a step that the European Union had agreed to months ago but that was phased in with exceptions to prepare member nations.

Prices gyrated in the oil markets on Monday, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, up by about 2.5 percent, to $87.75 a barrel, at midday in Europe. West Texas Intermediate future were selling at $82 a barrel.

An immediate impact on oil supplies in Europe was not expected, partly because the embargo has been in the works for months, and energy companies have already begun buying more oil from the United States, Brazil, Guyana and the Middle East.

Although analysts and traders say the price cap may prove a nightmare to administer, one expert on sanctions said the lengthy negotiations had produced a deal with the potential to work.

“I suspect the compromise that was reached gives the policy the best chance it could have to succeed,” said Edward Fishman, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Mr. Fishman, who previously led planning and implementation of sanctions on Russia at the Department of State, said there were several reasons to be optimistic. One is the recent softness of oil markets, which he interpreted as meaning that Russian oil was no longer as critical to the markets as it was a few months ago. He also said the agreed $60 price was a “Goldilocks” level, not so high as to give Russia even more revenue than it is currently receiving or so low as to discourage Moscow from producing oil.

He also said that the cap’s provision to review the price level every two months, or more frequently if needed, provided the “flexibility” that historically has helped make sanctions, like those targeting Iran’s oil sales, effective.

Still, skepticism about the likely efficacy of the measures stems in part from the United States and European countries mandating European shippers and insurers to enforce it by declining to handle cargoes priced above the $60-a-barrel level.

— Stanley Reed

Ukraine will auction a yacht seized from a Putin ally.

As Ukraine scrambles to fund its fight against Russia’s invasion, a potential new source of tens of millions of dollars has materialized — the planned sale of a superyacht seized from one of Ukraine’s most famous pro-Russian oligarchs.

Soon after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, Ukrainian authorities announced they had taken possession of properties belonging to Viktor Medvedchuk , a prominent pro-Russian politician and a close friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

For years, Mr. Medvedchuk was seen as the Kremlin’s primary agent of influence in Ukraine. Mr. Putin is the godfather of Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter.

The confiscated assets included the Royal Romance, a 300-foot yacht docked in a Croatian port that is linked to Mr. Medvedchuk. According to its Dutch manufacturer, Feadship, the ship has a 40-foot swimming pool, a gym, a waterfall feature, and an estimated value of more than $200 million. The yacht and other assets were confiscated as part of a criminal investigation in which Mr. Medvedchuk is suspected of treason, according to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation .

Last week, ARMA, Ukraine’s government agency for asset recovery and management, said that a district court in Split, Croatia, had entrusted the city’s port administration with implementing the transfer of the yacht to the agency. ARMA described the Royal Romance, which has 50 rooms, as “one of the largest yachts in the world” and said that it plans to auction the vessel to “preserve its economic value.”

Ukrainians welcomed the proposed sale, with some celebrating on social media and joking that Mr. Medvedchuk would be making a large donation to Ukraine’s armed forces.

ARMA was created in Ukraine in 2016 to seize the assets of officials in corruption cases, but since the invasion it has also turned its attention to the property of Russians and of Ukrainians who are accused of collaborating with Russia.

Mr. Medvedchuk, a prominent figure in the pro-Russian wing of Ukrainian politics and a former deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, had been under criminal investigation in Ukraine before the invasion. Ukrainian security forces captured him in April, after he fled house arrest while awaiting trial on treason charges. Ukrainian authorities handed him over to Russia in September in a prisoner exchange.

Mr. Medvedchuk was also mentioned in U.S. investigations into Russian electoral meddling, as a client of the Republican political consultant Paul Manafort. He denied wrongdoing and said Mr. Manafort had merely advised his party on electoral strategy.

The Royal Romance officially belongs to a company called Lanelia Holdings, based in the Marshall Islands, according to Equasis , a major shipping information database. The ship changed ownership in 2021, when Ukraine imposed sanctions on Mr. Medvedchuk.

Last summer, a superyacht linked to a Russian businessman under sanctions was auctioned in Gibraltar, but the profits were set to repay his creditors rather than replenish Ukraine’s accounts. In general, the process through which seized assets can be permanently confiscated and sold to benefit Ukraine is cumbersome and can take years .

— Emma Bubola and Anastasia Kuznietsova

To help Ukraine, a widow parts with a rare emerald from a 1622 shipwreck.

For years, Mitzi Perdue looked down at her hand and saw history.

The emerald stone on her ring finger told a story stretching back nearly four centuries, to the sinking of a Spanish galleon near the Florida Keys in 1622 and a decades-long effort of a colorful undersea treasure hunter named Mel Fisher to retrieve its payload of gold and silver coins, gold nuggets and jewelry.

It reminded her, too, of her late husband, the chicken magnate Frank Perdue, who received a share of the bounty in return for his investment in Mr. Fisher’s search. He donated most of it, but kept the emerald and presented it to her when he proposed marriage in 1988. She wore it until his death in 2005 , when she put it away for safekeeping.

Now, 400 years after the Nuestra Señora de Atocha sank in a hurricane, Ms. Perdue, 81, is putting the emerald up for auction on Wednesday at Sotheby’s in New York City. All proceeds from the sale of the ring, which Sotheby’s says has an estimated value of $50,000 to $70,000, will be donated to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, prompted by Ms. Perdue’s visit there this year after the Russian invasion .

“What must it be like for the people who have been there enduring, continuously with no respite, for at least half a year?” she said. “After five days, I wanted to do more. And then I started thinking, ‘What can I do to be most helpful?’ And then I thought, ‘I own something that’s of historic significance.’”

— April Rubin

Russia continues to manufacture cruise missiles despite Western sanctions, experts say.

Some of the cruise missiles that Russia launched at Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in late November were manufactured months after the West imposed sanctions intended to deprive Moscow of the components needed to make those munitions, according to a weapons research group.

Experts examined remnants of Kh-101 cruise missiles found in Kyiv, the capital, after an attack on Nov. 23 that knocked out electricity and shut down water systems in large areas of the country. One of the missiles was made this summer, and another was completed after September, markings on the weapons show, according to a report released by the investigators on Monday .

That Russia has continued to make advanced guided missiles like the Kh-101 suggests that it has found ways to acquire semiconductors and other matériel despite the sanctions or that it had significant stockpiles of the components before the war began, one of the researchers said.

The findings are among the most recent by Conflict Armament Research , an independent group based in Britain that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars. A small team of its researchers arrived in Kyiv just before the attack at the invitation of the Ukrainian security service.

— John Ismay

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Another price cut on superyacht Dione Sky at Yacht Connections

Yacht Connections sends news of a further $2.5 million price cut on the all-aluminium 46m expedition yacht Dione Sky .

Custom built by US yard Palmer Johson to ABS class, she was delivered in 1996 as Turmoil . Under her present owner she made an impressive figure of eight passage around North and South America – a feat duly recognised by the award of the Voyager’s Trophy at the 2011 World Superyacht Awards. In all, she has logged nearly 200,000 nautical miles since launch and made a successful transit of the North West Passage in 2001. Her rugged appearance belies a stunning, elegant interior in American cherry wood.

Dione Sky is MCA compliant and has accommodation for 10 guests in a master suite, two double staterooms and two twin cabins, all en suite. She received an extensive refit/rebuild in 2007. Twin 819hp Caterpillar engines give her a cruising speed of 12 knots and a range of 7,000 nautical miles. Both engines were completely rebuilt in early 2013.

Dione Sky is up for sale as her present captain and his wife, who have been with this owner over 20 years on various yachts, are now retiring and the owner does not wish to hire a new crew at this stage.

Lying at Vilanova Marina in Barcelona, Spain, Dione Sky is down from $17.5 million to $15 million.

Drone hits Moscow building causing 'powerful explosion' three miles from Kremlin

Russia says its air defences shot down the drone in Moscow - and accused Ukraine of targeting the capital.

Saturday 19 August 2023 02:20, UK

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Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the wreckage of the drone fell near the Expocentre

Russia has accused Ukraine of targeting Moscow in a drone attack after one smashed into a building causing a "powerful explosion".

It hit the Expo Center complex in central Moscow , which hosts conventions and conferences, in the early hours of Friday.

The damaged Expo Center complex in central Moscow

Russia's defence ministry and city mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there were no casualties after air defences shot down the unmanned drone which then fell on the building - situated about three miles from the Kremlin.

Footage circulating on social media purportedly shows the moment debris from the drone struck the building.

There is a small explosion followed by smoke billowing from the structure.

Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko posted the video - originally from the pro-Kremlin Mash Telegram channel - on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).