Eclipse yacht laser shield burns out CCD sensors

This week, the world's longest private yacht Eclipse (its size is 170 m, which is 11 m longer than the Dubai ship owned by Sheikh Mohammed) will be launched. Construction of the yacht cost $ 1.2 billion, and this is another record for private ships. The yacht was built on the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg by order of the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

A missile attack warning system (not yet installed), bullet-proof glass and a mini-submarine with 12 seats protects against a possible attempt. However, it was not the record of length and not the means of protection that attracted the attention of the technological press, but the most unusual equipment of the yacht - a unique system for protection against digital cameras.
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The system consists of infrared lasers that scan the surrounding area for the presence of CCD sensors, and a light gun that instantly burns out the sensor if it is detected (an English court is already considering a request from the Amateur Photographer photographic magazine about the legality of using such a system in practice). The system is activated only if necessary, the rest of the time guests on the yacht can take pictures freely. The light gun is also controlled in manual mode, so that the guards or Roman Abramovich himself can “shoot” the paparazzi manually.

Since it is impossible to make a photo of a yacht, we can show only images generated on a computer taken from the official website of the record yacht.



















All the illustrations show Eclipse, but the last photo shows another Abramovich Pelorus yacht (115 meters, 14th place in the world in length). Snapshot
made in June 2008 during the World Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, where Roman arrived on this yacht.

A new masterpiece of Abramovich should be fully equipped and run-in to the 2010 World Cup, which will be held in South Africa.