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By Staff Reporter ONE of the world´s largest and most luxurious yachts is at present moored at the Porto Pi naval base in Palma. The Amevi is owned by Britain´s richest man, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal who paid in excess of 100 million pounds for the super-yacht which even has its own submarine.


But the Amevi has been chartered by the President of the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan who held talks on Sunday with King Juan Carlos of Spain and went sailing on board the royal yacht Fortuna. Nursultan Nazarbayev is using the yacht as a floating base while he is in Palma. It is unclear how long the vessel will remain in Palma.

The Mittal family first went sailing on their luxury yacht in 2007, shortly after the Amevi had been completed. According to one British newspaper the first cruise was not altogether a success. They set sail from Barcelona on April 5 last year and headed to Ibiza but the weather was not on their side.

Despite the boat's modern stabilisers, built into her design, the 262ft-long vessel took the full brunt of the weather, terrifying everyone onboard. Their trip lasted ten days with rumours of certain members of Mittal's family swearing never to leave the safety of dry land again despite the yacht's various luxuries which include a gym, cinema and swimming pool
Mittal, a labour donor and father of two, lives in a 70 million pound mansion which he bought from Ernie Ecclestone in 2004.
Luckily for Nursultan Nazarbayev, bad weather shouldn't be affecting his stay on the yacht at the moment.
Nazarbayev has been president of Kazakhstan since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. However, his large private wealth is surrounded in controversy, with allegations that he has transferred at least $1 billion worth of oil revenues to his private bank accounts in other countries.

In April this year he was the first torchbearer of the Kazakhstan part of the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay in Almaty.