Katana for sale at $125m

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

American software tycoon Larry Ellison's luxury craft Katana - billed as "the fastest large megayacht on the planet" - is on sale in Auckland for a cool $125 million.

The 74m gin palace is being offered for US$68 million by a Florida-based agent ahead of the grand finale of the America's Cup.

It is understood Ellison, ranked the world's fifth-richest man, is selling in anticipation of having an even larger vessel built.

Katana is ranked America's sixth-largest yacht, three places behind Microsoft co-founder and OneWorld funder Paul Allen's 92m Tatoosh, which visited during the Louis Vuitton challengers' regatta.

But even if Ellison gets his asking price, he will still end up $50 million shy of the $174 million he sank into his Oracle syndicate's first America's Cup yachting campaign.

Although Oracle was knocked out of the Louis Vuitton challengers' final, America's Cup Village chairman Peter Kiely said yesterday that Katana was booked to remain in Auckland to see this month's duel between Alinghi and Team New Zealand.

Capable of 38 knots, the motor yacht boasts a two-storey apartment, a giant plasma-screen television, and a basketball court. Katana was built in 1991 by Germany's famed Blohm and Voss shipyard, but was refitted in 2001.