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Two Superyachts Turning Heads in Mallorca This Week: Skat and M'Brace
Mallorca's summer waters rarely go a week without a genuine showstopper passing through, but this week has delivered two at once — and they couldn't be more different from each other. Off Puerto Portals, the unmistakable warship-grey Skat has been drawing attention as usual. Meanwhile, tracking data shows Michael Jordan's 74.5-metre M'Brace arriving in Palma de Mallorca after departing Barcelona on 18 July, currently sitting at anchor in the Balearic Sea.
Skat: The Warship-Grey Icon
Regular visitors to Puerto Portals know to expect the occasional showstopper anchored just offshore, but Skat still turns heads even by the marina's own standards. Painted battleship grey and built from sharp angles rather than curves, the 70.7-metre Lürssen was photographed off the marina again this week — instantly recognisable to anyone who's spent time watching the water here.
A Yacht Designed to Look Like Nothing Else
Skat was built by the German yard Lürssen and delivered in 2002, commissioned by Charles Simonyi — the Microsoft engineer who oversaw the development of Word and Excel — to a brief that rejected conventional yacht design outright. Simonyi reportedly told designer Espen Øino that most yachts looked "carved out of soft cheese," and asked for the opposite: a vessel built from flat steel and aluminium plates, styled to match his own grey, angular house near Seattle.
The result carries a hull number, 9906, that reads like a military designation but is simply Øino's internal project code. Extensive glazing lets in far more light than the exterior's austere styling suggests, and the interior, designed by Marco Zanini, was conceived as a functional gallery space for Simonyi's contemporary art collection. At 70.7 metres, she accommodates up to 12 guests across 6 suites, with a crew of up to 18.
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A Change of Ownership
Simonyi sold Skat in 2021, moving on to an even larger Lürssen build, the 90-metre Norn, delivered in 2023 as a deliberate successor sharing much of Skat's design language. Skat's new owner is Kjell Inge Røkke, the Norwegian billionaire who began his career as a teenage fisherman before building one of Norway's largest business empires, and who has also held a stake in English football club Wimbledon. Skat underwent a further refit as recently as 2025, and remains very much in active use.
M'Brace: Michael Jordan's Superyacht Heads to Palma
The second yacht making news this week is a very different kind of vessel. M'Brace, a 74.5-metre superyacht built by the German yard Abeking & Rasmussen and delivered in 2018, departed Barcelona on 18 July and is currently tracked at anchor in the Balearic Sea, with Palma de Mallorca as her confirmed destination.
The yacht was originally built for, and named after, British billionaire Lloyd Dorfman, founder of the Travelex Group, under the name Elandess. Designed inside and out by the London studio Harrison Eidsgaard, she's distinguished by a sharp "Atlantic Bow" and a striking low-slung silhouette, along with an 8-by-2.5-metre pool on the sundeck and a "Neptune Lounge" — an observation room below the waterline with thick laminated glass for watching the sea from underneath. She accommodates up to 12 guests across her staterooms, with a crew of around 24.
Dorfman sold the yacht to NBA legend Michael Jordan in December 2022, and she was renamed M'Brace shortly after. Jordan has been photographed aboard her at various points around the Mediterranean in the years since, and this week's tracked arrival in Mallorca puts the island on that itinerary once again.
Why Puerto Portals
Puerto Portals' combination of deep-water berths, direct access to open water and a marina village built around restaurants, boutiques and yacht services makes it one of the default stops for superyachts working their way around the western Mediterranean each summer. Sightings like Skat's aren't rare here so much as routine — this is a marina where the presence of a genuine design icon barely disrupts the morning coffee crowd on the quay.
For residents of Portals Nous and the surrounding coast, mornings like this are simply part of the view. Browse current listings in Portals Nous, or get in touch to talk through what's available closest to the marina.
