The Addiction, spotted from land. PHOTOS: ANDREW RUSSETH/ARTNEWS

The wealthy: they love art, and they love boats. Happily, the Venice Biennale provides an opportunity to combine those passions. At the moment, many very large boats are parked outside the Giardini, the home of the Biennale, as well as alongside the Punta della Dogana, the customs-house-turned-private-museum of François Pinault. Below, a quick look at some of the luxury liners in Venice, from smallest to largest.

Ariela

This is 130 feet of pure yacht—capable of hosting 12 people with a crew of seven. Its weight: 399 tons. (These facts come from Yacht Charter Fleet.) I’m into this yacht, with its intriguingly shaped long window near the center. It’s a tiny bit mysterious, almost coy: not telling you too much, confident in what it is. (Note that it’s remarkably similar to the Addiction, further down.)

Sky

This dark blue-hulled boat is a thing of beauty and can accommodate 12 guests, according to its maker, Heesen Yachts. It takes a crew of seven to run it at peak performance. My favorite element of this yacht is that it has a nifty remote-controlled bridge (pictured above) that lets one step smoothly onto land. It’s 166 feet.

Addiction



No doubt about it, this is a very cool name for a yacht: a little menacing and a little gauche in the way that only a certain kind of billionaire can pull off. (It can’t be seen in the photo, but the first “d” in the name is actually red and rotated 90 degrees so that it resembles a heart.) The boat is 178 feet long, according to the website Yacht Charter Fleet. No, it’s not available to charter.

Iman

The message of this yacht says: power. It’s just shy of 200 feet, at 194.55, according to Boat International.

Stella Maris

Without question, the Stella Maris is my favorite yacht in Venice right now. It’s elegant enough to bring to the Biennale, but it’s also tough-looking, like it could handle itself in a modest sea skirmish or maybe even battle Poseidon in a fantasy movie. The ARTnews archives have some great reporting on this beauty, which is a formidable 236 feet long.