On Monday I relayed how the Luxury Yachting Index just released by Camper & Nicholsons opened my eyes to how figures relating to megayacht ownership worldwide had been overestimated for years. The index is so in-depth–43 pages in total–that it’s taken me literally days to digest parts of it. As I said then, I’m not one to be bowled over by statistics, since many times statistics are used and interpreted incorrectly. But this was one case where I was fascinated by both what I didn’t know as well as what I did.
Among the things that I did know is that certain nations and certain nationalities represent the lion’s share of the megayacht-building and megayacht-buying set, respectively. As to the former, a whopping 50 percent of construction is occurring in Italy. When you consider the three semicustom yacht lines as well as the full-custom offerings coming out of Benetti, along with the offerings from other known names like Perini Navi, Codecasa, Sanlorenzo, and Baglietto, it makes sense. Then throw in new-to-the-yacht-scene Fincantieri, which is focusing squarely on super-size superyachts.
The country with the next-largest share is the United States–and even at just 12.5 percent of the market, it’s a big change from the past decade, when Holland and Germany each far exceeded its output. (They currently represent nine and eight percent, respectively.) In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that some yacht brokers told their clients that they couldn’t build a steel-hulled megayacht stateside or even a good-quality vessel of any material exceeding 150 feet. Trinity Yachts, Christensen Shipyards, Westport Shipyard, and Palmer Johnson have particularly stepped up production in recent years.
In the case of nationalities, Americans continue to represent a significant portion of the megayacht-buying public. They’re also active charterers, as are the Brits. Camper & Nicholsons’ Luxury Yachting Index reveals that each group represents 30 percent of the buying and chartering clientele.
If you’ve been following general trends when it comes to owners and charterers, you may assume Russians are a close second. Interesting enough, while they’ve been commissioning and chartering the biggest of the big just within the past few years, they make up only eight percent of the population–and come in fourth, after the French and Swiss combined, at 10 percent.
Camper & Nicholsons plans to continue compiling data for the next edition of the index, which will be released in 2009. The goal is to establish a central, accurate, annually updated database that everyone in the industry contributes to and anyone can reference. I hope other brokerage houses as well as builders, designers, project managers, and additional industry reps recognize we now have a golden opportunity to better monitor trends, adapt to them and other changes, and generally further the professionalism of our business.
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