One of the most commonly asked questions I get from traditional media outlets doing articles and broadcasts about megayachts–besides “Who owns that?”–”is “How many of these yachts are there?” For the past 15 years, I’ve been quoting essentially the same statistics as many others in the marine business: back then, about 5,000; these days, about 7,000, all from 80 feet on up.
Turns out, we’ve all been overestimating the figures.
That’s one of the many eye-opening findings in the new Luxury Yachting Index, a just-released, comprehensive report compiled by Camper and Nicholsons (CNI) with the assistance of The Luxury Institute, an independent research organization with a special focus on the top ten percent of America’s wealthiest individuals. The Luxury Yachting Index features statistics and detailed information on everything from the number of megayachts in existence to breakdowns of what years in recent history represent the most significant changes to these numbers. It even analyzes what nationalities represent the majority of buyers and charterers.
This is the first time a company–any company, whether part of the megayacht business or not–has gone to such lengths to compile detailed data.
Why should CNI’s numbers be more believable than the ones I’ve been quoting for so long? Well, before I fully explain that, let me state that CNI does not lay claim to having every single figure narrowed down to 100 percent accuracy. When I posed some questions to Laurent Perignon, CNI’s director of marketing, he readily offered that the index wasn’t an exact science and that in compiling the figures the CNI team may have overlooked some yachts—but that was a risk the company was willing to take. After all, Perignon says, it’s better to underestimate than overestimate. As to how it came up with the statistics, CNI cross-referenced publicly available and private information from multiple sources, such as the major yachting magazines, shipyards, and charter management records, and eliminated some duplication as well as easily proven erroneous information–yachts that no longer existed, for example, or ones that had yet to launch.
So exactly how many megayachts are out there? As of the end of 2007, there were 3,800, with “megayacht” defined as an 80-footer or larger. Specifically, the index finds that there were:
* 1,310 from 80 to 100 feet
* 1,520 from 100 to 130 feet
* 550 from 130 to 165 feet
* 230 from 165 to 200 feet
* 190 from 200 feet on up.
As you can see, the majority is smaller than 130 feet, but as the index points out, there’s a distinct trend toward super-big superyachts. I’ve definitely noticed this, given how the “smallest” yacht on the Power & Motoryacht 100 these days is just over 200 feet LOA. The Luxury Yachting Index goes on to detail how this trend has evolved just within the past several years:
* from 1990 to 2000, 1,100 megayachts were built, representing 31 percent of the market–but prior to 1990, there were 900 (24 percent)
* meanwhile, from 2000 to 2005, there were 800 launches (20 percent)
* and most significant of all, from 2005 to 2007, 1,000 megayachts launched, representing 25 percent of the market.
The statistics go on and on, in some cases to excruciating detail–and I say “excruciating” because I know full well just how difficult it is to obtain accurate information about these yachts. There are times when I’m convinced it really is easier to find a needle in a haystack.
In retrospect, that’s probably why the numbers I’ve assumed all these years were accurate were actually anything but. “There’s a lot of misinformation being given to the public, particularly in the lifestyle magazines,” Perignon told a group of journalists (including me) last week when CNI revealed the report. Since the megayacht industry is evolving from “a cottage industry” to a more fleshed-out, global business, he continued, it needs to be more open and therefore accurate with information. Being part of a public company (CNI is owned by the Rodriguez Group), CNI is accustomed to revealing more details than some businesses and therefore believed it was well-suited to taking charge of compiling this information.
There’s more–much, much more–to the Luxury Yachting Index. I could write literally thousands of more words about its findings. But rather than make this post overbearing, I’ll revisit the subject again in the coming days. I’ve never been one to be bowled over by statistics, since numbers don’t always represent what they seem; you need only listen to a political candidate speak for a few minutes to figure that one out. But this is one case where the figures are downright fascinating.
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