Azure shoots are bubbling up in the yachting industry. Just in the past few weeks, Brazilian shipyard MCP, Turkey’s Sunrise Yachts, and Italy’s Benetti have all announced orders for boats above 40 meters.
Even better, Christensen Yachts in Vancouver announced the first North America contract signed since the financial crisis - for a pair of identical 50-meter yachts, each costing roughly $30 million. Why two? Apparently, for the anonymous buyer, one was not enough. This is not the first time an owner has treated himself to two identical boats; after all, when you jet from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean you don’t want the stress of having to learn a whole new deck plan. What if you’re taking a romantic moonlight walk? You certainly don’t want to bark your shin on an unexpected outcropping.
It’s easy to poke fun at the excesses built into the luxury yacht trade. There is perhaps no market on earth where men compete more aggressively in measuring their… equipment. (I actually have never heard of a woman ordering a super-yacht. These days, in America, women who have shattered the glass ceiling seem content to spend their fortunes on more humdrum opportunities like campaigning for the Senate.) Like skyscrapers, yachts continue to grow in size, with the newly affluent happily pushing the envelope.
Recently, the envelope soared from letter to legal size, as the latest, greatest super-yacht ever built steamed out of the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Germany. The Eclipse, commissioned by Chelsea Football owner Roman Abramovich, is all of 557 feet long, surpassing by 36 feet the record previously held by the 532-foot Dubai, owned by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Because the Eclipse project has been carried out under the strictest security, descriptions of the boat (ship?) have bordered on the incredible, or possibly the ludicrous. The cost had been originally estimated by Huffington Post at between $400 million and $1.2 billion; even to a former stock analyst, that seems like a large range. The current betting is $486 million.
The vessel is said to contain a missile defense system, a submarine, bullet-proof glass, swimming pools and hot tubs (of course), not one but two helipads (handy for large parties), gazillions of flat-screen TVs, 600 doors, and - my favorite - an “anti-paparazzi laser shield.” The shield can apparently detect and deflect the kinds of light impulses that stem from an intrusive camera. No yacht should be without one. The truth is, no one really knows what is aboard the Eclipse; the level of secrecy surrounding the project makes the Stealth Bomber look like one of those planes towing advertisements above overcrowded beaches. Recent press accounts that the owner has gotten into a row with the builder over whether the reptile and leopard skins in the massage room were ethically sourced may or may not be true.
It is remarkable, perhaps, that the super-yacht industry is already recovering. After all, even our wealthiest global citizens took a beating during the financial crisis, and other sectors, such as fine jewelry, are still struggling. And yet the signs are unmistakable. Miriam Cain of the British broker Camper and Nicholson says that industry-wide there were 33 sales of existing yachts in April, up from 24 in March, for a rise of 65 percent. Sales were up 36 percent from a year ago, based on asking prices. Demand, she says, is particularly strong for the cream of the crop vessels - those made in Italy or Northern Europe. Buyers are Americans or English, as well as Asian and Middle Eastern. Kenny Wooten, the American editor of the Yacht Report, says orders tend to pick up when the Dow Jones Industrial Average moves above 10,000.

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