Super Yachts Are Now A 'Tough Sell'

'Super-Yachts' Are a Tough Sell to the Newly Rich -- CNBC/Reuters

The glamour, champagne-soaked launches, astronomical price tags, and celebrity clients belie a mounting unease in the world of "super-yacht" building, according to industry insiders.

The billionaire financier clients of the pre-financial crisis world are fewer. And the new rich of Asia with the kind of money needed to spend at least $100 million on a holiday gin palace just aren't that into boats.

"The business has been going through a lot of change in the past four years," says Henk de Vries, head of shipbuilder Feadship, which recently completed the 80-meter (yard) Venus motoryacht, reportedly ordered by the late Applefounder Steve Jobs and impounded in Amsterdam for unpaid bills.

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My Comment: I guess money is getting tighter.

A New Marketplace For Yachts

Photo: RobW_/Flickr

Live Out Your Jay Z Fantasies With Incrediblue, a Marketplace for Yachts -- Wired

With the havoc wrought by superstorm Sandy still fresh, and winter storms Athena and Brutus threatening, it’s a safe bet that sailing a luxury yacht across the Aegean sounds downright heavenly. Sure the economy may be in shambles in that part of the world, but the highs are in the 70s this week in Athens, Greece, where a startup called Incrediblue is launching a boat rental marketplace akin to Airbnb, but at sea.

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My Comment: Incrediblue's website is here.

From Solidarity To Super Yachts

From Solidarity To Super Yachts: Gdansk's Historic Shipyards Try To Stay Afloat -- CNN

(CNN) -- During the 1970s and '80s it was said that what happened in Gdansk moved the world.

The shipyard in the Polish port city employed around 20,000 workers building container ships and vessels for the navies of many East European communist countries.

It was also the birthplace of the anti-communist Solidarity trade union movement started by shipyard electrician Lech Walesa, and the spark that would help lead to further civil resistance against communism across Eastern Europe.

Now 30 years on, the shipyards are a very different place.

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My Comment: Gdansk shipyards are doing what it takes to survive .... I wish them the best.

Are Billionaires Dumping Their Superyachts?

Athena

Tycoons Are Dumping Their Superyachts -- Forbes

FORTUNE -- The oldest adage on the sea is that the two happiest days in a sailor's life are the days he buys his boat and the day he sells it. For three business titans, the days seem to be getting happier.

In 2009, Tom Perkins, the nonpareil venture capitalist of Silicon Valley, sold the Maltese Falcon, a 289-foot futuristic Darth Vader-esque square-rigger. Reported price: $90 million. The buyer: Elena Ambrosiadou, a European hedge-fund billionaire. Then, last June, Joe Vittoria -- who made a fortune as head of Avis Rent a Car when he led an LBO of the company in the 1980s -- unloaded Mirabella V, the 247-foot sloop with a 292-foot mast that's so tall the yacht can't fit under the Golden Gate Bridge or through the Panama Canal. Price, according to industry sources: $25 million. The buyer: Rod Lewis, a billionaire Texas oil-and-gas tycoon. Now comes the 68-year-old billionaire Jim Clark, the co-founder of Netscape, Shutterfly and WebMD. He just put his splendid sailboats, Athena and Hanuman, on the market on the same day.

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My Comment: These men buy and sold all the time .... they will be back in the market and/or building another yacht.

The Growing Trend Of Rich Asians Wanting Super Yachts

Rich Asians Go Full Steam Ahead Into Superyachts -- Reuters

The newly wealthy in Asia think nothing of spending big money on a big boat for prestige and fun but the region's nascent yachting class may have trouble finding a berth in overcrowded marinas.

Asia is home to less than 4 percent of the world's 7,000 superyachts but interest has been taking off for the last five years and many buyers are young, executives from the luxury boat industry said at a conference in Singapore on Wednesday.

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My Comment: The money and waters are there .... so why not the boats.

A Boat Builder Revolutionizing The Yacht Industry

Courtesy Wally Yachts

A Boat Builder From Monaco Is Revolutionizing The Yacht Industry -- Business Insider

Yachts are getting boring.

While they are opulent, luxurious, and relaxing, radical innovation seems to have passed the industry by in some respects.

But one boatyard in the south of France is looking to change all of that. Called Wally, the company is the vision of Luca Bassani Antivari, an Italian who became dissatisfied with yachts that he could buy from shipyards.

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My Comment: He is satisfying a niche for something new.