The End of the Megayacht Boom?

When it comes to boat sales, the one area of the market that has continued to boom in recent years has been megayachts, particularly mega motoryachts. Indeed, in some cases speculators have bought 150+ footers and then sold them at double the price before even taking delivery. The only weakness in the megayacht market seems to have been the capacity to build them, as the demand has raged unchecked.

But things may have changed. Some of the biggest buyers have been Russian oligarch billionaires such as Roman Abramovich. If we’re not mistaken, he currently owns three or four mega motoryachts, and is having the 555-ft Eclipse built in Germany. But according to news reports, the 25 richest Russians have, between May and October 6, lost a collective $230 billion in the Russian stock market. Talk about near incomprehensible losses! And mind you, the Russian market — when it’s been allowed to open — has gone much further south since then.

And as everyone who has paid attention knows, the rest of the world markets have made a good impression of collapsing, too. Given the net losses of the megayacht owners of the world, we can only assume that this market, as well as the very high end charter market, will be much more ‘challenging’, as they say, in the future. While everyone will certainly miss the massive numbers of jobs and business opportunities generated by such megayachts, we doubt that too many tears will be shed for the owners.