Why the super-rich still insist on buying superyachts

Despite the fatal sinking of a tech mogul’s boat, the priciest vessels remain in demand… with aesthetics taking priority over safety

Lunch o’clock aboard the HBC, an 85-metre superyacht moored off Monaco, and blond crew in white livery are serving the following: Bloody Mary oysters sprinkled with pancetta, jalapeño and nasturtium flowers; macarons stuffed with foie gras; beef tartare topped with black truffle, and a tuna salad  dotted with quail eggs. And these are just the starters. 
It’s the second day of the 2024 Monaco Yacht Show but things are not going to plan. All morning a heavy rain has been pelting the glamorous tax haven and now a wind is whipping up the sea. 
“It never rains at the Monaco Yacht Show,” says the lady to my left, who has been coming most years since it began in 1991 as a way to flog superyachts. Upon arriving the previous day, I counted more than 40 such large, luxurious boats at anchor beyond the harbour walls. Now, as the storm gathers, more are leaving, seeking refuge in neighbouring ports that have available berths. Across the lunch table out at sea I can see one yacht still at anchor bobbing violently like a bottle in a Jacuzzi. We all agree it cannot be equipped with state-of-the-art stabilisers, as the HBC is, which are currently working flat out to keep us vaguely upright. Even so, it’s hard not to feel queasy. “Another oyster, sir?” asks a steward. 
A freak storm is what apparently caused the 56-metre sailing yacht, Bayesian, to sink off the coast of Sicily on 19 August, claiming the lives of its owner, the British tech mogul Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, and five other people. Investigators in Palermo are yet to report on what exactly happened but we do know that the boat sank in just a few minutes and that water was not found in the lungs of four of the dead, suggesting they died of asphyxiation while trapped in an air pocket. It is the first time a billionaire has died in an accident on his own superyacht and the most deadly incident of its kind in living memory. 
But even as a storm batters the assembled oyster-guzzlers at the show, the Bayesian is not something anyone wants to talk about. Especially not the vendors of its sister ship, the Fidelis, which is safely berthed away from the storm on the Quai l’Hirondelle inside the Port of Monaco; it is priced at €32 million (£26.9m). Built in 2011 by the Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi at Viareggio, it has an identical aluminium hull to the Bayesian and the same classic elegant lines and navy colour scheme. “We’ve had lots of interest,” a crew member in a Fidelis T-shirt told me that morning. “We’ve shown many people around.” Are they not worried about safety following the sinking of its sister ship, I ask. “Not at all,” he beams. Still, journalists were not being welcomed aboard this particular vessel, so we had to make do with admiring its handsome features from the quay. 
The Fidelis has been on the market for nearly two years but, at the time of writing, may have found a buyer at the Monaco Yacht Show. “She’s beautiful,” enthuses Thomas Cleator, a shipbroker from San Diego, as he springs off the gangway in his socks, having just shown a client around. Cleator has the deep tan and craggy face of a sea dog, the pink of his linen shirt contrasting with his piercing blue eyes. But his client, who is much younger and anonymous-looking in black tracksuit and stubble, had marched on ahead and did not look like a sailor. “She’s in beautiful condition,” enthuses Cleator. “The fact is we sell way more power boats but I love the sailing ones.” So is he going to buy it? “We’ll certainly be making an offer.” Is his client not put off by the sinking of the Bayesian? “Not at all. I think it was just a freak accident.”
Classic sailing yachts have been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years, perhaps in part because of their greener credentials compared to diesel-guzzling gin palaces. Jeff Bezos is in part responsible for this trend, having taken delivery of the 127-metre Koru from Dutch shipbuilder Oceanco last year, the biggest yacht they have ever made – and the 33rd biggest in the world. Sailing vessels are much more thrilling than your bog-standard superyacht, bringing excitement to a cruise by harnessing the power of the wind instead of simply firing up the engines. In reality, Koru relies an awful lot on her two MTU engines and is followed everywhere by a 75-metre “shadow boat”, the Abeona, which carries all the “toys” such as submarines, a helicopter, a seaplane, supercars, motorbikes and anything else required. Because that’s the slight rub with a proper old-fashioned sailing boat – however colossal they are, they still can’t accommodate all the superyacht paraphernalia that billionaires have grown used to lugging around the Med.
To judge by the stands selling them in Monaco, shadow boats are becoming the latest must-have accessory in the ever-growing superyacht industry, which itself has grown exponentially in line with the explosion of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) since the turn of the millennium. A superyacht is defined as a boat measuring more than 30 metres, a term that has itself expanded; it used to apply to boats measuring just 24 metres or more. As of July 2024, there were 5,932 superyachts in the world, four times the number just three decades ago. Sales of superyachts have boomed since the pandemic ended, with record sales of new and used yachts peaking in 2021. Once people were free to travel again, the super-rich – who had accumulated even more wealth during lockdown – were keen to travel by superyacht, the most private way to spend time with friends and family. 
But according to data compiled by SuperYacht Times, recent figures are showing a slight cut in the rate of knots. (New yacht sales from January to July 2024 were down 31 per cent on the same period in 2023.) This could be simply a natural return to pre-Covid levels but is probably also due to factors such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. 
“Economic uncertainty on a global scale, particularly in key markets like Europe and the US, has led potential buyers to adopt a more cautious approach,” says Benjamin Bensahel, Europe head of sales & brokerage at Camper & Nicholsons. “Rising interest rates and inflation have also impacted the industry,” he adds.
Could the sinking of the Bayesian – a boat that was outfitted to the highest spec, famed among yachties for its grace and for having the tallest mast in the world, at 72 metres – further weaken a formerly buoyant market?
Not to judge from what I see in Monaco. After dozens of conversations with brokers, builders, agents and buyers, what becomes clear is that it’s business as usual, and what happened to the Bayesian is being put down to a freak accident due to a freak weather event. Yet we are told that as global warming continues, such weather events will only become more frequent. Has it not spooked the market? “Not that I can tell,” says Yan Turner, CEO of sales and brokerage firm Hill Robinson in Saudi Arabia. “It’s not the first time a superyacht has sunk. It is the first time that somebody has actually been killed. Any vessel, as the Titanic has taught us, is capable of sinking. Most of what we do on the safety and management side is to mitigate the result of that event. People shouldn’t die.”
For the next 48 hours, I look inside a lot of superyachts. All are vast, most are hideous, some have amusing features like a self-playing piano and corridors with floor-to-ceiling screens playing moving underwater imagery. But one thing above all else is striking. Nowhere within these multi-storey monsters swathed in shagpile carpet do I see a single electric green sign pointing to a fire exit, or a line of orange arrows leading to a muster station. These boats are not decked out like the Dover-Calais ferry, where aesthetic considerations are subordinated to instructions on what to do in the event of an emergency. Quite the opposite. Aesthetics – mostly appalling ones – are prized far more by most owners than safety features. Yes, I nod as I am shown round yet another master suite featuring his-and-hers marble bathrooms, it’s all very lovely. But how the hell do you get out at four in the morning in a power cut during a storm?
I put this to Turner. “There you are touching on one point that is actually quite possibly going to change,” he admits. “I’m not going to pre-empt what they are going to find in the investigation because I did actually manage a [superyacht built by] Perini [Navi] very similar to that one, so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what might have happened. It was almost identical and as an engineer, I’ve got a pretty good idea. But I’m not going to talk about that.”
But he does concede that stricter guidelines could be introduced by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for the Superyacht Builders’ Association (SYBAss), which would oblige superyacht owners to pay more attention to health and safety guidelines. As things stand, a privately owned superyacht used exclusively by the owner can be fitted out however they choose. There is no obligation to flag up fire exits or even where the lifeboats are kept. Of course, as anyone who works in crew or brokerage will tell you, safety is the number one priority, and there is no suggestion that shipbuilders or brokers in any way overlook safety considerations. “Safety is about timing,” says Xavier Perrone, commercial manager of Hill Robinson. “So you will always have lifeboats in the bow as that is the quickest way to launch them.” But there is little to stop an owner from configuring his boat however he wants it. And who wants to tell a sheikh he can’t have his superyacht just as his fancy takes him? 
“What you’ve got to understand is that there is a very big difference between a private yacht and a charter boat, especially under English law,” says Yan Turner. “When a boat is private, it’s your private property, and if you don’t want to paint escape exit on your million-pound tech, or you don’t want to do a big arrow on your silk carpet, that is your problem.” If you rent your boat out for charter, then different rules apply. “There is a big difference in legislation between private yachts and a charter yacht,” says Turner. “Charter yachts have legislation that is more similar to a hotel and they will be held to that standard and audited.” 
There are 120 superyachts on display at the 2024 Monaco Yacht Show, with a combined value of more than €4.6 billion. Of these, 111 are gin palaces and only nine are sailing yachts. Perini Navi, the Italian company that pioneered this type of large sailing yacht, and which built the Bayesian in 2008, has not brought a sailing yacht to the show this year. Instead The Italian Sea Group (TISG), of which Perini now forms a part, is focusing on selling the M/Y Platinum, a 78-metre, glossy pyramid of bling, for €60 million. Vittorio Blengini, world sales director for TISG, is a serious-looking man in his 40s with a slightly harassed air. He has a packed schedule of anonymous-looking billionaires in tracksuits to show round. But he is happy to speak briefly about the Bayesian tragedy. Are his clients more frightened to invest in sailing yachts? “No. Absolutely not.” He shows me two scale models of sailing superyachts on display in glass cabinets, one identical to the Bayesian, both sold and under construction. Does he hope to sell more this week? “Absolutely. That’s why we’re here.”
 This bullish attitude is typical of almost everyone I speak to here, where the flow of money and Champagne is as torrential as the rain drumming on the marquees. Everywhere you look are the brazen signifiers of a certain type of wealth: Havana cigars, Brabus SUVs, eye-catching surgery. This is a place where it’s normal to swap stories about the most outrageous demands from a yacht owner: a private jet sent to Harrods to pick up some prawn cocktail crisps; stewards sent out in front of a yacht to waft away jellyfish; last-minute cravings for lobster, which are jet-skied in from the nearest port at $1,000 a pop. 
Yet this is also an industry that employs a lot of ordinary people, not just in brokerage and sales but also in the design and building of these vast floating palaces. According to figures compiled by Arthaud Yachting brokerage, superyachts provide employment for around 150,000 people globally. And the pay isn’t bad: an average deckhand will earn about £36,000 a year, which as one person puts it, “You can’t spend because you’re stuck on the boat. It’s a great way to save money.” Speaking to crew members, you get the impression that this is a close-knit community where people enjoy the work, even if it is arduous and subject to stormy moments, both inside and outside the boat, as the hit reality TV show Below Deck shows. 
Within construction circles, there is bewilderment about what could have gone so badly wrong on the Bayesian, a boat everyone I speak to seems to have known or been on at some time. “We are completely puzzled by what happened,” says Hilbert Ten Have, a Dutch naval architect who works for the Amsterdam-based company Dykstra Naval Architects. “We really want to stay away from any speculation as we don’t know any facts because it only just happened. But we know the boat pretty well; some people from our office sailed on it and we know it was built to the highest standards and a lot of effort went into the design of the outside. Something like this should never have been able to happen to a boat of this size, so we’re puzzled and really looking forward to hearing more information about what happened, and what could have been done to prevent it.”
One feature of the Bayesian that has attracted some attention is that it had a single mast, which was one of the tallest in the world. Of the 10 similar boats designed by Ron Holland, the acclaimed Kiwi yacht designer, and built by Perini Navi, the Bayesian was the only one with a single mast, ie a sloop; all the others have two or three, which is more conventional for a boat of this size. 
Why would you not want a single mast on a boat this size, I ask Ten Have. “If it’s huge, what you call a sloop rig, a single mast is not ideal. It is the most effective rig for a sailing yacht but after 50 metres, sloop rigs become pretty high loaded. The downside is it takes a lot of time to hoist sails, the loads are really big, that means the load for the sheets are big, also the winch to operate it becomes very big, lines become very thick so difficult to handle. So we see quite a lot of challenges in handling a sloop rig over 50 metres. And then there’s the problem of balance. A sloop rig needs to be really well balanced.”
Everyone has their own theory of what happened that night in August, but nobody is willing to speculate until investigators publish their findings. What they can agree on is the rare danger of a downburst, which Italian authorities have indicated was the likely cause of the disaster. A downburst is different to a tornado because instead of moving sideways, air and water are pushed vertically to produce a top-down force with wind speeds of more than 100mph. 
“I sailed round the world three times and I was a yachtie for a very long time and I have never seen or heard of that kind of weather before,” says Yan Turner. One of the facts investigators are seeking to establish is what position the Bayesian’s retractable keel was in. The keel, when down, gives a boat more stability – would the Bayesian have survived the downburst had its keel been down? “Possibly. Was it normal for the keel to be up in the configuration that the boat was in? Yes, absolutely normal. Would the boat have survived had its watertight doors been shut? Almost certainly. Was it normal for the watertight doors to be open at that time? Absolutely normal.”
Out on the blue-carpeted catwalk that snakes the length of the Port of Monaco during the yacht show, trade is booming. Just along from the Perini Navi stand is the biggest boat ever to be displayed at the show, the 123-metre Golden Odyssey. It was built by German shipbuilder Lürssen in 2015 for Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia although he reportedly never set foot on it after it was forcibly auctioned off in Malta to repay debts secured against it of €116 million. When I ask the cheerful English sales lady at its front desk for a price, she says “Oh, I can’t tell you, that’s classified.” Ballpark? “It’s all very hush hush. It’s a lot.” 
But if megayacht sales are slowing, chartering them is a growth market. This is a way for yacht owners to claw some money back on the colossal expenses involved in owning and running a boat. “I always recommend that anyone thinking of buying a superyacht, charters a few first,” says William Molloy, head of charter and a senior broker at brokerage firm Moravia. You can see his point. To buy the Amaryllis, sister boat to the one we are on, will set you back €89 million, and that’s before you start worrying about maintenance and staff costs. Whereas to rent it for a week costs a mere $770,000 (plus fuel, excursions, food, drink and tips, which typically amounts to a third again). Even JK Rowling, who bought the classic 47-metre Amphitrite in 2016, found the running costs so exorbitant that she put it up for charter and then for sale.
According to figures compiled by SuperYacht Times, the number of yachts over 70 metres offered for charter appears to be up by about 30 per cent compared to 2022, suggesting that the super-rich are more willing to allow strangers into their private domains. But for owners who decide to put their yachts up for charter, their boat must first meet stringent health and safety requirements. “Safety is everything,” says Molloy. “There’s only one way to run a boat and that’s by the book. When charter guests get on the boat the captain will always give them a safety briefing.” 
Back out on the HBC – what her initials stand for is “personal to the owner” and undisclosed – there is a main course featuring scallops in a white wine foam and a rich chocolate dessert of Gâteau Marcel, but the captain is getting nervous. The storm is worsening and he wants everyone off the boat. We make our way down to the “beach club” at the back of the boat where a tender is trying to moor alongside the yacht as giant waves toss it hither and thither. Above us, water from an infinity pool is sloshing over the sides and down on to our heads, while seawater surges dramatically over the deck at our feet. 
By the time we make it on to the tiny support boat, and into the Port of Monaco, everyone is soaking wet and relieved to be back on dry land. It seems that even the most luxurious yacht in the world can leave you feeling more than a little sick.