It’s no secret that it’s a buyers’ market for luxury yachts and superyachts now. However, the challenge for the yacht buyer is not so much to strike the best deal – rather, it’s to get the best deal on a yacht which is likely to be in tune with the future trends in the industry. This will protect the value of your investment for when you do want to move onto something different.

First the disclaimer – no one can claim to accurately predict the future 100%. This is very much a “best guess”, based on macro trends and examples from the industry.

This seems sure to have a significant impact on the yachting industry and will be seen in both fuel efficiency requirements and the need for yachts in the future to be built out of sustainable materials.

Starting with sustainable materials, the most obvious candidate for replacement is teak. While it creates beautiful looking decks, it takes a long time to grow and it is acknowledged that there will need to be a replacement. Fortunately, this is well in hand and there are already various alternatives such as Dek-king (a PVC material which looks and feels like natural wood) and cork.

While it doesn’t seem likely that having a teak deck will detract from the future value of your yacht, using an alternative is something that you should consider if you’re commissioning a new build.

Assuming you’ve opted for a luxury motor yacht, we definitely think that you should consider an alternative to the obvious gas guzzlers. Already, in the current environment, they appear to be harder to sell and we believe that they will become more and more socially unacceptable because they are expensive to run and represent the worst kind of conspicuous consumption – they generally can’t be used for anything except going fast, showing off and using up the world’s resources. Furthermore, unless the sea is dead flat, they can’t even exploit their performance potential. Our advice is that you should steer clear of anything much over 60 foot that attempts to be a speed boat.

We think that the following are a far safer bet:

• Displacement / semi displacement hulls

• Explorer / Expedition style

• Hybrid power

• Choosing sail rather than power

~ End of Part 1 – 4 ~