Image © Monaco Yacht Show

After 33 years, and becoming the most important yacht show in the market, it’s appropriate to look at the market’s performance over the same time period to assess how the Monaco Yacht Show has potentially driven and grown our industry through being the most valuable shop window of our sector.

Having attended every single edition of the Monaco Yacht Show, it’s been a hugely interesting evolution to watch, with a relative handful of yachts in the early days to today’s vast array of superyachts in Port Hercule and at anchor, accompanied by hundreds of exhibitors and displays of goods and services. Like the sheer size and scale of the yachts we’re building today, I’m sure no one expected this Show to grow to the scale and complexity it delivers, especially Luc Pettavino, inaugural founder of the event.

Maybe its success is due to the Principality itself and its self-proclaimed status of the Capital of Advanced Yachting, supported by institutions like the Yacht Club de Monaco and global leaders like HSH Prince Albert. All of these factors have contributed to the Show’s continued success, and when you follow the growth curves and analysis of how the market has shifted and evolved, the two are a mirror image.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the historical lists of yachts attending every show, as that would reinforce the analysis, but it’s very clear to see that since the embryonic days of the small quayside event, opposite the old YCM, the fleet has been inspired and driven and ballooned thanks to the ability for our yards, designers and brokers to create a platform to showcase what our industry is all about.

The annual LOA illustration is a clear visual chart that shows the LOA trends and the perfect presentation of how the markets enjoyed cycles and roller coasters during the GFC and a stabilisation amongst a core group of shipyards, followed by a recent upturn during Covid and the post-Covid feeding frenzy. The widening of the categories from 2005 onwards shows the increased appetite for yachts over 40 metres, but more interestingly after the GFC in 2012 we saw the arrival of a consistent flow of large tonnage above 90 metres, perhaps best described as the Oligarch years.

The sailing yacht vs motoryacht chart is a really sad reflection on the demise of the sailing market and the desire for floating real estate with large volumes or villa-style accommodation, delivered by the myriad of shipyards building cookie-cutter platforms. The chart does show a glimpse of light at the end of the period and it would be good to see a resurgence of these stunning projects, with sailing and sustainability as a core strategic opportunity.

The language of GT is a relatively recent trend and while yards and designers try to play with the volume of the smaller sized yachts below 500gt, they still make up the lion’s share of the market for obvious reasons. However, with the delivery in the past decade of some gargantuan projects with gross tonnage measured in several thousands, even as high as 15,000-plus gt, it is easy to spot the peaks of activity in the Northern Europe shipyards.

However, it is anticipated that the ratio of length to GT will stabilise in the future, where profile, balance, efficiency, regulations and even support yachts will keep the GT within reasonable boundaries, touching <3,000gt as a rule. However, the LOA data shows a relatively consistent trend, with vast numbers of semi-custom and production superyachts leaving shipyards in Italy, Turkey, the UAE and Asia consistently every year, which keeps the average on an even keel.

Essentially these three clear graphics are trends that can be aligned with the success of the Monaco Yacht Show and the success and stress of shipyards and their deliveries. Some years there were bumper years of new builds on display, some years there were a cross-section of yachts under distress sale. But it is clear that the Monaco Yacht Show is the barometer of our marketplace and the one place you can take the industry’s temperature and do a quick health check. The Surgery will be open next week.

https://www.monacoyachtshow.com/en

Profile links

Monaco Yacht Show

Yacht Club de Monaco

Click here to become part of The Superyacht Group community, and join us in our mission to make this industry accessible to all, and prosperous for the long-term. We are offering access to the superyacht industry’s most comprehensive and longstanding archive of business-critical information, as well as a comprehensive, real-time superyacht fleet database, for just £10 per month, because we are One Industry with One Mission. Sign up here.