Resources on Luxury Yachts

Luxury Yachts

The term luxury yacht refers to a very expensive privately owned yacht which is professionally crewed. Also known as a super-yacht, a luxury yacht may be either a sailing or motor yacht.

This term began to appear at the beginning of the 20th century when wealthy individuals constructed large private yachts for personal pleasure. Examples of early luxury motor yachts include M/Y (motor yacht) Christina O and M/Y Savarona. Early luxury sailing yachts include Americas Cup classic J class racers like S/Y (sailing yacht) Endeavour and Sir Thomas Lipton’s S/Y Shamrock. The New York Yacht Club hosted many early luxury sailing yacht events at Newport, Rhode Island, during the Gilded Age.

More recently, over the last decade or two, there has been an increase in the number and popularity of large private luxury yachts. Luxury yachts are particularly bountiful in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas, although increasingly luxury yachts are cruising in more remote areas of the world. With the increase in demand for luxury yachts there has been an increase custom boat building companies and yacht charter brokers. Luxury boat building and yacht charter companies are predominantly based in the United States and Western Europe but are also increasingly found in Australasia, Asia and Eastern Europe. European manufacturers such as Azimut-Benetti and Lürssen dominate the very top end of the yacht building market. Some yachts are used exclusively by their private owners, others are operated all year round as charter businesses, and a large number are privately owned but available for charter part time. Weekly charter fees range from a few tens of thousands of dollars a week to nearly a million dollars a week. This covers the wages of the crew, but not fuel, food and drink, or other incidental expenses.
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The number of really large yachts has increased rapidly since the 1990s and increasingly only yachts above around 65 metres (213 feet) stand out among other luxury yachts. Yachts of this size are almost always built to individual commissions and cost tens of millions of dollars (most super-yachts cost far more than their owners' homes on land, even though those homes are likely to be among the largest and most desirable). A yacht of this size usually has four decks above the water line and one or two below. It is likely to have a helicopter landing platform. Apart from additional guest cabins, which are likely to include one of more "VIP suites" besides the owner's suite, extra facilities compared to a 50 metre yacht will include some or all of indoor jacuzzis, sauna and steam rooms, a beauty salon, massage and other treatment rooms, a medical centre, a discotheque, a cinema with a film library, plunge pool (possibly with a wave-maker), a playroom, and additional living areas such as a separate bar, secondary dining room, private sitting rooms or a library. There will be more boats and "toys" than there are on a 50 metre yacht.

[...] yachts above 100 metres (328 feet) are still sufficiently rare that many yacht enthusiasts can name them all. They typically have five decks above the water line and two below. The very largest yachts have begun to incorporate such features as helicopter hangars, indoor swimming pools and miniature submarines. The burgeoning number of "small" super yachts has led to the introduction of the hyperbolic terms mega-yacht and giga-yacht to demarcate the elite among luxury yachts.

Excerpt from "Luxury yacht." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 24 Oct 2006, 23:06 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 31 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luxury_yacht&oldid=83522499