At the 7th Super Yacht Americas in Fort Lauderdale, the industry heard that it has never had more customers, longer queues or more complicated boats. The bottlenecks are no longer demand. They are slots, berths, crew culture and data. The full account, the outtakes, and a twelve-point action plan.
Fort Lauderdale, 28 October 2026 — On the eve of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, brokers, builders, bankers, lawyers, flag states, class societies and crew leaders filled the Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Marina Hotel for the 7th Super Yacht Americas. The question was simple: who is buying, who is building, and who will run these yachts?
The answer was that demand is real, but the system around it is straining. That system covers the yards, the berths, the regulators, the crews and now the networks.
Conference chair Peter Southgate, Regional Director, Americas at the Cayman Registry, opened the day with Mare Forum’s Georgios (Ilios) Kostoulas. The Cayman Registry, lead partner of the series, chaired the forum and hosted lunch.
SuperYacht Times head of intelligence Ralph Dazert opened with the long view. The 30m+ fleet grew strongly through the 2000s, slowed after 2009 and accelerated again after COVID. It now adds around 200 yachts a year, and almost none leave. Unlike merchant ships, yachts are rarely scrapped.
That ageing fleet is an opportunity in itself. A large share of it is now more than 15 years old, which means refit and renovation work for years to come.
New-build sales of 30m+ yachts have averaged about 190 a year recently. 2025 was exceptional in both new-build and brokerage. In 2026, new-build sales from January to October are running behind 2025, while brokerage has held relatively steady.
At the top end, Dazert said, build slots at the best-known Northern European yards now stretch to 2031–2032. Prices have risen sharply and owners negotiate harder. They are also less loyal: some request quotes from 17 or more yards, including names they barely know, out of frustration with delivery times and price.
About 20 yards build the largest sizes, and a small group of them does most of the work. Spain is emerging as a name in large yachts, alongside Italian groups, German naval yards and designs derived from commercial vessels.
The buyers are changing too. About one in five new-build buyers is a first-time owner. The average age is around 61, and almost a third of buyers are younger than that. They spend more time on board, work from the boat, and expect home-level amenities and as much contact with the water as possible.
The number of billionaires worldwide has almost doubled in about a decade, yet superyacht ownership among them remains very low. The constraint, Dazert argued, is increasingly physical: there is not enough space to berth and service the yachts.
He also traced a wave of consolidation. Lürssen has taken over the former Nobiskrug facilities in Rendsburg. Gabe Newell’s Oceanco group has added Dutch systems integrator Alewijnse. The UAE’s OceanWorld Group is expanding into dealerships and building, and has become majority shareholder of Denison Yachting. JD.com founder Richard Liu is buying into the Western market while launching a Chinese yacht brand.
Building large yachts in China has been tried before, he noted, with mixed results.
From the floor, a legal delegate asked about the trade in build slots; Dazert agreed that slot flipping is trending. A delegate from the International SeaKeepers Society asked about owners using their yachts for ocean science. He pointed to the Superyacht Life Foundation and to anecdotal growth in owners lending yachts for research. Is marina infrastructure keeping pace? The data is still being built, he said, and it probably lags.
Southgate’s panel took the numbers into the market.
Bob Denison, founder of Denison Yachting, comes from a family that built yachts in the US before moving into brokerage. He described the brokerage market as choppy but still strong. Consumer confidence and interest rates are headwinds, though rates matter more to clients’ businesses than to yacht financing.
Inventory is high and the average time to sell is around 580 days, which he likened to having one baby and then a second. The hottest segment is 60–75m, especially around 65–67m. Alternative exits such as fractional ownership, donation and auction are growing, but still make up under 3% of sales.
On American shipbuilding, Denison recalled that around 2000 was the last time the US led global yacht production. Today the US builds a few dozen yachts a year, mostly under 120ft, against hundreds in Italy. He wants to see an 80m yacht built in America and backs the lobbying of the U.S. Superyacht Association.
Mike Cox of Coxswain Company International, an authorised MECAL surveyor with more than 30 years in the industry, spoke for the sub-24m segment. Production boats and catamarans are flooding the BVI, the Bahamas and the Caribbean, and a large share go straight into charter and need to be coded.
Young buyers are enthusiastic, he said, but requirements are not applied consistently during the build, so they meet surprise compliance work after delivery. His ask was uniform flag-state requirements before boats reach the shows.
Jessima Timberlake of Italian refit yard Lusben made the case for the pre-owned route. A good-quality used yacht with a major refit can be ready in under 24 months, much faster than a new build.
Her sequence: choose the technical team first and let them help choose the boat, then a high-quality refit yard, and involve class from day one. Refit yards, she noted, are increasingly part of the brokerage process, budgeting a refit before the purchase closes.
Attorney Laura Knoll of Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay, who calls herself “the boat lady,” dealt with US bonus depreciation. It is back at 100% indefinitely, but it rests on legislation, not on anything permanent.
To qualify, the yacht must be placed in genuine charter service with no personal use, and the business is typically driven by the fourth quarter. Nobody is signing new-build contracts for bonus depreciation when delivery is 2032. Claiming it on a yacht owned for years and then refitted is risky.
Financing and bonus depreciation do not sit together in the same year, she said: buy in Q4, finance in January. Her largest client this year was 36.
Andrea MacMillan, credit advisor for yachts at Bank of America, has spent close to three decades financing them. The minimum is $5 million, and her clients borrow by choice, not need. The bank finances brokerage purchases, new builds and some refits, typically up to around half the cost.
For new builds, security comes from construction-mortgage structures or refund guarantees, with liens taken only in suitable jurisdictions. Problems have historically come from yards going bankrupt, never from clients defaulting. She too sees a fourth-quarter pick-up driven by bonus depreciation.
Panos Pourgourides, partner and head of yachts at Hill Dickinson, contrasted American and European attitudes to credit. In Europe, small and very large projects are financeable, while the 30–60m middle is harder. Financed projects tend to be better prepared.
The real risk sits with the yard, and the most dangerous default point is 50–60% of the way through a build. This is not the speculative slot market of the dot-com era, he said, though there is real slot pressure above 80m.
He sees conversions into explorer and support vessels growing, and inflation clauses becoming normal in long contracts, framed as a partnership. He also warned that building above 100m in China carries inherent risk. Sentiment, he added, matters as much as money.
Ekin Bora, general manager of Neva Marine, said Türkiye has proven itself despite financial and political turbulence, and framed the country as an option rather than a competitor: growing the market benefits everyone. Slots are still available at Turkish yards. The average Turkish custom build is 50–60m, a few yards can go beyond 80m, and clients increasingly come from the US and the UAE.
Renata Benkovic of naval architects Lateral said projects are becoming ever more complex. Her advice to owners is to separate what is essential from what is flexible, and to save time by using existing platforms. Lateral’s environmental work includes electrification, among it a concept for a seven-to-nine-day charter run on batteries.
A closing question from a classification delegate turned to maintenance. With shorter yard periods and bigger volumes, the panel recommended smaller, regular work packages and one or two consistent technical partners holding a rolling work list. Big refits should be combined with special surveys.
The second session was led by Joe Dargavage, founding partner of United Island & Yacht and chairman of the U.S. Superyacht Association, who stepped in to moderate. It started with good news: the Bahamas is doing well.
Dargavage revisited the fee increase of two years ago. Its effect, he argued, was overstated. Charter did not collapse, and part of the dip was simply the post-COVID return to normal. During COVID the Bahamas had stayed open to yachts under protocols written with the industry, and close to 100 large yachts sat in the Exumas.
The increase has now been reversed, and the summer was very strong. Christmas and New Year remain the busiest weeks.
Jonathan Lord, regional manager for yachting at the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, said the government amended the fees after listening to the industry. The Ministry is now re-educating the North American and European markets, including through a presence in Monaco, with a new campaign, “Dock, Anchor and Discover.”
On charter, Senior Commander Bertram Bowleg, Director of the Maritime Revenue Unit at the Bahamas Ministry of Finance, clarified that the 4% charter tax and 10% VAT, while still two separate charges, are now paid together, 14% in total, at one location.
A charter licence requires an inspection, and Bahamian inspectors have travelled to the US to carry them out. Licences expire on 31 December whatever their issue date, so owners should register early in the year.
Jennifer Malone, VP U.S. operations at MYS USA, raised the practical frictions from the yacht-agent side. These include confusion over Inland Revenue registration, Bahamian-flagged yachts being charged full fees by customs, and relief crew stopped at airports over work permits. Officials said the issues are being worked on at the highest level.
A SeaKeepers delegate praised the Bahamas for how easily it permits coral-restoration science. On the US side, delegates heard there are no changes to customs and immigration clearance.
Attorney Michael Moore of Moore & Company said the market has adjusted to tariffs. He warned of a second wave of bonus-depreciation mistakes, from related-party transfers to how personal use is measured by geography, revenue and time.
His starkest warning was about an epidemic of wire fraud. Law firms have been hit for millions, one of them, he said, for $17 million. His advice: multi-factor authentication, password-protected documents, and verification by phone, with the caveat that AI can now clone voices.
Donovan C. Walker of the Maritime Authority of Jamaica, attending with the Jamaica Ship Registry team, proposed a technical working group of Caribbean flags and jurisdictions. Its purpose would be to protect the region’s “gold standards”: sharing information and compliance trends, agreeing common positions on customs and immigration, and keeping beneficial ownership transparent.
The aim is to future-proof the Caribbean as a “zone of peace.” He also pointed to Jamaica’s ship repair yard in Kingston, megayacht-focused marine engineering training at the Caribbean Maritime University, and hospitality schools now training yacht crew. The Maritime Authority of Jamaica offered to host the first meeting, and Dargavage agreed to follow up.
Cayman Registry business development manager Gabriella Cramer, a former crew member with years in yacht management and compliance, opened the crew session differently. She led the room through a guided visualisation of a healthy onboard culture and a toxic one.
The regulatory hook is the STCW amendment to Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities (PSSR) training, in force since 1 January 2026, which adds prevention of and response to harassment, bullying and sexual assault. How and when it applies varies by flag. Cramer also cited ISWAN helpline data showing sharp rises in crew calls about wellbeing, harassment and finding a next job.
Victoria Cinnante, crew HR at Arrow Yacht, said what crew value most is leadership and psychological safety from the captain and heads of department. PSSR must not become a tick-box exercise, and managers should get on board and talk to crew.
The floor was frank. A former crew member who once sat on the PYA governing council recalled an industry survey of several thousand crew. A large majority reported harassment, almost equally among men and women, mostly from heads of department and often with no satisfaction up the chain of command. That, she argued, feeds the crew shortage.
A female captain and instructor said mentorship is missing and captains must bring up the next generation. A captain certified since 1996 noted that no certificate-of-competency course ever taught him people management, though yachting is, at heart, the interaction of people. A crew recruiter said what happens in the world happens in yachting, and compliance is the fix.
Captain James Battey, founder of the Yacht Workers Council, argued that yachting never built infrastructure for its people and keeps crew in silos. His platform offers crew a career pathway, document storage, background checks and two-way reviews of vessels and crew that can be opened at the final interview stage. A yacht refusing access, he said, is a red flag.
He also warned of conflicts of interest at some management companies, such as cost metrics and switching crew to seasonal contracts. In the end, he said, “diesel and crew” make the industry work.
From the training side, the panel heard that crew cram courses to collect certificates in short windows. A 23-year-old can be supervising ten people two weeks after STCW basic training. One proposal was for auditors to spend 30 minutes with crew reinforcing the anti-harassment content.
Elizabeth Simmons, vice president of external affairs at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, described what has worked at US state maritime academies. MARAD and US Coast Guard policies set zero tolerance, clear reporting channels, designated company representatives ashore and meaningful consequences, up to loss of licence. Cadets even agree a code phrase to use when calling home. Change, she said, has to come from the top down.
Graeme Lord, president of Professional Yacht Crew and a former chief engineer, said fear stops senior crew and managers speaking up. His proposals: a shipping master empowered to stop a boat, turnover thresholds that trigger an investigation (he suggested around 40% a season), and proper MLC surveys.
His example was a 92m MLC charter yacht earning €1.5 million a week that cycled through some 100 crew in a single summer. Turnover is expensive, he said, because every departure takes knowledge of the vessel and of the owner with it.
Erin Ackor of AeroMarine Law and Fiona Johnson of Blue Star Standard International brought the legal and human-element perspectives. The session closed on a shared message: change takes a collective effort from every party, retaliation is illegal, and there is strength in numbers.
Foster Garvey principal Kevin Frisch framed the final session: yachts are now power plants and data centres. Alternative fuels, from methanol and batteries to hybrids and talk of nuclear, are driven less by regulation than in commercial shipping. AI is becoming a tool for energy management, and crew training is key.
Maxime Le Poupon of Bureau Veritas put the biggest risk in one gap: between the speed of innovation and the industry’s ability to govern, crew and safely operate complex systems. The IACS unified requirements on cyber resilience, E26 and E27, are the bare minimum.
Corey Ranslem, CEO of Dryad Global and a former US Coast Guard officer, said technology capability once doubled every two years and now doubles in about six months, while regulators and the IMO lag. In his assessment, 30–40% of cyber-criminal groups have shifted their focus to maritime as the most vulnerable industry.
People still run business over unencrypted messaging apps, he said, and the US Coast Guard is the only regulator with real cyber requirements. His action: commission an inexpensive vulnerability assessment now, and start preparing for quantum computing.
Brandon Samuels, operating partner at Manage My Vessel, saw the biggest risk in management companies that do not integrate their data with AI, or integrate it too loosely. Bring AI tools into existing permissioned platforms first, he said, and do not expose data to external AI without governance.
An attorney in the audience made the liability point with the Dali and Baltimore’s Key Bridge. As she described it, the ship manager had data on two blackouts the day before the casualty, sent to an inbox read by more than 20 people, and nobody acted. Failing to use the data you hold creates liability.
From the floor, Kristina Agustin, founder of Southern Sky AI and a former crew member, called for governance: what data goes in and out, and who decides what AI may decide. Staff will use AI anyway, so give them structure. ISO/IEC 42001, the AI management-system standard, can be integrated with ISO 9001 and a vessel’s safety management system.
Erik Speyer, director of technical sales at Dryad Global, noted that modern engines put out 100 to 200 or more data points a minute. Should yachts be treated as data centres, he asked, and who buys the data? Airlines are far ahead.
Frisch pushed back: companies already collect per-second data, mostly for predictive maintenance such as vibration trending and for uptime, and some fleets keep it in-house. The panel also flagged an inferred privacy risk: cruising speed alone can reveal when the owner is aboard.
Davide Di Biasi, business development manager for North America and the Caribbean at RINA, expects safety to drive data sharing, with bidirectional VDES as one example. He also pointed to the US Coast Guard’s cyber rule for US-flagged vessels, with cybersecurity plans due by July 2027.
The session’s prescriptions were clear: govern your data, integrate AI internally first, collaborate across the industry, and get a vulnerability assessment. In the afternoon, Dryad Global ran a ransomware tabletop exercise for delegates.
Mare Forum thanks the Cayman Registry, lead partner and host of the delegates’ lunch. The series continues at the 6th Super Yacht Americas WPB in West Palm Beach in March 2027. Quotes are taken from session transcripts and lightly edited for clarity.