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12 gennaio 2012 Only biggest yachts will do for super-rich
The world's super-rich, led by Gulf sheikhs and Russian tycoons, are taking delivery of ever larger and more luxurious European-made motoryachts this year, according to the latest superyachs ranking.
Financial and economic crisis in the west has crippled some European yacht-makers. Ferretti, the debtladen Italian manufacturer, is selling itself to China's Shandong Heavy Industry Group for a fraction of its 2007 value of £1.7bn. But demand from international billionaires at the very top end of the market has remained robust despite the economic crisis.
Superyachts.com, the luxury yachting web portal, says 11 new vessels, some the size of cruise liners, will join its annual top 100 ranking by length this year compared with nine new entries last year.
This year's largest entry - a superyacht is usually defined as a private vessel more that 100ft or 30m in length - is Topaz, a 147m yacht built by Germany's Lurssen Yachts for an unknown owner, possibly a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling Al Nahyan family.
Superyachts project are often shrouded in secrecy, and research groups vie with each other to publish the first photographs and provide details of the latest additions to the fleet. Prices and customers names are frequently kept secret to shield owners from accusations of ostentations living.
The largest vessels cost well over $100m and can cost $1m a week to charter. Topaz will rank equal fourth in length overall. At the top of the list remais Eclipse, the world's biggest private yacht. It belongs to Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch whi also owns Chelsea Football Club and was built by Germany's Blohm + Voss.
"There is a lot of people out there who are not highvisibility and don't want to be" says Barry Gilmour, executive chairman of Royale Oceanic, which supervises construction and management for yacht owners. "But once you're got a few country houses and executive jets, you want to go for privacy and luxury. If you're got billions, you are stll only here (on this earth) once. What are you going to spend it on?"
In spite of the economic crisis that has gripped the west since the collapse of Lehman Brothers more than three years ago, the size of superyachts continues to increase to match the ambitions of wealthy east Europeans and Gulf Arabs, many of whose fortunes come from oil and other commodities.
"Back in 2007 a yacht measuring 62m would have easily earned a significant place in the Top 100" Superyachts.com said yesterday "Only yachts over 73m could reach the bottom rungs in 2010 and 2011"
This year the 100th yacht is 76m long.
"For the guys with money, there's a tendency to go bigger - up to 100m" says Mr Gilmour. "The 110m market will be the 80m market of four or five years ago".
Not all yachts are purchased with profit from natural resources. Among big new yachts are Seven Seas from Dutch builder Oceanco, believed to be for film director Steven Spielger, and the delayed Vava II, built in the UK by Pendennis Yachts for Ernesto Bertarelli, the Swiss-Italian pharmaceutical heir.
FINANCIAL TIMES January7/ January 8 2012