4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
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They’re the kind of mega vessels which only a handful of people on the planet can afford.
We go to the Netherlands, where building and maintaining the most expensive yachts in the world is big business.
We visit Dutch yacht builder Heesen to look at the intricate design of these vessels, their opulence, and the huge amounts of money involved in building and selling them.
Plus we hear from those who actually help put the boats together.
And we get an expert view on the importance of the Superyacht sector to the country's overall maritime industry, and hear how politics, public perceptions, regulation and international sanctions have impacted the industry in recent years.
Presented and produced by Matthew Kenyon
(Image: Vida superyacht 55m built by Heesen Yachts and owned by Brooks Smith moored in Malaga, Spain in April 2023 (Photo by John Keeble/Getty Images)
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0:00.0 | You're with Business Daily on the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Matthew Kenyon. |
0:06.3 | Today we're looking at an industry which depends on a very small number of customers |
0:11.1 | with a very large amount of money to spend. If you came to me with a 50 million to buy a boat, |
0:16.6 | I would be able to give you a little bit of change, fortunately. We're talking super yachts, the sleek, glamorous vessels, |
0:23.9 | which are the expensive maritime playthings of the ultra-wealthy. |
0:28.0 | So we saw a massive spike in both new build and use yacht purchasing, |
0:34.1 | which was unprecedented. |
0:36.4 | It is a global business, of course, |
0:38.6 | but a significant percentage of the world's most expensive yachts are built in the Netherlands, |
0:44.1 | employing thousands of people across the country. |
0:46.7 | I don't like things that are being half done or something, |
0:49.8 | so I want to do it good, and I get to do that here, and there's pressure, but there's more pressure to do it good than to do it good and I get to do that here and there's pressure, |
0:54.5 | but there's more pressure to do it good than to do it in the time. |
0:58.3 | That's super yachts and the business of building them on today's edition of Business Daily from the BBC. |
1:08.6 | It's not hard to see why the world's super rich might choose to spend lots of their money on a super yacht. |
1:15.9 | If you want privacy, luxury, and the pick of the planet's most beautiful locations, then the appeal is clear. |
1:24.1 | Which is why, despite the tiny customer base and the huge sums involved, there's a |
1:29.2 | sizable industry dedicated to designing, building and maintaining these vessels. |
1:35.3 | Before we get into how it works, we need a definition. What is a super yacht? |
1:41.7 | In her office looking out on the water in Amsterdam, that's a question for Francesca |
1:47.0 | Webster, editor-in-chief of one of the industry's leading media outlets. At Superiot Times, we define a |
1:53.8 | super yacht as a privately owned vessel at over 30 metres that is owned by one person. |
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