The Market Report 2025

By Sue Grant

Another Christmas and New Year’s celebration mean that it’s time to start with the preparation of the new Berthon Market Report. Of course, there is no other possible place from which to plan and write this, than from my trusty garden shed, grey and wintery outside, warm and snug inside, with a Labrador snoring contentedly at my feet…

So where to start? The Berthon Sales Group has seen many changes, a lot of them very good in 2024, but the enormous events of the year remind us that we are a very small cog and that truly the world is a village.

For sure the most impactful events have been a swathe of elections – we always knew that 49% of the planet would go to the polls in 2024, but the degree of change and the effect that this will have on us all, not only the yachting industry, were unexpected for yacht brokers and pundits alike. There has been a lurch to the right in general, but of course the UK being fully paid-up members of the awkward squad, has moved to the left! By far the most important were the American elections, to decide who heads the nation that accounts for 26% of World’s GDP. The election of Donald Trump is seeing ripples of change that are being felt in all corners of the globe.

The dreadful war in Ukraine continues, and as I write the changes in Syria are but fresh and we all hope that they will lead to a period of renewal and peace for its people after very troubled times.

The split between the most powerful nations in the world continues with battles being fought not just on the battlefield but with drones and now with an on-line war of attrition which has us all worrying about the safety of our data, our bank accounts and private information. It seems that now we deal not only with the criminal element but with nations that would wish us harm. This new threat is evident to us all every day. It has meant that the levels of due diligence and the systems that we have had to put in place to protect against these online warriors has increased massively in the past 12 months. We take the build and maintenance of our shield against these multiple threats extremely seriously.

It is not difficult to conclude that the world is a dangerous place, and the level of disfunction means that there is also a famine crisis caused in the main by conflict and war – with around 10 million people from the Congo to Yemen to the Sudan and many more, all of whom are in desperate trouble, whose plight barely make the headlines.

So, a full year and we all hope for some happier endings in 2025.

Amongst all this change, the yachting industry has continued to operate well, with bluewater cruising rallies massively over-subscribed and many sailors planning their getaway to far distant shores. It has been interesting to see clients buy not for the new season or next year, but for 2 or 3 years hence as they locate their magic carpet, refit her, store her and get on with the business of disentanglement from business, houses and other onshore distractions; the bucket list already written, knowing that their yacht is there when they are ready.

New yacht sales has had another bruising year, with some of the high volume, smaller boat builders slowing or stopping production altogether in an attempt to let the market catch up. There comes a point where dealers can take no more stock, their bankers will not support more inventory and if the boats aren’t selling there is no point in building more. These unhappy stock boats will need to be cleared in the softest part of the market before the drive to build in volume can restart.

Virtually all yacht builders offer shorter lead times than we have seen in the recent past, and even in the super and mega yacht segment where we are told the owners feel no financial pain, new build is around 25% down from 2023. Now is clearly not a time when the mighty super and mega yacht builders want to cut plate and hope for a buyer to appear during production.

The brokerage market across all segments has benefitted from the hugely increased costs of production in terms of material and labour, of up to 35% and climbing, and this very healthy price delta has stabilised brokerage prices and provides a solid and understandable market.

But even in this solid brokerage market, the smaller yacht segment is suffering as there are too many small production yachts in the marketplace and far too few buyers, so over supply rules.

Berthon’s strategy of focusing on new yachts that our client base commission and have built to their wish has thankfully been the correct one. In the UK we have our first Solaris Power 40 in build, headed for the Eastern Mediterranean and on the Solaris Sail desk we have delivered a 40, 64 RS and 74 RS this year, with the Solaris 55 Düsseldorf Boat Show yacht sold to a UK client and with a 64 RS now also in build. What our Solaris clients both sail and power have in common is that they have all visited the yards – Solaris Sail and Solaris Power each have their own shipyard. They have pored over the specification for their yacht, and have had significant input so that she is tailored to their wishes. This is by far the best way to buy, build and own a new yacht.

In the USA we do the same with our friends at Rustler, and the American market also loves Solaris, buying our Annapolis Boat Show Solaris 40 off the stand. Moody has been good to us and whilst Hanse are a production yard they are also flexible, as are Sealine who we also represent on the East Coast.

Talking of the USA office, this has grown this year with the addition of Jonathan Banks to the team, an experienced broker and good yachtsman who brings know how and even more enthusiasm to the team. In early 2025 we also welcomed Drew Donald to the USA crew. Drew will work out of the lovely Chesapeake area. 2024 was good to our photogenic office in Mary Street, Newport and the election result in December delivered a strong US$ initially and lots of confidence and commitment to get on with yachting in a robust home market. Many American clients like to yacht in the Mediterranean or the Pacific or Northern Europe. Having sister offices in Europe enables us to practise the yacht arbitrage which has been so successful for Berthon in the past and we expect to be doing a lot more of this in 2025. As world events unfold we will see how our optimistic outlook fairs through 2025.

The enormous trunk waving elephant in the room of tariffs saw many non-USA manufactured yachts flood onto USA shores prior to the inauguration of the new President. This is certainly affecting the domestic USA market significantly in yachting and we expect to see more Americans yachting outside home waters if tariffs are introduced.

VAT, that old chestnut, has again in 2024 provided masses of confusion and we are fortunate that the team from PFK are there to help us and to contract with our clients to help guide them through the ever changing labyrinth that is the VAT treatment of yachts in the European Union, which alters depending on who you speak to and the interpretation of the legislation by individual Customs authorities. At least in the UK, HMRC have taken a position that does not change which makes it much easier to navigate the obstacles of VAT in the UK.

We are always interested in looking at who is entering our sport as for us all to do well, we rely on sailors continuing to want to get out on the water in all its forms, be it motor boats, dinghies, bluewater sailing and much more.

Covid for sure introduced us to many new entrants but making yachting accessible and easy to dive into, helps to ensure that the kite surfers of today are the ARC entrants of the future. Sir Michael Arthur, Chairman of the RYA, writes for us further forward in this publication.

Berthon Scandinavia has had a rip roaring year, increasing the number of yachts sold year on year, their listings base and becoming effective more widely in Scandinavia. Fredrik Sundberg has joined Magnus as a business partner
and we are looking forward to more expansion over the coming years as the appetite of the market for their immaculately maintained sail and power yachts that spend the winters snug indoors, shows no sign of decreasing for the international and home market buyers that visit the beautiful Island of Orust, and other parts of Scandinavia to buy the yachts that we offer.

Having closed the office in the South of France in early 2024, we have been very focused on our operation in Spain, based in Palma de Mallorca. We are delighted to welcome experienced broker Henk Sijbranda who will join Simon Turner and Nathalie Miquel-Elcano on our Spanish Sales team this spring. Our service business is also growing. This means that we are able to provide a vertically integrated yachting facility with owners leaving us to manage guardiennage, service and repairs and yacht sales. When on the market, if a potential buyer comes to see a yacht in the Berthon Spain fleet, she is opened, gleaming and well-presented, providing that impossible to replicate, great first impression.

A super exciting part of our development of this business into our home in the Mediterranean, has been the opening of a new office in STP which puts us at the heart of the main shipyard in Palma, with the ability to manage yachts of all sizes on the spot. We plan to build on this great development in 2025.

NEW OFFICE IN STP SHIPYARD PALMA

For some owners the reassuringly expensive pricing in Palma for berthing has been the last straw and they have voted with their feet and left. We now have a small Berthon fleet in Valencia with excellent guardiennage via our agent there and the ability to carry out refit and repair work in the port. We expect to expand this capability in 2025 along with other hubs on the Spanish mainland.

Italy is a key market with a plethora of amazing yachts from Swan to Baltic to Solaris, as well as docks full of beautiful stylish Italian clockwork yachts. Our footprint in this territory is increasing with the help of Filippo Martini, whose enthusiasm for all things yachting and incredible capacity to be everywhere all the time, is bringing the Italian way of yacht brokerage to the Berthon client base.

Lymington UK HQ is the hub of marketing and the central base for the organisation of the Berthon Sales Group, and we continue to build on our offering in terms of contract and due diligence as well as to enjoy the challenges and rewards that the use of moving imagery, good photography and technically intelligent specifications bring. There has been something of a war of the online portals delivering information about yachts for sale this year, and this has seen the start of a fundamental change in the way people look for yachts with google competing with dedicated marine search portals to provide the information that those searching for a yacht seek. This has changed the way that we manage our SEO and provides a more direct interface between us and the client base which is welcome.

We have also ramped up the marketing with online publications like this, our Berthon Book and Collection portal delivering more information and engagement than ever before. The Yachting magazines are lagging behind and we fully expect their format to change noticeably in the next 24 months.

Overall, on numbers, we are up over 8% on 2023, which given the course changes, peculiar weather patterns and massive tidal gates, is a result with which we are satisfied. Of course there is much more to do in 2025. The voyage to excellence does not end.

The little Berthon ship with her family crew is ready for the new year and all the challenges that it is bound to bring. Forecasting is likely to be problematic as in previous years but working with yachts which we all love, and our wonderful client base we say – bring it on!

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