55rig to as high as $400 million, the value given to a Russian
oligarch’s yacht in a divorce battle.
Less than a decade ago, China’s rich looked poised to join
the armada of the 1%. In 2010 a new yacht fair, Hainan Rendez-
Vous, started in Sanya, China’s St-Tropez. In 2012 the China
Cruise & Yacht Industry Association predicted there would
be 100,000 luxury vessels in China by 2020; at the time, there
were only 3,000 yachts of any size there. “They were playing
golf and buying luxury goods more than they are now,” says
Delphine Lignières, chief executive officer of China Rendez-
Vous, which runs the boat show in Sanya. “There was this
aspiration for this lifestyle of traveling and seeing the world.”
But she says China’s yachting ambitions were suppressed as a
side effect of an anticorruption campaign.
The yacht merchants failed to foresee the rise of Xi Jinping,
who took over as Communist Party general secretary in 2012.
Heunleasheda sweepagainst corruption and conspicuous con-
sumption.Morethan100,000 party cadres were disciplined,
andhigh-levelofficialswere cut off from luxury hotels and ex-
asn’t a great time for anyone to be seen
buying the ultimate toy. State media
turned the scenes of opulence posted
on social media by yacht show at-
tendees into headlines. Global Times,
a subsidiary of Communist Party
mouthpiece People’s Daily, wrote
about alleged prostitution linked to a
few attendees of the yacht fair. “It’s
almost a crime to flaunt one’s wealth
in such a public way,” the newspaper
wrote, noting that 200 million Chinese
citizens live in poverty.
GordonHui,chairman of Sunseeker Asia Ltd., who’s been
selling boats in the region since the early 2000s, says he’s
shuttered three dealerships in China since the Rendez-Vous
blowup and hasn’t sold a yacht for use in China since- He still sells to mainland customers for delivery
outside the country.
Superyachts are nothing if not conspicuous pur-
chases for wealthy Chinese. “If they buy a house in
the U.S. or jewelry, nobody knows,” says Fang Yuan,
CEO of Heysea Yachts Group Ltd., which operates a
shipyard near Zhuhai on China’s southern coast and
sells to retail customers. “But if you buy a yacht, you
can’t hide that. It’s so big, and it’s there on the water.”
K
eeping a yacht in China can be a nightmare
for other reasons. The mainland’s coastal
metropolises lack repair yards, equipment
suppliers, and the rest of the costly support
network that private yachts require. Few large marina
slips exist, so anyone considering a luxury boat
would have to think about docking it in Hong Kong,
Singapore, or Phuket, Thailand. Some Chinese owners
keep their ships as far away as the Mediterranean.eSchmidt
Bloomberg Businessweek
WHERE THE MONEY IS
May 27, 2019asn’t ByBlake
listing
price of the
Illusion Plus
A harpist plays in the
background for guests
on a yacht in Hong Kong