Boat International US Edition — December 2017

Superyacht refit projects completed September 2016 August 2017

24-30m 30-40m 40-50m 50-70m 70m+

Number of refits

Location of refits

Type of shipyards

102 104 81 70 33

West

Med

East

Med

Northern

Europe US

Rest of

the world

85.64% 14.36%

Refit yards Refit divisions of new build yards

ON BOARD

Refit and well

DECEMBER 2017 WWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM

INFOGRAPHICS Valerio Pellegrini / RESEARCH Raphael Montigneaux

Maintaining, repairing and enhancing superyachts is an expanding sector,

attracting specialists and traditional shipyards alike

he shiny end of the market

• new builds – is healthy
  and brokerage remains
  bouncy, but what of the
  less glamorous bread-and-butter
  of superyacht shipyards – refit?
  The 12 months to August, compared
  to the previous 12, show a healthy refit
  market, with growth of at least 14 per
  cent. Vincent Larroque, group sales
  director at Monaco Marine, puts the
  figure even higher, describing it as
  “quite extraordinary, with an increase
  of activity of 20 per cent and a lot of
  beautiful superyachts to refit.”
  Rob Papworth, sales director at
  Compositeworks, also reports a rise
  of about 10 per cent in activity this
  year. “There is very strong demand
  in the marketplace with a large spread
  of scope from the essential class
  maintenance, up to major
  modifications,” he says.
  Larroque suggests that, in recent
  times, the refit market has not felt the
  same pain as other yachting sectors.
  “World crises always impact more on
  yacht builders, who see automatically
  their level of orders falling, whereas for
  repair and refit shipyards the impact is
  also real but more smoothed.”
  Refit-only shipyards represent the
  majority of refit activity but major
  shipyards have also developed refit
  divisions, with prestigious builders
  such as Feadship announcing
  numerous refits in 2017.
  As the world fleet gets older, so the
  potential for new refit projects grows
  too. “We believe demand will remain
  strong for the quality refit yards,
  although there will be variances across
  the size of the fleet,” says Papworth.

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