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Call me a Cassandra, but I was expecting our Global Order Book numbers to be worse than they are. The only other period of such boom I can equate the recent years to are those leading up to the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/8, when superyacht orders skyrocketed before plummeting spectacularly back to earth. Only this time, we’re gliding rather than plummeting. When you consider the headwinds – conflict in Europe and the Levant, inflation, Houthis choking the southern Red Sea, Russia’s exit from the market, consequential elections all over, to name a few – it only adds to my amazement that the superyacht industry is holding up as well as it is. The feverish anticipation by many in this industry of a “Trump bump” (no tariffs, please) and further gains in equity markets and cryptocurrencies might even see orders on the rise again next year. The one weakness I can point to is the growth in the number of speculative projects in build, which has risen 10 per cent this year. A third of all superyachts in build around the world at this moment lack owners. Levels like this aren’t unusual – spec projects accounted for almost half the Global Order Book in 2018 – but it is a sign that the hunger for new builds has weakened in the last 12 months. Any hull laid without an owner is a risk but it’s one that yards are increasingly prepared to take – especially those in Turkey. What a decade it’s been for that country, storming up the chart of top builder nations. But while Europe builds them, the US is buying them. That old saying, “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold,” is truer in superyachting than almost any other market. America is the market. Hankies at the ready – we cannot let the US utter so much as a snuffle.

Stewart Campbell
Editor-in-chief

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