Lürssen employees around 1910

We have typically measured and analysed this industry in decades, specifically looking at the past few decades as a growth phases, when wealth and luxury exploded in our superyacht world. However, in the past few years we have witnessed several celebrations of legacies and historical landmarks across our primary brands in the industry, and most recently I have been privy to some incredible imagery and chronicles of the whole Lürssen family, including one where Peter Lürssen looks elegant, youthful and charming alongside his father.

Yes, it’s wonderful to be able to celebrate 150 years and to show the history and cultural changes over time, with generations of workers, all of whom have left their fingerprints on the steel and wood of the Lürssen fleet. It’s hard to imagine the thousands of hands that have crafted myriad vessels, the millions of man hours that have toiled to create wooden row boats all the way through two World Wars to now building some of the most impressive superyachts cruising the oceans.

Before World War I the top people met at Monaco annually

Rather than tell the story of 150 years and repeat much of the legacy that has been shared across the media, we decided to look more closely at the impact Lürssen has had on the superyacht market. There was a moment in time, in the early ’90s, when The Superyacht Report was invited to Lürssen to witness and capture the build of the ground-breaking 96-metre M/Y Limitless. It was hard to comprehend that the market would ever go beyond this mark in terms of complexity, scale and elegance, but fast forward to the 2000s and the past 25 years and it’s impressive to witness the evolution and expansion of this company, combined with the sheer volume of complex projects delivered to some of the most powerful and wealthy individuals on the planet.

We sat down with Miles Warden, Head of Data at The Superyacht Agency, and started to dissect the numbers, and the impact that Lürssen has had on the industry suddenly became very clear. More than 300,000gt delivered in the past 25 years, from a complex fleet of 62 significant superyachts, cannot be ignored and is such a dramatic transformation from those pre-war days when small wooden craft were being showcased in Monaco.

The following charts are a clear and intelligent demonstration of how Lürssen has shaped the market, since a project like Limitless entered the wider fleet. Just sit back and consider the numbers: over 6,000 metres and 300,000gt in 25 years; that’s the equivalent of 200 x 30-metre Ferretti semi-custom yachts end to end or nearly 1,600 of the same 30-metre Ferretti’s in terms of GT volume. For those who have never had the pleasure of exploring a 100-metre-plus Lürssen, especially the 150-metre-plus members of their fleet, it’s hard to comprehend the scale and dimensions of these projects.

Standing alongside a giga-project at the dock is overwhelming but stepping on board and walking the thousands of metres of interior passageways and stairwells is mind blowing. All one can do is contemplate the millions of man-hours of welders, pipe benders, engineers, electricians, carpenters, painters and myriad other craftsmen and women spending their lifetimes creating some of the most impressive projects on the planet, projects that will be cruising the planet’s oceans for many more decades to come.

 Owned by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Dragonfly is the 8th-largest yacht built by Lürssen Yachts and 15th in the world rankings for largest yachts. Image: © Klaus Jordan

The gargantuan yachts that have now become synonymous with the Lürssen brand and family are the modern-day legacy, if only those workers in the above 1910 shipyard image could see what their future generations have created. What’s next will be very interesting to watch and we hope to catch up with the senior management in the coming weeks to explore exactly that question. 

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