The 9th American Superyacht Forum began today in Fort Lauderdale. Hosted by Superyacht Events, over its three days the forum will see some 250 delegates gather to discuss the state of the American superyacht industry. Day One, titled ‘The Superyacht Business Plan’ set the scene for the whole conference, focusing on how America is performing against the rest of the world, and how American companies can work together to improve and drive their sector of the industry.

The conference opened with ‘Keynote Paper 1 - State of the US market’ led by Martin H. Redmayne, Editor-in-Chief and Chairman of The Yacht Report Group, who began by stressing the importance for honesty in discussions over the three days. Redmayne used his presentation to paint a picture of the state of the global and American order book, presenting statistics from Superyacht Intelligence and an overview of the state of the world’s wealth. “America is competing well, but is not what it should be,” said Redmayne. “But, the good news is that every year the fleet grows.” Focus needs to be placed on highlighting and targeting the owners of the future, and bringing owners, especially American owners, back to America to build. “There needs to be some more insular focus: so many owners have migrated to building overseas. Together, as an industry, the American yards need to entice them back.” Making an important point, Redmayne emphasised the need to remember the quality and ability of American yards and the yachts they have built. “All the American yards proclaim they build to European quality. Why not American quality? America can do some amazing projects.” The session closed with the conclusion that American yards need to continue to work together to attract ‘Generation Next’ to yachting, particularly targeting the owners of sub 100’ yachts today. Focus must also remain on making the right long-term decisions for the yards. “We can’t have yacht projects squeezing and crushing the financial stability of yards any more,” said Redmayne.

Following a short break the forum continued with ‘Keynote Panel 2 - Writing a business plan for America’. On the panel was Kristina Hebert of Ward's Marine Electric, Erin Ackor of Moore & Company, Wayne Huizenga Jr of Rybovich and William Smith III of Trinity Yachts, who led a hugely interesting discussion, focusing on a ten-point plan for the developments of the American superyacht industry. Points raised were that as part of targeting new clients we have to work together every day to remove the stigma and barriers against yachting. Hebert said that this is “absolutely achievable, but only if everyone, not just one or two organisations, work together.”  There was discussion of the options of addressing the Jones Act to potentially allow more vessels to charter in American waters and encourage people to visit the US. Ackor expressed her opinion that making changes to the Act would be “a very difficult uphill battle.” Smith concurred, stating that there is “too much excessive opposition.” Overall the panel concluded the best approach would be to aim to achieve an alteration of the Act to hopefully favour superyachts more. Also discussed was the importance to remember that issues with warranty on a yacht can really sour an owner’s yachting experience. “We have seen a 50 per cent increase in warranty related disputes,” said Ackor. Whether the owner is right or wrong is not the issue, rather the long-term relationship between an owner and indeed the industry is far more important, and a yard bearing the cost of a faulty part may be a small price to pay for this. Considering the role of crew in an owner’s yachting experience was also discussed, with Billy Smith stressing that, “the one area that drives owners out of yachting more than anything is crew.” As such crew, and the way they are viewed by yacht owners and vice versa, is a universal concern, not just limited to America.

 
Following lunch came ‘Keynote Panel 3 - America's Cup – Superyacht integration’ led by a panel of Niccolò Porzio di Camporotondo of the America’s Cup Event Authority, Luc Khaldoun of Fraser Yachts and Tim Davey of the US Superyacht Association/GMT Global Marine Travel. Nearly 160 years old, the America’s Cup is the oldest trophy in international sport.  San Francisco will play host to the next AC finals in 2013, with a massive potential positive impact on America. Organisers have made some significant changes to the event with new boats, new course formats, enhanced online broadcasting, new race formats in new venues.  They aim to make is more of a spectator sport, and reinforce the links between the Americas Cup and HNWIs. As part of the drive to attract superyachts and their owners to the event the Americas Cup Superyacht Committee (AYSYC) has been set up to help facilitate the attendance of superyachts (both from the US and outside the US) at the event. Yachts will have to apply to attend, with each case being assessed individually. The ACSYC will oversee compliance of the yachts before they come to the event. It is intended that there be one dedicated day at each of the Americas Cup world series for superyachts, to take advantage of the racecourse and the race committee.  Expectations are for around 60 superyachts to attend, 60 per cent of which will be over 40m+, with prices for attendance to be announced on August the 1^st.

The second afternoon session, ‘Bullet Workshop: Marketing & communication’ was led by Patrick Coote of Fraser Yachts. Coote discussed the differences between European and American approaches to marketing. For American companies, understanding how to market to European clients is crucial as marketing campaigns directly affect the perception of a brand. He reminded delegates that marketing is not just about a print advertisement, and that there are so many more avenues that can be taken to get a message out, using online advertising as one example. Coote closed with the message that there is an issue with the non-US view of the US market that needs to be addressed in order to achieve the aim of attracting more potential owners to American yards and companies.

 
‘Keynote Paper 4 - Owners investing and operating in the industry’ featured Jose Bared, yacht owner and owner of Jones Boat Yard Inc who spoke of his experience of investing in the industry. He told delegates that there are a lot of barriers to entry of the market as a yard and creating a yard from scratch is probably price prohibitive. This was why the decision to purchase an existing yard, “with great people” was appealing. Having experienced and enjoyed refit work on his own yacht, he told the audience that his passion for yachting was longstanding, indeed he later went on to state that he would never sell his own yacht. With the number of yachts in the fleet and the continued orderbook Bared saw the potential of the refit market and made the decision to invest. “It hasn’t been easy. This is a tough industry to crack,” he declared. Bared described observations that there is a “tendancy to overstretch and oversell in this industry,” and “you should only go after what you are good at.” When asked if he would reinvest if he had the chance to do it all over again, the response was a strong yes. “I am optimistic about the future. Eventually things are going to pop. Those putting off refit work will have to carry it out eventually.” 

The final session of the day, ‘Keynote Paper 5 – Ownership and business’ was presented by the owner of M/Y Golden Compass who addressed delegates via video link from Seattle, with Graeme Lord of IYC on stage in Fort Lauderdale. The owner had purchased Golden Compass with the intention of using her to travel around the world: this brief had meant that he and his wife required a quite specific type of yacht. After taking advice and shopping around they purchased Golden Compass which although old, was sound, and suited to their uses.  The yacht underwent a refit before embarking on the trip. Having traveled extensively on the yacht, spending the majority of year on board and in variety of locations, he could offer an owner’s perspective from many different locations and situations encountered on the trip, which is still ongoing. Piracy was one issue highlighted, with the owner urging the industry to look into ways to counteract this hindrance to yachting. Some insight offered was the need to make the world smaller by exposing brokers to different, less visited, regions and finding ways to promote them. An important lesson from the session was the owner’s description of a week long charter in Greece, prior to making the decision to travel the world by yacht, as being the tipping point for his decision to purchase a yacht.  This reinforces the need for the industry to work together to promote superyacht ownership through charter. As Wayne Huizenga Jr highlighted in Keynote Panel 2, “the charter barrier is still too high. With the cost of a week’s charter in the Med and fuel to get there you are looking at a half a million US dollars proposition just to have a first time try at yachting.” Ending the day’s discussions on a positive note the owner said that he would have no hesitation recommending ownership to friends and colleagues, but highlighted the importance of understanding what the usage of your yacht would be in order to get the best product for each individual.

After  busy day of debate delegates attended an al fresco supper in the Fort Lauderdale sunshine, followed by networking drinks, sponsored by Intelisea, at Waxy O’Conners.

Full transcripts will be available to attendees and subscribers to the ‘Business Package’. For programme details and information on how to register for Day Two and Day Three please visit SuperyachtEvents.com or call Georgina Lucey on +44 (0) 7595 06284845

Superyacht Events would like to thank Crystal Springs  for supplying the coffee for delegates during the networking breaks.

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