Attending the inaugural London Luxury Afloat, the SperyachtNews team spoke with Oyster Yachts about its performance, its global development and its desire to re-enter the superyacht market with a 40-45m offering.

“We have a couple of new projects, one is significantly below 30m, and the other is significantly over 30m, with initial designs suggesting that it will be in the region of 40-45m,” starts Becky Bridgen, Deputy CEO at Oyster Yachts. “This will be a completely different venture for us because it won’t be built in composite, the project will be built in aluminium.”

The timing for this development of Oyster’s offering does feel well-timed given that there isn’t a huge amount of competition for sailing yachts in this size range, especially with Perini yet to make its plans clear having been recently acquired by The Italian Sea Group, and the fact the new build sales are absolutely booming still.

“There is a definite gap in the market, given what’s happened to some of the superyacht sailing brands in recent years, but the decision to go bigger has also been driven by loyal customers who are ready to step up in size, but that want to stay with Oyster,” continues Bridgen. “Therefore, we have to make sure that any project that comes to market, whilst being bigger obviously, looks and feels like an Oyster and retains our DNA. With the styling of the Oyster 495, there were some departures from our typical aesthetic, and we can expect further departures on the larger projects, but the DNA of our largest yacht will still be Oyster.”

So long as a business is not overexposed to Russian clients, now certainly seems like the right time to expand project offerings with demand still so high for superyacht projects across the whole globe. Indeed, Bridgen explains that taking the Oyster Yachts brand international has had an incredibly positive impact on sales. Where the brand was largely focused on the UK, a business plan targeting specific growth areas, with a number of Australian buyers becoming interested in Oyster's products recently, the US, while sales have already increased in the region, is next on Oyster Yacht’s sales expansion plan.

“We have seen a significant increase in demand for sailing yachts in recent years. People are focused on the green agenda and sustainability, but we also have clients that because of the pandemic are far more determined to become active, engaged and adventurous, and sailing yachts are the best way to achieve these goals in a superyachting sense,” continues Bridgen.

While the Oyster Yacht’s superyacht project appears to be sometime off from being introduced to the market and buyers, it is exciting that a brand is looking to fill this niche spot in the market, that in the past has yielded several beautiful projects.

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