When commissioning a superyacht, one of the key considerations is the total interior volume. Yachts over 500GT are subject to additional regulations, meaning that this can often be a stalling point for designers.
But will this always be the case? At this year's Superyacht Design Symposium, we asked three key industry insiders to give their view:
“I think the 500GT limit is no different from the 36 passenger limit on a PYC boat or any of the other rules or regulations,” argues Andrew Winch, founder of Winch Design. “It’s not a benchmark — we have clients who have just finished a 15,000GT project. What the clients want, they will have.”
Naval architect Bill Tripp added: “We’re very active right now designing sailboats across the spectrum. Right now they’re a little bit smaller than they were, but that’s just the natural cycle. The cycle will swing back towards bigger boats and the bigger boats are going to give people more thrills at sea and the ability to get to further ports faster. It’s an exciting time.”
Meanwhile, Rose Damen of Amels claimed that the 500GT limit has been a key driving factor behind clients choosing to commission a superyacht support vessel rather than incur the additional regulations that come with a larger interior volume. “At the same time, the market over 500GT will continue to grow towards 2,000GT and upwards,” she predicted.
Design trends and client demands are just two of the key issues discussed in Futureyachts, the provocative new bookazine from Boat International Media, which will be published on April 27.