How Many Superyachts Are There?

To date there are about ten thousand superyachts registered around the world, with an estimated two hundred currently under construction. New vessels are constructed at the rate of around one hundred a year but this figure has certainly wobbled in the recent economic climate.

Superyachts come in all shapes and sizes and are certainly not purely motor vessels. Sailing yachts are classed as superyachts too providing they are over a certain length.

A yacht is not classed as super unless it is over 24 meters in length. Once you reach that length a whole range of laws governing all sorts of things on the boat from the simple to the complex, come into play.

With so many yachts in the world and if we take a second to work out that while some of the very very big yachts will have over one hundred crew and some of the smaller yachts only have two or three crew we take the average to be eleven crew per vessel.

This means that currently there is a need for roughly 100`000 to 120`000 crew for superyachts. Moreover this figure does not include the smaller vessels, under twenty four meters, not classed as superyacht who also require crew. The summer charter industry is a very large industry in itself requiring a variety of experienced and willing crew.