There’s only one rule in yacht club — the bigger, the better.
According to The New Yorker, a record 887 superyachts were sold in 2021, ~2x those sold in 2020. The trend doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon:
- 1k+ superyachts are on order right now, forcing billionaires to do something they never really have to do: wait.
Why the jump in sales?
Insiders attribute the rise to two reasons:
- There are more rich people. Since 1990, the number of US billionaires jumped from 66 to 700+ while the median hourly wage has only increased 20%. The number of gigayachts (yachts over 250 feet) has jumped from under 10 to 170+ during the same time.
- The pandemic. Rich folks like social distancing (mostly from neighbors and the paparazzi), and being on a yacht in the middle of the ocean is about as socially distanced as you can get.
If you don’t have the means to join the yacht club, you can still jam to the same tunes. Spotify’s Yacht Rock playlist has 1.2m+ likes, and features smooth tracks from Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, and Kenny Loggins.
