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Growing yacht industry has some wind in its sales

China has been keeping up with the West on almost every front it seems. And these days, the country's super rich have found one more area where they can do a little bit more catch-up work - yachting. The culture of yachting, a major pastime among affluent Americans and Europeans, is now taking hold in China as the mainland's nouveau riche increasingly spend their weekends cruising up and down various waterfronts.

As such, expensive private yachts are the most recent must-have item for many of the nation's well-heeled - right up there with a fancy home, designer labels such as Louis Vuitton, and a fast sports car like a Porsche.

Demand for private yachts has gained traction in China over the past two years although the country still makes up only 1-2 percent of the global yacht market currently.

But yacht makers are racing to fill that demand, hoping to make up lost ground to the US and Europe, traditionally the industry's two most important markets. The two markets put together still account for 95 percent of yacht sales globally, but growth has slowed due to having been deeply mired in the global recession.

"The financial crisis has definitely affected the yachts market," Gordon Hui, who heads the Asia operations of the famed UK yacht brand Sunseeker, told China Daily.

But "China recovered rapidly from the financial crisis," Hui added, "and the market for yachts expanded as a result. It has also propped up the whole Asia market."

In the four years from 2006 to 2010, China's yacht industry has gone from virtually zero to attaining a market size worth about $3.4 billion. However, some industry insiders say that the yachting market in China could balloon to 200 billion yuan ($30.86 billion) over the next few years.

US-based Brunswick Corp, the maker of Boston Whaler fishing boats, said total yacht sales in China could grow by as much as 25 percent this year.

"We believe the long-term potential in the marine business is larger than anywhere else in the world," Chief Executive Dustan McCoy told Bloomberg recently.

Sunseeker's Hui sees China's yacht market "in full swing by next year".

Samuel Wong, a Hong Kong-based yacht builder, was even bolder in his outlook. He expects the market on the mainland to double in just one year. So far, it has consumed half of the yachts churned out by Wong's shipyard.

Wong, who expects to deliver his most expensive boat into the hands of a mainland owner soon, said his yacht is cheap compared with a similar model made by a foreign yacht maker. One yacht he had just sold on the day China Daily caught up with him carried a price tag of 38 million yuan.

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