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| The Salperton III, with its sleek saloon window |
Buying a boat means parting with a substantial amount of money. This is true of all sailing investments, even if the vessel in question is more Swallows and Amazons than Howards’ Way. But in the recession, buyers of luxury sailing yachts are saving millions in deals, as the market has fallen by about 25 per cent.
The problem for sellers in what has to be one of the world’s most rarefied markets is finding those who can combine a passion for sailing with enough disposable wealth to contemplate deals that can run to €20m or more.
“These yachts are in short supply so there is still a market, but the surplus of borrowed money available to buy them in the last few years has dried up and this means that sellers have had to drop their prices,” says James Troop, who runs the brokerage side of Dubois, the Lymington-based yacht design, sales and charter business.
The company is handling the sale of Salperton III, a 145ft super-yacht owned by Barry Houghton, a Lancashire-born entrepreneur who made his fortune from Rainford, a telecommunications company he founded with £1,500 in 1971. The business went public in 1995 and sold to Reltec, a US electronics company, for £80m in 1996.
“Not bad for a grammar-school boy from St Helens,” says Houghton when I meet him at one of the season’s most impressive gatherings of super-yachts, the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, at Porto Cervo, Sardinia.
His boat was put on the market at €22m in 2008, but the asking price was lowered to €19.75m as the market began to show signs of sagging. Houghton seems relaxed about the sale’s progress, even though he takes delivery of a slightly bigger Dubois-designed yacht at the end of next month. He plans to sail the Auckland-built 150ft long Salperton IV in the Pacific for the time being.
Up to this year, Houghton’s strategy of ordering successively grander yachts – with three- to four-year design and build cycles – had paid off handsomely. Boats of this calibre cannot be bought off the shelf and there was no shortage of buyers throughout the early 2000s.
In September, Houghton argued that the top end of the market was recession-proof. “How wrong can you be?” he said recently. “I don’t think anything is recession-proof and free of risk. There are a lot of bottom fishers around now and the market has gone slow for sure. Everyone is being cautious.”
Houghton remains optimistic of a sale, however, and says that three potential buyers have expressed interest. “I think we’ll see the market picking up again come the summer,” he says. It’s difficult to know whether his optimism is justified, as the luxury yacht market is in the doldrums almost everywhere, particularly in the 50ft to 60ft mid-range.
The high-end luxury performance yacht, however, is a relatively new product. “We think the market at the very top end is more resilient as there are still people out there who want to own these boats,” says Troop. “But it’s tough just now all the same.”
So what differentiates these exclusive yachts from those in the rest of the market? Ed Dubois, the designer of Salperton III and its replacement, Salperton IV, believes it is something to do with the combination of performance and styling.
On a guided tour of Salperton III, as we head out to the Rolex start line off Porto Cervo, Dubois points to the trademark wrap-around saloon window that adds a raked-back sleekness to the styling. Sail racing can be one of the most spartan of sports, with few home comforts in the stripped-out interior of a state-of-the-art ocean racer. But stepping through the smoked-glass automatic doors of Salperton is like wandering into a luxury hotel suite.
A terracotta bust stands on the shelf, and bowls of white orchids decorate the saloon tables. The giant sails are hoisted at the push of a button as we cruise out of the marina, overlooked by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, one of the world’s most exclusive yacht havens, established in 1967 by the Aga Khan.
Within minutes, the boat is gliding along at about 11 knots in full sail but the lean is gentle and the orchids never shift.
Back on the quayside, maxi-yachts are decorating the marina like pampered pedigrees, groomed for their very own beauty pageant. Alongside minimalist Wallys are timeless J-class boats – veterans of the great days of sail.
A number of J-class boats are currently in build, but will they all make it on to the water? One unhappy former owner, jailed fraudster Dennis Kozlowski, the disgraced former chief executive of Tyco Corporation, was forced to sell his J-class boat, Endeavour, at a substantial loss in 2006.
As Salperton slides into its birth, we find ourselves moored alongside Hamilton II, the slightly shorter super-yacht owned by Charles Dunstone, the co-founder and chief executive of Carphone Warehouse. While Dunstone enjoys taking the helm in racing, Houghton is happy to leave all the sailing to others, in this case handing the helm to Andy Green, a former British America’s Cup team helmsman.
In a later race on Hamilton II, we have a grandstand view of Velsheda and Ranger, two of the best-maintained J-class boats, sailing neck and neck, sometimes within a rope’s length of the honey-coloured rocks and islands that make Porto Cervo such a top-class racing venue.
As a contrast to the modern lines of Salperton and Hamilton II, I spend one race sailing aboard Hetairos, a classic-looking Bruce King-designed ketch that was built just 14 years ago. Its project manager, Jens Cornelsen, points to its special features such as prism windows set in the deck to shed light below, where, among the more unusual fittings, are a piano and a stove.
“The people who knew how to build this boat have since retired,” says Cornelsen. “So you’re looking at the last of its kind.”
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The details
For more information, see www.duboisyachts.com/yachts/Salperton
