As I first reported here on CharterWave in the January edition of eNews, the premier yacht builder Lurssen is on schedule to complete the new 230-foot motoryacht Martha Ann in time for this summer’s Mediterranean charter season.

Adding to that news is this tidbit that I learned at last week’s Miami International Boat Show: Martha Ann will be part of the charter fleet at International Yacht Collection, with a weekly base rate of 600,000 euros.

That’s just shy of $880,000 per week at today’s conversion rate, and I believe it will make Martha Ann the most expensive charter yacht available in the world for 12 guests. Even the new 223-foot Lurssen Kismet, which was the belle of the Fort Lauderdale boat show in October, is getting 50,000 euros a week less.

These prices are astronomical–a fact that was not lost on several reputable charter brokers I saw at boat shows during the past few months. It seems that in the past two years or so, weekly base rates for the world’s newest and most exciting motoryachts have at least doubled from what they otherwise would have been. One broker went so far as to call one such rate “ridiculous”–but the bookings keep on coming. And without any price negotiations, from what I can tell.
It seems that there is a market for these super-expensive yachts, and that Martha Ann will merely be the latest build to test where that market’s ceiling might be. If you truly do want to charter the newest custom yachts in the world, then money had better be no object.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am and is filed under Charter Yachts, Boating Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.