Before you become wealthy, you probably don’t think an awful lot about buying yachts, but when you do obtain some assets and you have money to spend, it seems to be something that many high net worth individuals do, with some estimates as high as 15%. Why is this? Why do wealthy people, including the super rich, choose to own yachts? What is it about them that makes them so attractive? From a lifestyle perspective
Privacy and control
One of the biggest reasons wealthy people buy yachts is that they offer privacy and control. They allow wealthy people away from crowds, public spaces, and, in some cases, the paparazzi. It also gives them the freedom to travel where they want. The open ocean is essentially a giant highway that’s basically empty. Vast stretches of it are complete wilderness, with nobody for hundreds or thousands of miles. It’s this type of exclusivity and the absence of having to stay in a fixed location that makes owning a yacht particularly attractive.
Lifestyle and experience
On top of this is the lifestyle and experience that luxury yachts offer people. For many wealthy individuals, going out on the boat as a way to spend time with family and entertain friends or business partners is also a great opportunity to enjoy water sports, spas, similar cinemas, and Michelin-style dining at sea. Most yachts that are rented come with entire crews who can meet the owner’s needs. For many people, it’s sort of a second floating home; it’s somewhere that they can use. It’s a platform that they can use for adventures that they wouldn’t be able to have any other way.
For many high net worth individuals, owning a yacht is even better than owning a private jet or supercar. With private jets, you’re limited to taking off and landing on specific runways, and you can only be in the air for a few hours. With a yacht, you can be out at sea for weeks, and you don’t have to return to land to refuel or restock for a long time, especially if you have a bigger boat.
Status
Some high net worth individuals explore the Premier boat collection because they want status. For them, it isn’t so much the experience of boating that’s appealing to them, but it’s more the idea that they’ve made it and that they’ve achieved the highest possible level of wealth. Owning a yacht brings with it certain bragging rights while also allowing individuals to entertain their friends in ways that nobody else can.
Tax perks
On top of this, there are some significant tax perks for owning a yacht. If you can constantly move between jurisdictions, you can avoid rules that say that you become a tax resident in a specific location after you spend a certain length of time there. You can also use yachts to move valuable assets around the world. It’s hard to take kilos of gold on a plane, but it’s very easy to transport millions of dollars’ worth of gold if you have a yacht and you can just move from port to port.
