10 - Inside the Market - Yacht Sales Insights & Trends for December 2025 - Berthon International ...

In this final Inside the Market of 2025, Sue Grant is joined by Berthon motorboat broker and lifelong yachtsman, Hugh Rayner, to unpack what is really happening across sail and power as we head into 2026. They start with a striking datapoint from the USA. For brokerage yachts over 500,000 dollars, 1,893 motorboats have sold in 2025, against just 149 sailboats including multihulls. As Sue says, it is a sobering statistic. Hugh sees it every day as experienced sailors quietly move to semi displacement and long range motor yachts. As he puts it, many are discovering that “straight line sailing is quite nice because you can sit inside, put the heating on and avoid a face full of salt water every fifteen minutes”. Multihulls are another clear growth story on both sides of the Atlantic, sail and power. Deck space, comfort and performance are drawing in new owners. At the same time, more mature and heavier designs must now be priced very keenly to compete with rapidly evolving new models and materials. New yacht sales remain challenging overall. Confidence, not capital, is the limiting factor. Yet truly new designs in the quality segment still cut through. From serious blue water sailing yachts to long range motorboats, the best of the new launches are selling off the drawing board in both Europe and the USA. Across the group, buyers are asking Berthon to act for them in growing numbers. They want accurate, unvarnished advice on values, VAT, build quality and where a yacht really sits in the market. As Hugh says, “you are not just buying a boat, you are buying what that owner has done with that boat”. Correctly priced, well marketed recent yachts with good pedigree, strong service history and sensible specification are still finding buyers readily. Berthon goes into the holiday period with more yachts under contract for early 2026 than we would normally expect. None of this hides the fact that 2025 has been a bruising, turbulent year and that 2026 is likely to be similar. Reading the market accurately and telling owners the truth about price and presentation is critical. Overpriced, badly marketed yachts will not sell, however cheap the commission deal. The episode closes with a look at the Berthon Fleet itself. The marketing team in all territories is busy, with an unusually high volume of new listings joining the fleet for the time of year. If you want a clear, honest view of where the market really sits at the end of 2025, this is the place to start. Send us a message (https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2528535/open_sms)