Hi, I'm Bill Springer. I'm the handsomest man in this room. And I'm here with Tom Conboy of Heesen North America and Mark Cavendish, the Chief Commercial Officer of Heesen. And we're here to talk about the state of the superyacht industry here in Palm Beach at the Palm Beach Boat Show. And to also talk about our socks. So, this is going to be a hard-hitting interview, so stay, pay attention. There's a lot of good insights coming here this way. So, let's start with you, Mark. Mark, can you tell m
e a little bit about the state of Heesen's production schedule and where things are happening in this ever-changing world? Yes. Well, good morning. It's pretty busy at Heesen at the moment. We have got 12 or 13 yachts in build in various stages of construction. Last year, we delivered an 80-meter. We are, we ended last year with delivering an 80-meter. We're about to deliver a 60-meter, a 67-meter. And then in the next months, there'll be a 150, 250-meters leaving the shipyard. The demand is con
tinuing to crank along, isn't it? Demand is cranking along. It's slowed down a bit for sure. And that's kind of normal given the craziness of the… The craziness of 2022 and that period, yes. But it's still busy. The market level is holding up good. It should be, as we're very busy. We've got lots of projects on at the moment. Yeah, it's not bad. Are your sort of buyers or your customers, are they changing? Are they different? Are they getting younger? Are they asking for different features? Yeah
, interesting question. Over the years, of course, the whole profile of customers has changed a lot. 15 years ago, there were a lot of… Principally, the market was Europeans and Americans. And then, of course, the Russians came into the market 20 years ago, I should say. And they dominated the market for a long time. They, of course, are now no longer in the market. And it's gone back much more to the traditional North American, European. And, of course, the Middle East has now opened up a lot,
which for years has been… had all the appearances of a very good market. But really, only now it's beginning to start seeing buyers coming. Middle East, in that the buyers are from the Middle East and they're having their boats in the Middle East as well? Very much so, yes. Yeah, right. It's all sort of expanding. Yeah. Last year, we delivered a 60-meter yacht to the Middle East, but not long before that, a 50-meter, before that, a 47-meter. This is a big trend. I mean, this has changed a lot in
the last years. Right. But I'll turn my attention to you, Tom, because as interesting as the Middle East may be, the American market is still one of the largest markets in the world. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, in general, I don't think that you see the Middle East and, obviously, the Russians where there's probably more, say, the 100-meter. Our size range over here is probably more 30 to 60 meters, I think, as far as that type of thing. And so, yeah, I mean, it's 30 to 60 meters. This show, i
n particular, is really kind of, we're really liking this show. We've liked it for a lot of years. Even with the weather yesterday, we are commenting amongst ourselves, it's just a good show. You don't see the huge crowds, but what you have is just really good quality. Why do you think that is? Is it because Palm Beach is a cool place? It's got a nice vibe? I think there's a little bit of that. It's a cool vibe. It's a really relaxed show. It's easy to get in, get out. You're right across from P
alm Beach proper. The time of the year, the temperature, the weather is great compared to the rest of North America. It's pretty not so nice and cold and snowy. So, yeah, I think it's just got a lot of, it ticks a lot of boxes and people just like it. And it's just getting bigger and bigger and better quality, it seems, each and every year as far as the quality of the buyer. Do you have customers here in South Florida that use their boats here and then take them down to the Caribbean and the Bah
amas? Yeah, I mean, most of, if you look at boating generally in the United States, even people from California or Washington State or Indiana or Nebraska or Texas tend to be here. Okay, this is a, you know, they pass through here because we've got 2000 miles of islands starting at the Bahamas going down to the Grenadines. So you've got amazing cruising. This tends to be where people come to get provision, to do their repairs. You know, the business side of the business is here. You know, I mean
, if you look at, you've got really kind of Monaco to St. Tropez and here it's Miami to Palm Beach. And those are really the two business centers of the yachting business. It's the capital of yachting in the USA, isn't it? It's where everything is, where all the big marinas are for big yachts like this. Yeah, I mean, we kind of say, you know, they used to say it was the yachting capital of the world. But if you look in Europe at some of the places, it's hard to claim that. But what the new kind
of term is, is that it's more of the Wall Street of yachting. So every deal tends to have some tentacle to Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale being kind of the epicenter, be it the shipyard has representation there, the management does, you know, something to do with the deal, wherever the deal is happening, the world tends to have some tentacle to South Florida. Talk to me a little bit about the American sort of psyche when it comes to yachting and sort of large yachts. Because, I mean, in Europe
, in the Met, there is a yachting culture. There is a yachting, I mean, St. Tropez, Monaco, these are iconic things. In the Americas, or at least in North America, in the United States, there's not as much of that sort of yachting culture. Is that right? I think it's more of it. I think there's because there's more cruising. I mean, you know, listen, it's hard to beat the Mediterranean in June, July, August, September. I mean, and it's a pretty big cruising ground. You know, the same thing here.
I mean, you've got, you know, you've got 2000 miles of islands. And I mean, if you go and look at some parts of the Bahamas, people go around the world and say the prettiest water they've ever seen is down in the Exumas. You go down to the BVI, you've got the Turks and Caicos before that, the BVI. Then you go down into the Grenadines, you know, you've got the popular spots like, you know, St. Martin and St. Barts. So there's a lot of different areas to go. You've got, you know, if you kind of g
o west and get into like, you know, Cayman and Jamaica and Cartagena, there's parts of that now that are quite nice. You go over to like, go through Panama and Costa Rica and the fishing on that side. And then you can go up the West Coast to Alaska. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of cruising around here. So there's, and then the Northeast. So, no, I think there's, there is a yachting culture that's really, I mean, it goes back to the, you know, the turn of the century, even before. When was the Ame
rican Cup? The American Cup started in 1870, 1876. So yeah, the New York Yacht Club. The Americans won, by the way. Yeah. They won 132 years in a row. Yeah. Sorry, Mark. The Australians kind of ruined it all. Exactly. Ruined it all, man. Ruined it, ruined it, completely ruined it. Exactly. And Tom. It's a very sole point, though. I know, I'm sorry. Not really. Now, Tom, talk to me a little bit about, you know, I want to buy a boat. You've sold me. All right. I want to go to the Caribbean. I want
to go to the Bahamas. I want to go on an Eastern. What do I do? Well, I think, you know, the one thing. Break me up. So I don't call Tom, I call you. I think the big thing and what you can do also, too, is that here in South Florida, you have great access to like either a management company, the crew, the provisioning, the lawyers, knowing how to, you know, we can guide you through every aspect of it, you know. You know, what flag do you want to put on? There's a lot of talk about, you know, fl
ags, you know, and what they do or don't do. Access to crew, crew agencies are here. Management companies are here. And same in Europe. You can curate the whole experience. The whole thing is right here, you know. Yeah. And it's the same thing in the South of France. I mean, it's again, two business centers. So every need that you need to, from the time you buy the yacht to now you're out cruising, can be kind of put together in those locations. And so let me think about, I'm a new to yacht. Lik
e, have you sold, you must have sold boats to people that have never owned a boat before. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. Go back to what Mark was saying. So, you know, years back, you would find it was kind of the yacht club guy that came up through each size range. You know, he went from a, you know, I don't know, his tender or, I mean, sorry, he was like Sears catalog boat. You hear that story. I mean, I never knew Sears sold so many boats. Sears used to sell homes. You could buy a home kit on Sear
s. But the interesting thing is now we see people going from zero to a hundred, meaning that like they've never owned a boat and they come in and buy a 50 meter. So that's what's different. Our business model of building on spec really is complimentary to the buyer today, meaning that he can step, because if you tell someone to build a 50 meter boat, it's three years, right? And someone who's never owned a boat before. Yeah. And you're like, wow, I want to buy it now. Yeah. And so, you know, the
ideal time is coming into a year because you really get to personalize it. So that's kind of the real change. It's more of an immediate gratification, you know, need it, want it, now let's go get it. Right. You know, kind of thing. You're seeing the same thing, I'm sure. Yes. So would it be kind of satisfying and exciting to sort of bring a new person into the world of yachting? I mean, yeah, I mean, because, you know, two years ago, didn't we, during COVID, we had a boat that came to port a ya
cht from us who had never had a boat before. Yeah. Delivery of it wasn't COVID, it was the beginning of the Ukraine war. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And do they come back to you and say, I can't believe that this is even possible? Yes. It's usually if they get a good taste and there are some areas of yachting that, you know, you can maybe not get a good taste in your mouth. I mean, with Heesen, you kind of get that because you get a good quality boat. And great people. And great people, yeah. Peop
le really top the boats. And good fashion. Yeah. Wait till you see the fashion. And, but, yeah, once you get a taste of it and see how cool it is to be sitting somewhere remotely and, you know, in a luxurious area eating, you know, Michelin star food and drinking great wine, you kind of go, this is about as good as it gets. Right. So, yeah, it's pretty captivating because there's not much you can do that is, I think, is luxurious really in any kind of thing, you know, worldwide. And then you can
go, let's move, let's go over here now, let's go down here, let's, you know, let's be on the same platform now, 4,000 miles away. Yeah. It's a unique experience. You don't get it from a private airplane. You just imagine, as you say, cruising here in the Bahamas or down to the Caribbean chain. And in the summer of the next year, you can be in the Greek islands and get off some beautiful bay with white sandy beaches and nobody else around you and gin clear water to 150 feet. And seven star servi
ce. And seven star service on board. This is what happened with the guy we were just talking about earlier. I think another important point, when you were talking to Tom about buying a boat from Tom, which I think is a really good idea, incidentally. The other good thing that we have over here, because we have a lot of boats in the States, is of course looking after the clients afterwards. Because once the boat is finished being built and delivered, that's not when it finishes by any means. It's
really critical to keep following the boats and supporting the owners and the crew with maintenance and after sale service. And here in the States, we're very lucky because you take care of all of that. You have a group of two or three people that come full time here taking care of our boats. I think that's such an important thing. That's a really good point because true luxury, it isn't just the product. It's the experience, right? It's the service. It's the knowing that you're taking... It's
the seamlessness of it. And the effortlessness. Yeah. And even if something goes wrong, even if one of the engines doesn't work, the owner and the guest should never know anything about it. They should just arrive at their destination as if everything is normal. Even if the galley has stopped working and they're cooking on a gas ring or something, this whole thing just keeps on going. And the mistake that some people make is that they bring these problems to the attention of the owners and these
owners have paid so much money that the last thing they want is a litany of problems. The crew and the maintenance of boats is so... It's critical. It's critical to the entire experience, for sure. It makes or breaks the whole thing. And that's something that you try to excel at. Yeah. I mean, we've just been doing it for so long over here. We've got a complete vendor list of every trade and craft and thing that... Because boats break no matter where they're built. And things happen. So you've
got to be able to, as Mark says, and the best experience and the best crew can be ones that take care of everything just very quietly and it just gets done. Right. Nobody knows anything about it. Right. What do you guys think about Kim Kardashian? And so I thought I was the only one that had cool socks, but apparently you guys are actually the trendsetters. How does this all happen? You'd think that we coordinated our dressing this morning. No, but we didn't. No. Wouldn't we? But obviously we di
dn't. Not only are we happy and humble, but we're also quite fashionable. I always wear the coat flags so it reminds me of... It's my name, so I forget and I can look down. Oh, that's good. Nice. And figure out. It's a shame they misspelled it Exactly. You saw it here first, folks. Peace and fashion 101. Well, I'm glad that you all have been with us here on this discussion. Hope you've learned something and thank you for listening.
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