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PLUS+ LIFESTYLE16MAJORCA DAILY BULLETIN
FRIDAY, MAY 3, [email protected]
T HE 36th Palma Boat Show drew to a close on 1 May Bank Holiday and organisers have hailed it a great success. More than 30,000
visitors, 270 exhibitors and 600 boats basked under clear blue skies and warm sunshine. We spoke to a cross-section of exhibitors to get their thoughts.
Joost Goverts, Director and Broker at Northrop & Johnson in Palma, was one sixth of the half a dozen leading supery-acht specialists, who formed the Balearic Yacht Brokers Association (BYBA), in or-der to create Port Adriano’s Mallorca Su-peryacht Days in 2012, followed by the debut Palma Superyacht Show in 2013. They had five yachts on display within the Show, as well as 115 foot Nautor’s Swan Shamanna moored on the periph-ery.
“The Palma Superyacht Show is very im-portant for sailing boat brokers. There are more sailing boats over 24 metres on dis-play here, more than 50% of the 60-plus exhibiting superyachts, which is more than the 20 to 30 statistically sold world-wide each year. This is incredible. It’s gone really well this year. You don’t get flocks of buyers for sailing boats, but we have had a few very serious buyers on each boat which is fantastic. Last year we sold three boats, a Swan 112, Swan 80 and a Southern Wind 90, representing 20 to 25% of our turnover in 2018, and this year we will sell at least one. We already have a price agreement on a 30 metre yacht with a client who came specifically to the Show for a viewing – proving the impor-tance of inviting your key clients to at-tend. Palma is just as effective for B2C. In the spirit of cooperation to help serve the owner and sell the boat, we have hosted at least 20 brokers onboard Shamanna.”
Joost concludes: “I am especially happy that we stayed true to our initial BYBA agreement some six years ago and kept the boat as the star. As brokers, we are only permitted one stand each, of the same size, so we can’t outspend each other on bigger and better stands. It’s a real boat show, and one that our broker colleagues from the United States are pre-pared to fly over to attend.”
Italy’s Arcadia Yachts celebrated a third consecutive year at the Palma Boat Show, as well as announcing the official debut of a new distribution arrangement with Mallorca-headquartered Marivent Yachts - specialists in unique yachts. Arcadia Yachts’ Marketing and Communication Manager, Francesco Ansalone, was at the Show and invited us onboard a distin-guished all-out-luxury loft-style A85 owned by a famous Italian. The model was first launched in 2010 and Arcadia Yachts is now building hull 18.
“Arcadia Yachts is intentionally differ-ent in the superyacht marketplace, and the Palma Boat Show is a key platform for us to inform and inspire prospective buy-ers,” explained Francesco. “We have
Sarah ForgeNauti Lady
CONTACT
Sarah Forge
Majorca Daily Bulletin
Palau de la Prensa
Passeig Mallorca 9-A
07011 Palma
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Above: The 36th Palma Boat Show. PHOTO: SARAH FORGE
NAUTICAL NOTES
PALMA
BOAT
SHOW
DRAWS TO
A CLOSE
b More than 30,000 visitors, 270 exhibitors and 600 boats basked under clear blue skies and warm sunshine.
PLUS+ LIFESTYLE 17MAJORCA DAILY BULLETIN
FRIDAY, MAY 3, [email protected]
taken technologies successfully used in other industries for several years and ap-plied them to yachting. There are solar panels fixed on all suitable surfaces, large expanses of glass developed with Scandi-navian partners to guarantee thermal in-sulation of around 18°C, and the hull form makes us 25 to 30% more efficient in terms of consumption compared like for like. There is also great emphasis placed on nature. Arcadia continues the philosophy of its mythical namesake, an idyllic place where man lived in perfect harmony with nature, and ensures guests keep close contact with the sea, sky and scenery, engaging all five senses, in order to fully relax and unwind in comfort. We and Marivent Yachts have engaged with some highly qualified prospects at this year’s Palma Boat Show, posing exactly the right questions, asking to view the engine room, talking about their own boats and coming back for a second and third viewing. It makes us confident that we are investing our time in a high-qual-ity well organised Show.” Official dealer for Scanner RIBs, Scanner
Spain, set up business in 1998 and came to their first Palma Boat Show a year later in 1999. 2019 marked 21 years as a Palma Boat Show exhibitor. “In the last few years it has grown a lot,” says Director Sabine Rooker. “Together with the Palma Superyacht Show, it is a great combina-tion. We had four Scanner RIBs in the wa-ter this year, the 770 ENVY, 860 ENVY, 950 ENVY and the 1100 ENVY, plus two models on land, the 710 ENVY and 1100 ENVY. We have seen plenty of interest-ing customers, including some serious en-quiries which will probably lead to sales, but I feel in general a lot less visitors – perhaps because of the late Easter.” A true head turner was 100 foot Gaia
crafted by UK’s Spirit Yachts and for sale at the Show with McMaster Yachts. Deckhand Olly Sweeney had been with Gaia for three months and was at his first Palma Boat Show. “As it’s a new experi-ence, for me it’s quite interesting. While my main job is to ensure the boat looks her very best, I’ve also hosted several tours with clients and brokers. Appar-ently I visited Palma when I was a lot younger, but this is the first time I can re-member exploring the old town and find-
NAUTICAL NOTES
Above: Arcadia Yachts A85 loft living. PHOTO: WWW.ARCADIAYACHTS.IT
Joost Goverts, Director at Northrop & Johnson in Palma. PHOTO: SARAH FORGE
Left: Cleanwave spokesperson Guni Bermudez - centre. PHOTO: SARAH FORGE
ing nice spots for tapas. The city has a great vibe.” Nautique’s Raymond Colquhoun was
also at his first Palma Boat Show. Sales Di-rector for Scotland Nautique, where buy-ers presumably don wetsuits to use their wakeboats, Raymond was with colleagues from the Pollenca office. “The Super Air Nautique G23 we had on display has been voted ‘wakeboard boat of the year’ six times in a row. It’s made in Orlando – as magical as Disney – and we’ve had a steady level of enquiries here in Palma. It’s not a cheap boat, around the 250,000 euro price point, but for performance, sound system, good looks and colour choice, it’s one of the best.” Erik Nieuwmeijer, Group Commercial
Director of e3 Systems, has been with the company for 17 years and, in that time, has been to all but two or three Palma Boat Shows. “The evolution of the Show has been great to watch. It gets bigger and better every year. We’re seeing more and more professional people, not just from Spain, but travelling from all over Europe to talk about electronics. Business has been good. We had concerns over the Sat-urday-Sunday start, versus the usual weekday, which kind of crowd it would attract, but each day we have had three or four solid leads – better than last year. Our lightweight flat-panel communica-tions system Kymeta is gaining traction, and has certainly passed first adopter stage into early majority, while our newer Inmarsat dual antenna Fleet Xpress is at-tracting attention. The light compact so-lution was installed on 46 metre perform-ance sailing superyacht Ganesha this year and others are set to follow.” ‘Social movement’ Cleanwave returned
to the Show for a second year. Spokesper-son Guni Bermudez said: “Our aim is to raise awareness on the environmental impact of single-use plastic and provide solutions – such as eco-friendly reusable bottles and our water refill station. We want to change the mindset from throw-ing away to reusing. And, while recycling is good, it makes more sense not to buy to excess in the first place. We have already seen a change for the better from last year. The yachting industry is reliant on the oceans and they see the swirls of plas-tic first hand, they are more aware of the need for change and help champion our cause.” The dates are already set for 2020 – 29
April to 3 May.
Scanner RIBs on display. PHOTO: WWW.SCANNERSPAIN.COM
Erik Nieuwmeijer, Group Commercial Director of e3 Systems. PHOTO: SARAH FORGE
Gaia crew member Olly Sweeney. PHOTO: SARAH FORGE
