Florida – September 23, 2020

Superyacht construction during the pandemic

The superyacht industry, just like nearly every other business around the world, has been affected by COVID-19. What was meant to be a very busy and exciting year full of boat shows, launches and more turned out to be the opposite. While the yacht charter market and the yacht sales market came to a stop, behind the scenes shipyards continued pushing forward, looking for new, smarter ways of working to ensure superyacht construction went on.

An industry used to overcoming challenges, many shipyards took the arrival of the global pandemic as a time to pause and reflect on the way they work and construct superyachts. By adjusting working practices and creating a safe, clean and healthy working environment for superyacht construction, shipyards have been able to ensure the ongoing delivery of all yachts on time and on budget.

The health and safety of employees remain a top priority, but with several new processes underway, shipyards have been able to ensure superyacht construction and work on new-builds continues on, without any downtime. By paying extra attention to enhanced hygiene regulations, keeping a safe distance and using proper tools, workers have been able to continue building  and surveying superyachts. Many yards have introduced a two working shift system, in order to reduce the number of potential contact moments between workers significantly and implemented vigorous cleaning cycles of their facilities, the superyacht under construction and their offices. And thanks to innovations, such as walkthrough videos and Zoom meetings, future owners are able to follow their superyacht construction along from a safe distance while being kept up to date on all milestone stages.

By creating a safe environment for employees to work smoothly and efficiently, yards have been able to continue building superyachts up to the highest level, on time and within budget as well.