Australia’s mining boom has brought a change offshore: The number of superyachts owned by Australians has tripled since 2005, as mining millionaires take advantage of the strong local dollar and financial-crisis-related bargains for the high-end sailing vessels.
Those rich Australians are also splashing their wealth on other luxury toys, such as expensive cars—sales of Bentleys, Aston Martins and Lamborghinis all rose between 50% and 73% in 2010. But those are small change compared with the superyachts they’re buying. The vessels cost upward of US$6 million, according to Erwin Bamps, chief operating officer of Gulf Craft........“Seven years ago, when I was selling into Australia, a 50-foot boat was a big boat; today that’s not the case.”
Read more online at http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2011/07/13/australia-sees-rise-of-superyachts/