Article in Businessweek about Yachts

More about CEO's and boats

This one from SLATE about why your CEO should not buy a yacht.

http://www.slate.com/id/2147788


And this from MSNBC that says boats just keep getting bigger.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13904804/from/RS.1/

Lazy CEOs or lazy writers?

I found the SLATE article interesting in it's cherry-picking of facts--to the exclusion of other facts--- to suport the premise of the author.

Those here who regularly read 'Barron's' know full well that Bill Miller's problems with Legg Mason Value Trust have more to do with chancy acquisitions, as well as an extremely conservative position with regard to energy & commodities positions wherein he failed to make the piles of dough that others plucked from low branches.
Check out the August 14 issue for all the reasons why yacht ownership ( he has a 190-footer) was the least of his problems.

It may please the yachtowner-haters to know that the vast majority of them ( the yacht owners, that is) still work for a living (though how diligently they are working for their shareholders is another question--go to the Morningstar forums for that) and require an office onboard.

Americans take less and less time off from work. PriceWaterhouseCoopers has taken to kick everybody out the doors for about two weeks every year so that batteries can be recharged.

When they make me King, every CEO will be forced to go yachting for the benefit of their companies and shareholders.

All the articals were very nice, the one on MSNBC makes me want to invest in a shipyard? Any thoughts on that? As for the Slate artical, I agree it seems to be written to try and make a reader think these people are well slaking off.

Now if I could have a yacht like that say 82m I might use it for share holders, at least let them visit. The other interesting point in the articals that was not mentioned, was that marinas and harbors are not able to expand as fast, the towns are concerned they are getting to big as are the yachts! What about that?

mp-willow, do I sense that you would entertain the thought of investing in a boatyard in order to acquire a vessel built in said yard?
You would not be the first happy yacht owner to have gone down that path.

Regarding yachts and harbors/marinas expanding too fast for a particular area, well, let's just say that the economic benefits--jobs, taxes, business growth, and the like-- have proven to be very real as found in detailed studies, for example, of the South Florida area.
We are not talking chump change, either.

As the late Senator Everett Dirksen once put it, "A billion here, a billion there...pretty soon, we're talking real money".

Any other links to articles on growth in yacht sizes and lack of marina facilities would be apreciated. Do most of these Mega Yachts have home moorings or do they just dock where they can between cruises?

Thanks


Vacationboat