Russian Oligarch Yachts; Ukrainian Solution

Let's be clear on one thing. Ukraine isn't the objective, but it is the entire Slavic area of Northern Europe. He has no intention stopping with Ukraine.

So how does that impact boaters and the industry? I think war, fuel prices, inflation, possible recession all stand a high probability of bursting the pandemic boating bubble. I believe the industry already was peaking on borrowed time and just waiting for something to cause a reversal. It may not be immediate, but it's likely to come.

It's my opinion that rising fuel prices only impacts boating by existing boat owners a minor amount, but greatly impacts new boat buyers. Furthermore, economic uncertainty and war potential does the same. I don't know how this will all play out, but for the industry, uncertainty is really what causes damage. People don't wait to see the final results.

I would also think European boaters would have considerable trepidation about boating in certain areas now.

Posted just a few hours ago:

"The U.S. will be disconnecting some Russian banks from SWIFT in partnership with the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...comply-with-curbs-on-russian-banks/ar-AAUmkL9

I received a screen shot of a WhatsApp message from the captain of Ragnar, which is owned by a Russian. They were being subjected to a vigorous port state inspection in Norway a couple of days ago. I've since heard rumors (not substantiated) that Ragnar has been seized in Norway.

I posted about this in the "conversions" thread where we'd previously been talking about Ragnar:

Roman A has given "stewardship" of Chelsea FC to the trustees of it's charitable foundation:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/60540278?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

I'd also read elsewhere that the UK is considering seizure of his assets... the club, his home, etc.

Wealthy Russians are significant customers in the mega yacht market. Sanctions will impact new builds already under way as well as new builds planned for the near future. Yards in this market sector will face stressful economic times. The appearance of seized yachts on the resale market may also impact decision making by other nationalities contemplating large new builds. This will be compounded by a general air of uncertainty which may impact the whole industry.

The anchorage around St. Maarten and St. Barth's hasn't changed much, so I'm not sure there has been much affect on these guys.

While small in the overall picture, there are quite a few builders and yards owned by Russians.

There will be many US and European companies with large Russian holdings that have to absorb major losses. We've seen only small cases of this in the last few decades, such as companies walking away from investments in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Dealing in percentages, sounds small to read about 5% of European Imports are from Russia. However, the absolute number is very large. VW and Mercedes are already experiencing shortages from Ukraine and Russia.

An interesting move by Mr. A transferring 'stewardship' rather than 'ownership' of a valuable asset to a neutral third party in this case a charity. Interested to see if the British government accepts this. My hunch is that they won't. If they do, expect a lot of it.

The money in Russia is already starting to feel the squeeze?

Two of Russia's billionaires call for peace in Ukraine

Italy's Prime Minister has proposed Angela Merkel as a Peace Negotiator. She speaks fluent Russian. He speaks fluent German. They have dealt with each other for years. They can speak without interpreters. Insofar as Mr. Putin trusts any western leader he might trust her. Could be a plan.
This follows todays announcement of a massive expansion of the Bundeswehr. The annual defense budget of 57 billion euros will receive an increase of 100 billion this year and and additional 100 billion over the next two years and essentially double in size, It was already the 2nd largest in Europe after France.
And a very tough speech from the new Chancellor announcing the immediate shipment of lethal weapons to the Ukraine.
Not, I think, what Mr. Putin was expecting from a Socialist-Green Party coalition,

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...ssia-eu-sanctions-will-apply-there/ar-AAUo0ew

Setting the obvious enormous human catastrophe aside (which could in fact grow exponentially), should this become a protracted episode, this could be - likely would be - calamitous for the boating industry particularly considering it's already feeling some pressure the pandemic, from rising fuel costs and other inflationary pressures and simple economic uncertainty. As a few others have pointed out, Russians buy a lot of gigayachts. But, they buy a lot of yachts generally speaking from 20M to 200M, Russian ownership of yachts is significant. Think about all that capital - much of relied upon as working capital for PLENTY of yards - that is going to be frozen for the foreseeable future.

It hard to believe 2022 could be worse than the previous two-years. But, it sure is shaping up that way.

I think we al share the feeling to stumble from one crisis to the other, but these (Covid & Ukraine) are two fundamentally different thing. One is a global health crisis, that cannot be "switched on/off" by one single person. The current war in Ukraine is a different story. The invasion of of a free, souvereign, international acknowledged, independent country, member to the UN and OSCE, is simply unacceptable. Specially the USA as the major force behind ending WWII to free Europe and leader in the NATO, have a great responsibility, like the EU. Sanctions are one way to curb countries and persons who break and support to break international law (why do we have it, if we don't care to inforce it?). And they, like all such measures, also hurt people, who not support it. But their loss is less then being killed or shelled out of their homes, being forced to leave their countries as there is no food, medical services, educational system for kids, ... People in aggressor countries can come together and change their leadership. That's either by elections or revolution. Or the sanctions have to be so severe, that their leaders fear to be be overthrown.

In the end, every company owner but also every consumer, has to ask her/himself, if willing to participate/support, directly or indirectly, in any way the suffering brought over Ukraine, but not only there, there are more examples in the world today.

In Spain a Ukrainian sailor attempted to sink the yacht of his Russian boss https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/local/2022/02/27/97865/ukrainian-unrepentant-for-trying-sink-russian-owned-yacht-mallorca.html