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New Orleans: Fuel prices are soaring and credit markets tightening, but the super-rich are still lining up to pay tens of millions of dollars for mega yachts.
The well-heeled buyers of the floating mansions are increasingly coming from emerging economies - in the Middle East, Russia and South America.
The source of their wealth runs the gamut - technology, venture capitalism, new industries. And, yes, oil.
"There are a lot of people with new wealth looking for relaxation and enjoyment," said John Dane III, president of privately owned Trinity Yachts, the largest US builder.
These days, the biggest problem at Trinity's shipbuilding yards is having enough workers to handle the 24 custom contracts the company is currently working for the luxury vessels.
"Nobody is buying these yachts because they need them," said William S. Smith III, Trinity's vice-president.
"They're buying them because they want them." Another builder, YCO Deuxil, has nine yachts under construction - more than double from last year. Sales for the first five months exceeded the entire amount for 2007, the company said.
YCO Deuxil, which also provides services for super yacht owners, saw its profit more than double to $549,367 in 2007 over 2006.
Trinity, which once had an almost exclusive US buyer base, also is seeing more overseas buyers who have recently moved into substantial money, Dane and Smith said.
At the Global Superyacht Forum, a meeting of yacht owners in Amsterdam last November, Steven Rattner, manager of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, said there are 90,000 families in the world with a net worth of more than $360 million each.
That number is expected to increase over the next three years by 10 per cent a year.
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