Yacht the hell? Lack of interest sinks new London summer boat show

A new luxury yacht show set to be held at St Katharine Docks this summer has been cancelled amid waning appetite within the industry.

This year’s London Yacht Show, which has promised to be "the most spectacular centrepiece of the British social calendar", has been postponed until next spring following a lack of interest in recent months.

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Trophy yachts worth up to £30m were set to be on show at a private event for high net worth buyers ahead of the calendar event, which would have been the capital’s first ever summer spectacle for Britain’s boat sellers.

Industry figures were hoping the exhibition would revive the spirits of the capital’s yacht scene after the London Boat Show, a longstanding January calendar event within the international marine sector, was cancelled last year in the wake of waning enthusiasm from exhibitors and visitors.

However, Andrew Williams of Informa, the events firm that runs the iconic Monaco Boat Show and was bringing the yacht exhibition to London this May, said: "Since an initial burst of interest in the London Yacht Show, take-up has slowed from some segments of the industry and from luxury brands."

Williams added: "And so, with just over a month to go until the planned launch, overall commitment to the event is not at the level required to deliver a show with the profile, scale and market breadth the industry asked for and deserves in London."

The event, which was unveiled in December and was due to take place next month, is now set to take place in spring 2020.

The postponement comes in spite of industry figures hailing a bumper year for Britain’s high end boat manufacturers, who say that they have largely seen business rebound since the recession despite global trade tensions and uncertainty over Britain's departure from the EU.

According to British Marine, "many of our established boatbuilders are reporting high revenues and order books full for the next three years – something we haven’t seen since pre-recession".

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"When the crash came in 2008, the world kind of stopped. What we found was that people were still wealthy enough to buy our products but they were laying off people and the last thing they wanted to be seen doing was buying a new toy," said Miles Moorhouse, marketing director of British yachting manufacturer Fairline Yachts.

"But the US base has really come back because there’s a lot of confidence in that market." .