Dipping into ‘blue economy’
Spanish city of Barcelona reinvents itself as hub where superyachts are repaired
BARCELONA, Spain — Launched less than a year ago, the 460-foot-long, eightdeck Solaris is one of the newest of the superyachts that are the floating palaces of the sea. It has a helipad plus a swimming pool and all the other high-tech amenities required by its Russian billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich.
But on a recent morning in Barcelona, the $600 million Solaris was out of the water, wedged into a dry dock. Workers were fixing the finlike stabilizers, which help steady the massive vessel in rough seas but retract when there are no swells. At the opposite end of the boatyard, another giant, the Sea Rhapsody, was getting a final checkup.
As the rich have gotten richer during the pandemic, their boats have gotten larger and more expensive — and when these over-the-top superyachts aren’t taking their owners to private holiday spots in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, they need a place to drop anchor and deal with repairs.
And it is here that Barcelona, whose days as a commercial shipyard faded years ago, sees an economic opportunity.
Barcelona has turned itself into a hub for these luxury vessels, combining a private marina that is investing $22.7 million this year to turn itself into the largest port reserved for superyachts in the Mediterranean and maintenance facilities that can hoist behemoths out of the water and then summon a small army to do repairs.
And it doesn’t hurt that Barcelona offers the ships’ crew members downtime in one of the Mediterranean’s biggest tourism destinations.
Attracting billionaire yacht owners is only a small part of Barcelona’s efforts to tap into the “blue economy” of the sea, said Jaume Collboni, the deputy mayor. Barcelona’s port authority recently approved the construction of a new terminal for cruise ships, set to open in 2024.
The pandemic was a huge blow for a city that normally welcomes millions of visitors. It showed that “diversification is becoming very important,” Collboni said. “When tourism dropped down to zero, some parts of the city were heavily affected, and we have needed to find new jobs, also for a less qualified workforce.”
At the same time, the spread of the coronavirus gave the world’s billionaires a new excuse for keeping their distance from other people, a role perfectly suited for superyachts.
Worldwide there are roughly 5,700 yachts of about 100 feet or more, and this fleet is set to expand 15% by 2025, according to industry projections. At the pinnacle of this market are about 370 megayachts of about 200 feet or more, whose number has risen 70% in the past decade and is forecast to reach 500 in about seven years.
MB92, the company that operates Barcelona’s superyacht maintenance facility, has 180 employees, but much of the labor is carried out by about 1,000 subcontractors whose jobs cover a variety of specialties, including painting, carpentry and insulation work.
About 40 workshops are scattered around the yard, and during the peak repair seasons of spring and fall the yard can work on about 25 yachts at a time.
In Barcelona, which is led by a left-wing city government, not everybody welcomes the arrival of billionaires and their yachts, whose marinas are typically fenced off from the rest of the city’s waterfront.
“We are bringing in the richest people in the world, but they don’t spend their money in our local neighborhoods, they have yachts that fly the flags of tax havens, and they hire crews who are not from Barcelona,” said Gala Pin, a former lawmaker in the city.