The largest yacht at the 2026 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is no longer the yacht it was built as. Draak, a 92.8 metre Oceanco delivered in 2014 as a private motor yacht, arrives in Florida as a support vessel for scientific research and specialist diving, with a decompression chamber where her spa used to be. A week after the show closes, a 45.6 metre explorer that began life as a North Sea fishing trawler goes to an online auction with no reserve. Between them, the two boats describe what the American autumn season is selling: conversions, and a faster way to find a price.
The show
The 67th edition runs from 28 October to 1 November across six waterfront venues in Fort Lauderdale, including Bahia Mar and Superyacht Village. The organisers, Informa Markets, have not published a 2026 boat count. For scale, the 2025 show put 187 yachts in front of buyers, 62 of them available for charter, according to YachtCharterFleet; the charter yachts averaged 40 metres and quoted average weekly rates above $152,000. Informa estimates the show's annual economic impact at $1.79 billion.
The American show closes a season that opened in September. Cannes and Monaco carried the European brokerage book, and at Monaco roughly three yachts in five arrived listed for sale, as AVNET reported in its preview of the Cannes and Monaco fleets.
Draak: the rebuild as the headline
According to Megayacht News, Draak is the largest yacht in the show, at 304 feet 6 inches. According to YachtBuyer, Oceanco, the yard that built her, carried out the rebuild, with Azure Yacht Design on naval architecture and Vedder on the interior. Sea trials were reported in May 2026 and delivery followed on 29 June.
The former beach club and spa are now a dive centre with a medical treatment room and a six-person decompression chamber, the first Oceanco has installed. The upper-deck helipad was removed to make room for a tender operations area aft, served by a 12.6 tonne crane with an 11 metre reach and twin 6.7 tonne davits. She now has an owner's stateroom and eight guest cabins, and operates alongside the 111 metre Leviathan in the Inkfish research fleet.
None of the show coverage lists Draak for sale or for charter. Her presence is a statement by the yard more than an offer: a 12 year old superyacht can be rebuilt for a different job instead of being sold on, and Oceanco wants owners of large hulls to know it does the work.
Scintilla Maris: a trawler, then an auction
Scintilla Maris is a 45.6 metre explorer built on the hull of the beam trawler Vertrouwen, launched at the Maaskant yard in Stellendam in the late 1980s (Soundings gives 1988, the auction listing 1989) and fished in the North Sea for about two decades. Her owner, Erik Vonk, bought the hull in 2006 during a decommissioning round. Conversion at the same yard, now Damen Maaskant, began in 2019 and the yacht was delivered in September 2023.
According to Soundings, the yard replaced the original 4,400 hp diesel with a hybrid electric system and reduced her volume to below 500 gross tonnes, the threshold at which stricter rules begin. She sleeps 10 guests in five staterooms, with the owner's suite in the former fish hold. The auction listing cites dynamic positioning, compliance with the Polar Code and a 14,000 nautical mile range.
She will be on display at the show with Burgess as listing broker, then go to Boathouse Auctions for online bidding on 5 November. According to All At Sea, she was appraised at $23 million and previously listed at $16 million, and opening bids are expected from $5 million. There is no reserve.
Three prices, and none of them is the sale price
Scintilla Maris, the 45.6 metre trawler conversion, sells online with no reserve on 5 November. Whatever the top bid is, it wins.
Scintilla Maris, in US dollars
Bar length is relative to the appraisal.
Boathouse Auctions, November 2026
Online bidding, 4 to 12 November. Opening figures as published; reserve shown only where a source states it.
| Yacht | Length, builder | Opening figure |
|---|---|---|
| Scintilla Maris | 150 ft Damen Maaskant | $5m+ No reserve |
| Brandi Wine | 114 ft Hargrave | $1.6m |
| Picosa Lady | 103 ft West Bay | $700k No reserve |
| Koukles | 98 ft Azimut | €750k |
| Well Done | 84 ft Burger | $900k |
| Jusmad | 80 ft Ocean Alexander | $600k |
| Indigo | 70 ft Johnson | $1.9m |
| Tales N Ales | 42 ft Buddy Davis | $300k |
Sources: All At Sea; BOAT International (sponsored listing); Soundings. Opening figures are expected opening bids or published starting bids. Boathouse has not published hammer prices for its 2026 sales.
The expected opening bid is less than a third of her last asking price and about a fifth of the appraisal. With no reserve, the highest bid wins whatever it is. Vonk, in Boathouse's own promotional material, calls an auction "the market mechanism of choice" for a purchase or a sale. The case is speed: a boat that did not sell at $16 million through a listing gets a result within a fixed window.
Eight yachts, one week
Scintilla Maris is the largest of eight yachts in Boathouse's November sale, which All At Sea reports runs online from 4 to 12 November. The others range from a 114 foot Hargrave, where bidding opens at $1.6 million, to a 42 foot Buddy Davis sportfisher at $300,000. At least two, the explorer and a 103 foot West Bay, carry no reserve, and three of the eight are on display at the show.
Boathouse's track record is short. Sponsored material in BOAT International says it has sold six yachts at auction in 2026. HMY Yacht Sales reports that one of them, the 39.6 metre Westport Elysian, sold without reserve on 25 June to the highest online bidder. No hammer price for that sale or any other has been published, and Boathouse's buyer's fee is not stated in the listings reviewed for this article. At the major art salerooms, premium and tax add about 35 percent to a London hammer price, as AVNET's breakdown of auction fees shows, so it is the first number a bidder should ask for.
Why this size, and why now
Scintilla Maris sits in a bracket that has held up. Northrop and Johnson's Q2 2026 Superyacht Market Report counted 45 sales of yachts between 131 and 164 feet in the year to date, ahead of the same point in 2025, 2024 and 2023, while total units sold fell. AVNET covered the report in its review of the first half of 2026.
That makes the November result worth watching. A strong bid would show an unusual explorer can clear quickly when the room sets the price. A weak one would show how far conversions can sit from their appraisals. Either way, the hammer price is the figure that will matter, and until the sale closes on 5 November there is no published number to stand in for it.