The Biggest Yacht Ordered This Year Arrives in 2032: What a Large New Build Now Costs in Time

The largest new superyacht contract announced this year will be handed over in May 2032. Lürssen's Project M, a full custom yacht of more than 125 metres and more than 6,000 gross tonnes, was confirmed sold on 21 September 2026, two days before the Monaco Yacht Show opened. The buyer who signed for it in the autumn of 2026 will take delivery roughly five and a half years later.

The price of the boat was not disclosed. The price in time was, and for anyone considering a large new yacht it is now the number that matters most.

The deal and the yard

According to BOAT International and YachtBuyer, the sale was announced jointly by three brokerage houses, Royal Yacht International, Italian Yacht Group and Kitson Yachts, which will represent the buyer and supervise construction through to delivery. The exterior is by Espen Øino and the interior by the British studio RWD. Construction is scheduled to begin at Lürssen's facilities in Bremen.

"On a project of this magnitude, the sale is only the beginning," Kitson Yachts co-founder Brandon Kummer said in the announcement. "The years that follow are where the real work takes place."

Project M is the second 120 metre class Lürssen sale of the summer. In August, Moran Yacht & Ship announced the sale of Project Elusive, a 122.5 metre, 5,500 gross tonne yacht for 22 guests in 11 cabins, with construction already underway and delivery scheduled for 2030. BOAT International reports that Project M joins nine other superyachts in development at the German yard.

What five and a half years actually means

A delivery date six years out is not an outlier in this size class. It is the schedule.

Lürssen had an exceptional 2026. According to Superyachts.com, it delivered six custom yachts totalling 655 metres between March and June, four of them over 100 metres, led by the 134.2 metre Deep Blue.

The build histories behind those deliveries show how long the process runs. The 109 metre explorer O3 was in construction from 2018, according to delivery coverage compiled by Mercer Yachting, and its schedule lengthened further after a change of ownership in 2022 brought a redesign and the addition of a certified helideck. A separate 102.4 metre Lürssen, reported by YachtBuyer as Jassi, was first announced at the 2021 Monaco show and made its public launch in February 2026.

So the realistic arithmetic for a buyer is this. A yacht of 100 metres or more ordered in late 2026 is a 2030 to 2032 yacht, and a change of mind partway through adds years rather than months.

Fewer boats, bigger boats

The wider order book explains why the queue at the top is so long. BOAT International's Global Order Book 2026 counts 1,093 yachts of 24 metres and above on order or in build, down from 1,138 a year earlier and the second consecutive annual fall in unit count. Over the same period, average length rose to 40.8 metres and average volume to 551 gross tonnes, both the highest ever recorded.

At the very top, figures cited by Fraser put the number of yachts over 100 metres under construction at 26, with a combined volume above 160,000 gross tonnes. Germany, home to Lürssen, had only 18 yachts in build in the Global Order Book but 78,651 gross tonnes of them, an average of well over 4,000 tonnes per hull. A small number of very large projects is occupying a small number of sheds for most of a decade.

It is the same concentration AVNET found in Sanlorenzo's half year results, where orders ran ahead of deliveries. Fewer, larger boats each tie up capacity for longer.

The alternative on the quay at Monaco

The Monaco Yacht Show, held from 23 to 26 September, made the other side of the trade visible. Organisers confirmed around 120 yachts, 43 of them 2026 deliveries making their first public appearance. The show's own positioning was that build slots at the leading yards are committed through 2028 and 2029.

"In four days and in a single harbour, you can walk the decks of forty-three yachts delivering this year," said Toby Moore, chief executive of Informa Prestige, which organises the show.

A buyer who does not want to wait until the 2030s has three routes: a smaller new build on a series platform, a speculative hull or resale contract on a project already in build, or the brokerage market.

That market is active and priced accordingly. BoatPro, BOAT International's market intelligence service, recorded EUR 4.05 billion of brokerage sales in the first half of 2026, against EUR 3.61 billion a year earlier, with the average asking price of yachts sold rising to EUR 14.4 million from EUR 13.28 million. Transactions in the 50 to 70 metre band rose from 17 to 26.

At the top of the Monaco brokerage list, YachtBuyer identified the 72 metre Feadship Vanish, built in 2021, at EUR 148 million, and the 59 metre Rossinavi explorer Akula, built in 2024, at EUR 62 million. A yacht that is already in the water is being priced for the years it saves. AVNET's report on the first half brokerage market showed the same effect from another data set: fewer boats, more money per boat.

What a buyer should take from it

For a principal considering a yacht above 100 metres, the first question is no longer which designer or which yard. It is which year, because that decides which yards are realistically available. It also raises the value of the build supervision, which on Project M will run for nearly six years, and of the contract terms covering a change of ownership partway through. O3's history shows how much time that single event can add.

The larger point is simple. At the top of the yacht market, the scarce thing is no longer the money to buy the boat. It is the yard capacity to build it, and that capacity has been sold into the next decade.