Congratulations are due this week to Ocean Independence’s Palma office, where sales broker Marc Haendle has signed four new Central Agency agreements for new construction projects with two shipyards. The results of many months of negotiation, these deals are a testimony to Marc’s visionary approach to yacht sales.
Having found that he was continuing to receive many enquiries for the 27m Bugari that he sold in 2006, Marc turned his attention to potential shipyards that could produce similar vessels, with attractive prices and lead times, in order to fulfil this demand.
His enquiries brought him in contact with two up and coming shipyards; one based in Germany and the other in Slovakia. Lübeck Yachts, the German shipyard, was extremely keen to work with Marc on the development of salesworthy vessels and put him directly in contact with their responsible yacht designer, Grischa Schmidt, formerly also working for Kaiser Werft. Swiss born Grischa counts 40.5m Catwalk amongst his successful projects and is now based in London with his own company, Cayros Yacht Design.
With Marc’s invaluable input, Grischa was able to design layouts for maximum cruising comfort and optimum crew work flow, making these vessels perfect for charter and all-round guest enjoyment. Resulting from Marc and Grischa’s collaboration are two new projects, the 29m full displacement motor yacht, LY29c and a faster version, the 30m planing hull, LY30s. These magnificent semi-custom vessels are all MCA compliant and can be built to German Lloyds or RINA classification with an amazingly short lead time of 18 months.
Meanwhile Marc’s collaboration with the Platinum SuperYachts Shipyard in Slovakia, known for their quality builds such as the 31m Romantica, has resulted in signing the CA for their two very stylish offerings; the 37.5m Countach Project and the 39m Senator Project, both also with highly desirable lead times of 18 months.
With design by Ken Frievokh, the Countach Project features incredibly sleek lines and all the luxuries of a modern superyacht, as does the Senator project, created by well known German designer Joachim Kinder. Thanks to an investor, work is already scheduled to commence next month on the first yacht, meaning a potential buyer will have a very attractive head start on his delivery date.