Luxury boats have been popular since the  start of the twentieth century and continues to grow in popularity.  With it increases the amount of yacht building companies and charter brokers in all parts of the world.
The definition of Luxury boats
Luxury boats are high priced yachts, with a professional crew, but privately owned. Another term often used for this type of boat would be Super Yacht. This may be either a motor or a sailing yacht.

The History of Luxury ships

The term “Luxury yacht” began to appear at the start of the twentieth century, when wealthy individuals constructed large private cruise ships for their own personal use. Examples of motorized luxury ships like these are the famous Cox & King ships, while early luxury sailing ships include American Cup Classic racers like; the Endeavour and Shamrock owned by Sir Thomas Lipton. Many sailing yachts events were organized by The New York Yacht Club. Those events were typically held at places like Newport and Rhode Island in the period that is referred to as the Golden Age.

Luxury Yachts Today

Over the last two decades the amount of large personal luxury boats has increased both; in number and in popularity. Though these types of luxurious cruise ships do not have home ports, they have to be registered in a port of the country who’s flag they fly. It is quite common for those yachts, never to have been at their “home port”, and most likely never will. Their numbers are plenty in the Mediterranean area and also in the Caribbean seas. During winter they frequent de Caribbean and the Mediterranean during the summer season. These boats would base in a port of choice, while the crew performs maintenance on the ship, while waiting for the owners and guests to arrive for a cruise. These luxury Yachts would do short cruises with the owners and guests aboard. These cruises going back and forth between the Mediterranean  and the Caribbean seas are said to be doing what is referred to as “The Milk Run”. Typical destinations during  those short cruises are: Cannes, St Tropez and Monte Carlo. Recently, it has become increasingly popular for large luxury boats to visit more remote areas like the Windward Islands .

With the increase in Luxury Yachts there has also been an increase in charter brokers and companies building the luxury ships. Luxury yacht building companies are typically based in the United States and Western Europe, but the manufacturing of Luxury ships is also on the rise in more remote areas like Australia, Asia and even Eastern Europe. Western European manufacturers like Ferretti and Lürssen currently dominate the high end of the luxury yacht building market.