Moonrise's EUR 325m Sale Anchors a Record H1 for Brokerage

How much superyacht brokerage business closed in H1 2026?

The global superyacht brokerage market recorded EUR 4.05 billion across 281 sales of 24-metre-plus yachts in H1 2026, according to Boat International's BOATPro market-intelligence platform - the strongest first half BOATPro has tracked and the fifth straight half-year of growth.

The total splits as 129 transactions in the first quarter and 152 in the second, and it builds directly on a run of already-strong years: H1 2025 produced 272 sales worth EUR 3.61 billion, and H1 2024 produced 225 sales worth EUR 2.21 billion. On BOATPro's own figures, the market has nearly doubled in combined value in two years, and the 2025 full year already closed at EUR 7.5 billion, which BOATPro itself called one of the best-performing years on record. H1 2026 alone is already just over half that full-year total, six months in.

BOATPro is Boat International's in-house market-intelligence arm, tracking more than 13,000 superyachts, and it is the closest thing the brokerage side of the industry has to an audited scoreboard - most individual brokerages report their own deals but rarely the market as a whole. The timing is not incidental either: this release lands a few weeks ahead of the Monaco Yacht Show in September, the point in the calendar when the year's biggest brokerage announcements traditionally cluster, so the second half of 2026 is likely to add to this total rather than merely sustain it.

Which size of yacht is driving the growth in brokerage sales?

Yachts between 50 and 70 metres accounted for the sharpest jump, rising from 17 sales in H1 2025 to 26 in H1 2026 - up 52.9% - while sales of 40-50 metre yachts grew a more modest 10% and 30-40 metre yachts actually fell around 6%.

That is a specific and unusual shape for a market to grow in: the smallest bracket BOATPro tracks (24 metres and up) is not where the extra activity is showing up, and the very largest yachts are not producing extra volume either - the 50-70 metre band is doing the work. A owner or a broker reading this should take it as a demand signal for a particular kind of asset: large enough to carry real crew, range and volume, but still small enough to be resold in meaningful numbers rather than built one-off and held for decades.

BOATPro's public release does not break the 50-70 metre growth down further - by yard, by age of yacht, or by region - so it is not possible from what is published to say whether this is driven by newer tonnage entering the resale market for the first time or older yachts in that bracket finally moving after a slow patch. The average asking value across all brackets rose too, from EUR 9.83 million in H1 2024 to EUR 13.28 million in H1 2025 to EUR 14.4 million in H1 2026, which is consistent with - but does not prove - larger yachts making up a growing share of what actually sells.

What was the largest superyacht sale of H1 2026?

Feadship's 99.95-metre Moonrise sold through Burgess at an asking price of EUR 325 million, completing in under six months and standing as the largest brokerage transaction reported so far in 2026.

Moonrise was delivered by Feadship in 2020, with exterior and naval architecture by De Voogt and interiors by Remi Tessier, on a steel hull with an aluminium superstructure clad largely in glass - a look that reads as more modern office tower than classic motor yacht from a distance. She measures 3,945 GT, sleeps 16 guests across eight cabins with a crew of 32, and is powered by twin MTU 20V 4000 M73L diesels giving a 16-knot cruise, a 19-knot top speed and a 6,000-nautical-mile range - genuinely long-legged for a yacht her size. Onboard amenities run to a beach club, wellness facilities and a helipad, per Boat International's own Superyacht Directory listing.

What makes the sale notable beyond the price is that Moonrise had never been offered for sale before this listing - Boat International's own brokerage-sales desk flagged her as joining the market for the first time since delivery when the listing first appeared. A yacht with no prior public listing carries no price history for either side to anchor a negotiation against, which is part of why the reported figure here is the asking price Burgess put on her, not a disclosed final sale price - as with almost every brokerage transaction, what she actually changed hands for has not been made public.

Does a record brokerage market make this a good time to sell a superyacht?

A record first half signals strong buyer demand and faster-clearing listings, particularly above 50 metres, but it says nothing about any single yacht's own condition, provenance or asking price - the market figure is a tailwind, not a valuation.

The practical read for an owner is narrower than the headline number suggests. More capital is moving through the market and more buyers are active, which tends to mean listings clear faster and sellers have to cut asking prices less often to close - both good conditions to list into. But the rising average asking value, EUR 14.4 million against EUR 9.83 million two years ago, is at least partly a function of more large yachts making up the pool of what sells, not proof that every yacht's ceiling has risen by the same margin. A 35-metre yacht's market and a 60-metre yacht's market are not moving in lockstep just because the combined total looks strong.

The nearer and more concrete catalyst is the calendar: the Monaco Yacht Show in September is where brokers traditionally time their biggest announcements, Moonrise's own sale among them reported in the run-up. An owner deciding whether to list a large yacht this year has a specific, dated reason to move before the show rather than after it, since buyer attention and broker bandwidth both concentrate around it.

What does the H1 2026 brokerage report leave out?

BOATPro's public release stops at aggregate totals and size-bracket counts; the fuller report, sold separately through Boat International's shop, is understood to carry per-yacht pricing detail and finer geographic and buyer breakdowns that are not part of the free release.

That gap matters for how much weight to put on any single figure here. The 50-70 metre growth rate, the average asking value and the quarterly split are all real, sourced numbers - but they are the headline slide, not the full spreadsheet, and BOATPro's own past reports (its full-year 2025 release among them) have been explicit that deeper detail sits behind a subscription or a report purchase.

For a reader trying to decide whether this is a market worth acting in, the honest position is that the public numbers are strong enough to take seriously - a near-doubling in two years is not statistical noise - but specific enough about only one deal, Moonrise, to be checked independently. Everything else in this report is aggregate, and aggregates describe a market, not a yacht.