Zen and Koru are two of the flashiest superyachts docked right now, but it’s just the start of the season and New Zealand can expect more to come
The superyachts making waves in our boatbuilding industry
If you’ve taken a walk by Auckland’s Silo Wharf lately or driven over the Harbour Bridge, you’d be hard pressed to miss the two massive superyachts docked.
One is the motor yacht Zen, more than 88 metres long, and the other, one of the biggest sailing yachts in the world, the Jeff Bezos-owned Koru.
Combined, they’re worth more than NZ$1 billion.
Normally you’d expect a company dealing with extraordinary clients and their magnificent yachts to boast about it … even just a little.
But Orams Marine is giving nothing away.
Its chief operating officer, Richard Low, won’t say a word about what work it’s doing – if any – on which boats.
But he does say that New Zealand is well regarded internationally when it comes to the work we can provide.
“Once upon a time, I was a captain on these things as well … you get talking about the places that you travel around the world, and you talk about who does a good job.
“So, New Zealand generally punches above its weight in that regard,” he tells The Detail.
Orams Marine chief operating officer Richard Low in his office on Auckland’s waterfront
The Detail / Alexia Russell
From public land outside the company’s gates, there’s a clear view of another superyacht, Sarissa, standing at nearly 60 metres long in the Orams yard.
The yacht is widely reported to belong to media mogul Lachlan Murdoch.
So why do these superyachts travel all the way down to the bottom of the world?
“First and foremost, they come here for the refit and maintenance facilities that we offer down in this neck of the Pacific,” says executive director of the New Zealand Marine Association, Callum Gillespie. “The services that we have to offer here are as good as anywhere in the world.
“When you combine that with the fact that it’s easy to get on well with businesses like Orams and others, that we are a safe harbour, literally and figuratively, that we’re good to do business with, and then you throw into the mix our hospitality and our environment and the Hauraki Gulf and all that New Zealand has to offer, it’s just a great option for yacht owners.”
With the cost-of-living and the post-Covid wave, Gillespie says there are “very mixed views” when it comes to the state of the industry.
Both Cayman Islands flagged, the luxury yachts Zen (foreground) and Jeff Bezos-owned Koru are both docked at the Silo Wharf in Auckland
The Detail / Alexia Russell
“We’re doing well at the top end of town, if you like. One of the cool things about yachts, the like of which you’re seeing at the moment (Koru and Zen), is they need smaller boats as well to get people backwards and forwards.
“So we often pick up work from that as well. More broadly, the marine industry is challenged, like many other parts of the Kiwi economy at the moment.”
Low says that because Kiwi workers are seen as some of “the best in the world”, they do get poached to go overseas but emphasise that home is where the heart is.
“Kiwis naturally travel – we all go off on our OEs and do that sort of thing, but also most Kiwis come home in the end.
“We’re uniquely positioned down here, and when you do travel around the world a lot, you do realise how special it is here at home.”
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