'Bring me a boat tomorrow': Inside the pandemic yacht boom
Ahead of his 40th birthday this past summer, Eric Dela Cruz decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and buy a yacht. With his budget, he figured it'd take no time at all.
"I thought, 'Hey, if you can afford $1.5 million, or $2 million, it should be like this' " — said the restaurateur, snapping his fingers — " 'Bring me a boat tomorrow.' But no."
Yacht broker Trenton Carroll knows this all too well. Before the pandemic, it was typical for him to have up to $10 million worth of inventory at any given time and it could take six months to make a sale, even after tacking on discounts and other incentives. Now he rarely has anything in stock; the other week, a pre-owned sailboat was snapped up, sight unseen, 12 hours after he listed it.
"The biggest problem we're having is we can't get boats fast enough," said Carroll, who works for Cruising Yachts, a company with several dealerships in California and Washington, and has been in the business for two decades. "I've got boats sold out to 2023 that won't be here for a year and four months, and
