Enjoying life on the ocean wave

Ken Freivokh, owner of Ken Freivokh Design, says Chinese customers always want the best in quality and design. Xie Songxin / China Daily

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Al-Barwani's optimism about the Chinese market is shared by Burak Akgul, managing director of sales, marketing and design at Perini Navi, an Italian manufacturer.

Perini Navi set up a sales office in Hainan last year, managed by Enrico Zanella, an Italian who has lived in China since 1999 and who has become established in the country's yachting industry.

"For us, finding the right person to work with was important," Akgul says. "Enrico has worked hard with some contacts that he already had."

Companies such as Oceanco and Perini Navi are still finding their feet in China, but the potential is immense. Figures cited by the yacht charter company YPI Asia in 2011 showed there are about 1,300 private yachts in China.

This compares with 17 million privately owned recreational boats in the US, the world's biggest yacht market, industry publication International Boating Industry says.

Chinese companies that recognize the potential have started buying Western yacht companies or set up joint ventures. Last year the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group bought the UK's Sunseeker International for 320 million pounds ($525 million).

In 2012, the construction and agriculture machinery giant Shandong Heavy Industry Group bought a controlling stake in the Italian luxury yachtmaker Ferretti SpA in a deal worth $500 million.

Despite the potential size of the Chinese yacht market, the country still lacks sufficient marine infrastructure to support the industry, including marinas that host yachts, experienced yacht crews and luxury harbors that sailors could enjoy.

The most popular marinas in China are in Qingdao, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Hainan, but sailing between them would take one to two days each.

Those distances are a deterrent to sailors, so Chinese people are not exposed to the idea of being able to see many places within a short cruising time, says Peter Lurssen, chief executive of the German yacht maker Lurssen.

"It's not the concept in the Mediterranean when you go with your boat to Nice and cruise casually over to Cannes for half an hour, then you go swimming. In the evening you go to San Tropez, which takes another two hours. The next day you go shopping in Monaco, which takes three hours."

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