Media, Social Media and PR in the Superyacht Industry
Date: 30th April 2025
Location: Port Centre, Palma
Event: Media, Social Media, and PR Panel Discussion
Participants
Moderator:
- James van Bregt – ESTELA
Panellists:
- Martin H. Redmayne – The Superyacht Group
- Alex Siegars – ‘Yachties: Name, Shame and Fame’ Facebook Group
- Sara Intonti – Content Angels
- Jana Thomas – Positive Waves Media
- Rhea Rouw – Yachting International Radio
Executive Summary
This panel discussion examined the intersection of social media, public relations, and reputation management in the superyacht industry. The conversation highlighted numerous PR missteps, the challenges of crisis communication, and the industry’s struggle to modernise its approach to digital media while maintaining client privacy and industry reputation.
Listen to the panel session here: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-zqbr8-18f03db
Key Themes:
- Crisis management failures and lessons learned
- The disconnect between traditional yachting media and mainstream journalism
- Social media strategy and content quality concerns
- Crew welfare and transparency issues
- Industry fragmentation and lack of coordinated PR response
- The need for media training across all industry levels
Opening Presentation: “Yachts Behaving Badly”
James van Bregt (Moderator)
Today we’re examining events that occur in the daily yachting world. To set the scene, I’ve titled this session “Yachts Behaving Badly” – a twist on the 90s sitcom “Men Behaving Badly.” Here are examples of things I personally think you should not be doing in any industry, but particularly in yachting.
Case Study 1: The Bezos Bridge Incident (Koru)
The Situation: Oceanco built the beautiful 127-metre triple-mast sailing yacht, Koru, for Jeff Bezos. The problem was that it couldn’t exit the shipyard to open sea without passing through a historic bridge in Rotterdam, with a max clearance of 70m, as Koru’s mainmast is thought to be up to 85m tall.
The Initial Plan: Dismantle the historic bridge, allow the yacht to pass through, then reassemble it. Local reaction was so negative that there was a social media campaign to throw rotten eggs at the boat.
The Resolution: They found an alternative solution – the masts were stepped further down the route to sea.
The Lesson: There was a solution available to avoid this PR error, but they chose possibly the cheapest or most efficient way initially. This was not optimal for either Oceanco’s brand or for an owner trying to maintain a low profile – particularly challenging when you’re in the top five of the world’s wealthiest people.
Case Study 2: David Geffen’s COVID Post (Rising Sun)
The Situation: During COVID lockdowns, when everyone was isolating in small apartments and following restrictions, David Geffen posted on Instagram: “Sunset last night, isolated in the Grenadines, avoiding the virus. I’m hoping everybody is staying safe.”
The Outcome: Complete own goal. He was hounded off Instagram within 24 hours, but it was too late. The story was even reported by Bloomberg, MarketWatch – proper journalism outlets, not tabloids.
The Analysis: This highlights the intersection between cottage industry yachting journalism and professional mainstream journalism. Yachting press isn’t generally serious because most write about superyachts, construction, and charters – they get invited to events. If you’re critical of the people you’re covering, you lose access. Unlike luxury cars where you can rent or borrow for reviews, superyachts don’t work that way.
Case Study 3: The Tango/Fanta Renaming Incident
The Situation: During Russian sanctions, the yacht Tango (managed by Master Yachts) was renamed to “Fanta” in their systems – both orange-flavoured drinks. While no wrongdoing was ultimately proven and Mr. Masters was cleared in New York, this appeared covert.
The Impact: By doing this, they made themselves tabloid fodder. The boat will forever be known as “that Tango/Fanta boat” with negative connotations for the management business.
Case Study 4: The Bayesian Response Disaster
The Situation: The tragic sinking of Bayesian, where we still don’t know the cause as the salvage process is underway (at time this session took place).
The PR Disaster: Within hours of the incident, Giovanni Costantini, CEO of Italian Sea Group, decided the boat couldn’t be at fault – it must be the crew. He told anyone who would listen this theory.
The Escalation:
- Sued the New York Times over their analysis
- Orders were cancelled
- Threatened to sue the family of the deceased for causing order cancellations
The Assessment: Just idiotic, in my personal opinion. This is not ESTELA talking – this is my personal view – but aside from any analysis being highly premature, lashing out at media, and even at clients, is unlikely to be conducive to business.
Case Study 5: Loon’s High-Profile Social Media Presence
The Context: Loon made itself famous through aggressive social media presence – high-profile chef, deck hands jumping off boats, general fun content.
The Problem: When accidents happen (which could happen to any boat), high-profile boats make more news. Everyone in the tabloid industry knew this yacht because of their carefully fostered high profile to promote themselves in the charter market.
The Reality: The flip side of high visibility – everyone knows you, so you become tabloid fodder when things go wrong.
Case Study 6: The YouTube Journalist vs. Damen Yachts
Background: An ex-crew member runs a YouTube channel with 300,000 subscribers and over 300 million views. He’s become a real journalist doing investigations and breaking news, aided by his network from working on large, high-profile yachts.
The Incident: During Russian sanctions, a Damen Yachts project disappeared from their website, replaced by another project with a different name but remarkably similar design. He asked questions and received legal threats about confidentiality.
The Monaco Yacht Show Confrontation: He visited Damen’s stand at Monaco, filming to promote their excellent coffee. Instead of welcoming him, the PR manager conspired to throw him off the stand while cameras rolled.
The Result: The video of this confrontation has had 250,000 views – disastrous PR for Damen that was totally unnecessary.
What Should Have Happened: Invite him in, embrace him, offer coffee, acknowledge you can’t discuss certain projects, but suggest future collaboration like sea trials or filming at the shipyard or on board. Kill him with kindness.
Case Study 7: Inappropriate Social Media Content
The Issue: A recruitment website posted a picture of crew having fun, but chose an image that included visible inappropriate tattoos without editing or selecting alternative photos.
The Question: If you’re trying to be a professional platform, is this professional? Would you agree this reflects poorly on the recruiter and even the industry as a career?
Case Study 8: Dangerous Activity Promotion
The Concern: Some yachts promote dangerous activities like “tombstoning” (jumping from heights).
Personal Experience: I took a charter guest to hospital who jumped off a boat, cracked two ribs, lost a day of holiday to medical tests and was told to rest a week. Despite this, she couldn’t wait to do it again.
The Issue: While some people will do dangerous things, they mustn’t be encouraged. What message are we trying to send when yachts or crew post this content?
Panel Discussion
Industry Training and Media Preparedness
Martin Redmayne: The key issue is that there’s very little media training in our industry. This is a common problem across every layer of our sector. People say things on social media or to traditional media and then regret it because they haven’t thought it through.
We talked about emotion at yesterday’s conference. There’s a lot of emotion in our sector. It’s worth pausing, breathing, and speaking in that order rather than just blurting things out. The damage becomes overnight, probably quicker with the speed of media transfer now being instant.
Luckily, our industry forgets very quickly, apart from things like Costantini with the Bayesian. However, as soon as Bayesian is salvaged, it becomes clickbait again. Everyone tries to drive as much attention as possible, but a mass audience is not our most valuable audience – a quality audience is what we need to focus on.
Industry Size Reality: There are 6,500 superyachts owned by about 4,500 owners. Add other layers – maybe 10 valuable people per owner – our industry is less than 75,000 people. We have to be careful when trying to reach a YouTuber’s 248,000 viewers – how many are really important to that number? It’s just noise, but is the noise going to damage Damen? It hasn’t seemed to – they’re doing brilliantly well. It’s just noise, but I’m focused on quality, not quantity.
Crisis Management Example: Peter Lürssen, when Russian sanctions hit, said nothing initially. He then went to one of the top PR companies in the world – Freud Communications in London – and said, “You need to help us understand our approach, our language, and our message.” That’s the smartest approach you can ever take. Think before you speak. The pause is so valuable.
Shifting Industry Focus
Sara Intonti: I agree with Martin’s position generally, but I want to be more provocative. From my communication expert perspective, we need to do something different in social media.
Looking at these various news stories – some are serious accidents, others border on gossip – I think we need what I call the “Kansas City Shuffle” strategic approach: when everybody looks right, you go left.
Currently, there’s strong focus on owners in the yachting industry. Maybe we need to switch focus from owners to the industry itself. This means focusing on innovation, progress, and sustainability, building trust and credibility using social media platforms and communication tools appropriately.
The owners are just a few people who attract media attention for gossip rather than what the yachting industry truly represents.
Changing the Narrative
Jana Thomas: The superyacht industry has been seen through a very narrow lens until now – opulence, luxury, and exclusivity, which is undoubtedly the case. But we need to change the narrative slightly by focusing on the positive impact the industry has on local communities, innovation, sustainability, exploration, ocean protection, and charity work.
There are plenty of companies directly involved with worthy projects that deserve more visibility. This is how we improve the industry’s image – by seeing it from a more altruistic angle focused on the greater good.
James van Bregt: The issue is industry fragmentation. There’s no equivalent of motorsport’s FIA or CAA – no overriding body. Crisis PR management should happen at the SYBASS level, connected to refit, crewing, and all industry aspects. Everyone’s doing their own thing, chasing tomorrow’s dollars rather than thinking about the overall picture. This fragmented approach leads to the chaos we sometimes see.
Industry Reality Check
Rhea Rouw: Frankly, the superyacht industry is pretty much a pissing contest between companies trying to outdo one another. It’s the same template over and over – open one magazine, then another, and it’s a carbon copy with things moved around.
I think we need to focus on what the industry does for the masses. We’re talking about 0.001% of the population. Many people are starving, sinking into poverty, can’t feed their kids or put roofs over their heads – and we’re talking Western countries.
When they see the excess and arrogance this industry pushes, and then accidents with cover-ups, they’re going to jump on that. For years they’ve been told these people are so much better than everyone else, that we’re literally bugs who don’t matter.
Going forward, the superyacht industry needs to highlight amazing things: technology, environment, better fuel, AI technologies. There’s a lot going on, but we’re still pushing the narrative of “mine is bigger than yours” from 10 years ago. That needs to change.
Crew Perspective and Industry Disconnect
Alex Siegars: Currently working on a boat, I deal with crew daily. Running the Facebook platform, I see that with all these big services across yachting, crew get forgotten.
My platform wouldn’t exist or be influential if infrastructural services for crew were in place. In the past, incidents of crew mistreatment, captain abuse, and harassment were swept under the rug to conform to the industry narrative.
I wouldn’t be on this stage if this wasn’t an actual problem. I hear daily about crew sexual assault, non-payment, injuries. There needs to be a system in place. It’s fragmented services where everyone tries to one-up each other, forgetting the entire base of workers.
I have 40,000 members because this is an important conversation. There’s no bridge connecting crew with people who manage businesses and reach owners.
The Reality: The group is the antithesis of Below Deck. It has drama occasionally and fun, encouraging community involvement, but real issues need discussion. I see daily complaints about crew problems, but there’s no connection between people working on yachts and those running companies up to owners.
Media Training Needs
Audience Question (Rebecca from Antibes Yachting): Media training in the industry is a huge gap. When we have sinkings or yacht fires, journalists outside the industry come looking for comments. From my experience, media will say they’re doing documentaries about “superyachts of the rich and famous” – they don’t want shipyards or technical managers, they want juicy gossip.
How do you balance this with external media? They don’t approach experts with industry knowledge. Where can business owners get media training? Does it exist?
Martin Redmayne’s Response: There’s limited media training in yachting currently, but it’s improving. More media people and PR companies are helping companies communicate clearer and smarter.
When wider media enters yachting, they’re looking for clickable stories, not proper, accurate, or real stories. We get called constantly for information, but unless it’s a decent media channel worth guiding, we just say “no comment” to tabloids.
Key Advice:
- If anyone calls from media outside yachting, say “we’ll call you back”
- Ask what they need and want
- Step back, think, talk with management
- Plan a well-thought response rather than reacting or panicking
- Nominate one person in your organisation for media conversations
- Media training for them may be worthwhile
- Never speak immediately on the phone to them
Content Quality and Platform Strategy
Sara Intonti: Quality in social media is complex – it means authenticity, creating real impact with your target destination, and impactful content that moves your audience. The traditional advertising heritage doesn’t exist anymore.
Coherence with your target, impact, trust, and credibility are the three main ingredients for content delivery.
Regarding TikTok – many here might not agree it’s significant, but if our goal is growing the new yachting generation properly, we must engage on that platform. TikTok is to Gen Z what TV was to Gen X – it’s their television, where all information moves and community engagement happens.
James van Bregt: All marketing budget seems to be going “digital” now, but what are you producing and why? Is it reaching anyone? How do you measure success?
If you’re investing in Instagram reels, you flick through once, it’s entertaining or not, then you move on. You can’t return to it, probably won’t notice who produced it. It seems a chronic waste of time and money.
Instagram might work for handbags or lipstick with influencers, but does it work for promoting careers in yachting – technical, construction, refit, or crewing? What good is it doing, or is it actually harmful?
Podcast Evolution and Challenges
Rhea Rouw: Podcasts are one of the fastest-growing media forms. People find them easier in our busy world – on watch, during morning runs, while travelling.
When I started Yachting International Radio in 2018, there weren’t many yachting podcasts. My broadcast background was radio for 35 years. I quickly realised video killed the radio star, so I needed to rethink and transition to social media and podcast format.
Podcasts are appearing now, but people don’t realise they’re hard work. If you start independently on social media, you might get 1,000 listens in the first year or two if you’re lucky.
The YIR Model: We now host 14 podcasts including The Blue Economy (Maritime Research Hub), Maritime Legal, Yachting Middle East, USA, Canada, and Europe. The joy is bringing people with niche audiences under one yachting umbrella. When new podcasts start, they have built-in audiences and staying power.
If you come in nowadays with social media noise, trying to do it alone, you’ll spend a long time. It took me seven years to build YIR, not just through my work but through everyone who believed in it.
Reality Check: Podcasts are the future, but before starting your own, take a realistic view of what it takes. It won’t be easy, overnight, or make you a social media influencer in six months. It’s not 2014 anymore. Collaboration is key.
Industry Authenticity and Responsibility
Rhea Rouw: If you’re jumping on any cause whatsoever, make sure you damn well walk the walk. I see this industry repeatedly jumping on hashtags of the moment, or [meaningless] initiatives like “Women in Yachting” lunches at every yacht show.
When I started YIR, I mandated that no voice would discuss important topics like mental health, diversity, or equality on my platforms unless qualified to do so. That’s how I was raised in journalism – when you listened to radio, watched TV, or read newspapers, facts were there, not left or right bias.
We have licensed counsellors discussing mental health – people with actual knowledge who can provide qualified care instead of influencers who like the cause of the day.
Crew Safety and Industry Issues
Industry Reality (Rhea Rouw): If my three children asked about entering yachting, I’d say “F no, stay as far away as possible” because nobody reports actual crimes that happen on board.
When 18-year-olds enter this industry and captains or owners threaten them with NDAs, they don’t understand that criminal acts are criminal acts – no NDA hides that. We have a hierarchy where many captains are laws unto themselves.
Personal Experience: My son left yachting quickly after experiencing perpetually drunk captains and tried smaller boats thinking it might be different – it was worse. Misogyny, racism, and bullying were rife on a very nice Monaco-based motor yacht.
We have an inherent problem that Lloyd’s Register is examining closely – we’re not attracting the right people, and they’re getting away with behaviour too easily.
Alex Siegars: The issue isn’t not attracting right people – it’s that people were allowed to get away with small infractions, then bigger ones, until it became huge. Leadership comes from the top down, so those entering the industry learn from leaders who’ve been allowed to get away with anything.
There’s an issue with captain qualifications – they’re highly qualified drivers with zero leadership training or necessarily good personal qualities.
Personal Branding and Industry Impact
Audience Question (Rebecca): We’re seeing crew becoming personal brands, creating content themselves, promoting charter yachts, and helping crew career changes. Is this impacting your group activities?
Alex Siegars: It doesn’t really affect us – we focus on resources for crew and bettering crew lives and careers. But I see influencers selling a yachting lifestyle to people with dreams who enter without understanding what it entails – 18-hour days for months in stressful environments where you could lose your life.
People make personal brands for dropshipping or affiliate marketing, but we need conversations about what this does to the industry. I see 18-year-olds with dreams getting sold social media images, then encountering predatory captains or boats they don’t understand.
Moderation Process: To post on our page, you request approval. Administrators review submissions – 80% don’t get posted. We do due diligence because we understand our influence. We take anonymous posting seriously.
Key Industry Challenges Identified
1. Media Training Gap
- Minimal media training across all industry levels
- Emotional reactions leading to regrettable statements
- Need for designated media spokespersons
- Lack of crisis communication protocols
2. Industry Fragmentation
- No central authority like motorsport’s FIA, or CAA
- Everyone pursuing individual interests
- Lack of coordinated industry response
- No unified PR strategy for industry-wide issues
3. Content Quality Concerns
- AI-generated, low-quality content proliferation
- Copy-paste approaches across platforms
- Creating content for content’s sake
- Losing audience engagement through repetitiveness
4. Crew Welfare Issues
- Disconnect between management and working crew
- Inadequate reporting mechanisms for misconduct
- Influence of social media on unrealistic expectations
- Need for better protection and support systems
5. Industry Reputation Management
- Overemphasis on luxury/excess narrative
- Underreporting of positive contributions
- Mainstream media seeking sensational stories
- Difficulty balancing transparency with privacy
Recommendations and Solutions
Immediate Actions
- Implement Media Training: All industry participants should receive basic media training
- Establish Crisis Protocols: “Pause, breathe, speak” approach to media responses
- Quality Over Quantity: Focus on targeted, intelligent content rather than mass reach
- Designate Spokespersons: Nominate trained individuals for media interactions
Strategic Initiatives
- Industry Coordination: Develop unified approach to reputation management
- Positive Narrative Building: Highlight innovation, sustainability, and community impact
- Crew Support Systems: Establish better reporting and support mechanisms
- Content Standards: Develop professional content guidelines across platforms
Long-term Vision
- Shift Focus: From owner-centric to industry-centric communications
- Education Emphasis: Promote industry professionalism and career opportunities
- Transparency Balance: Maintain privacy while demonstrating industry value
- Collaborative Platforms: Support quality journalism and content creation
Conclusion
The superyacht industry faces significant challenges in navigating modern media landscapes while maintaining traditional values of privacy and exclusivity. The panel highlighted the urgent need for professional media training, coordinated industry responses, and a shift toward highlighting positive industry contributions.
Key takeaways include the importance of thinking before speaking, the value of quality over quantity in communications, and the critical need to address crew welfare issues that damage industry reputation. Success will require collaboration, authenticity, and a commitment to professional standards across all industry levels.
The discussion revealed an industry in transition, grappling with social media’s democratising effect on information while striving to maintain professional standards and protect stakeholder interests. Moving forward, the industry must embrace transparency and accountability while showcasing its positive contributions to innovation, sustainability, and economic development.