Crime is down, business is booming, and the rental market is out of control. But if you need another sign that San Francisco is so back, just look to the piers. The superyachts have returned.
In recent months, residents have reported spotting more of the 100-plus-foot behemoths docking at Pier 17, near the Exploratorium. Just last month, an eagle-eyed Telegraph Hill resident spotted the Majestic, a 201-foot, seven-cabin superyacht that was docked at the pier for several days. (The yacht has been tied to Miami Marlins owner Bruce Sherman, but he reportedly denies ownership, so exactly who was aboard is unclear. Sherman did not respond to a request for comment.)
To confirm the influx, we placed a call to Baydelta Maritime, a tugboat company operating out of Pier 17 — one of the only docks in the city long and deep enough to fit a superyacht. A representative for the company said that beginning in 2020, their superyacht business dried up. “We’ve had them on the schedule, but they for whatever reason canceled,” he said.
That all changed this year, however, when the superyachts returned. So far, the company has already tied up five — and they anticipate more this fall.
“This is the first year it’s been picking up since Covid,” the representative said. “We don’t understand why; it's strange.”
A spokesperson for the Port of San Francisco said it does not keep records of how many superyachts come through the area but confirmed that when large pleasurecraft are seeking moorage in the city, they are directed to Baydelta Maritime.
Other boats spotted at Pier 17 this year include the Archimedes, a 222-foot yacht owned by the estate of the late hedge-fund manager James Simons, according to YachtSuperFan, and the Firebird, a 228-footer available for charter. (Among other features, the Firebird boasts a fully equipped gym, spa treatment room, Jacuzzi, and cold-plunge pool — all for the cool price of $750,000 per week.)
An employee at C2C, a superyacht agency in San Diego, said his company has seen more vessels stop in San Francisco this year than last. The employee, who also asked to remain anonymous, estimated that five or six of the superyachts C2C manages have stopped in SF this year, and two or three more are coming this fall.
The employee added that he’s seen a 35%-40% increase in superyachts cruising the West Coast overall this year. As for the reason, he’s perplexed, too.
“Economy’s better, rich people have more money?” he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He might be onto something. The wealthiest Americans are getting richer faster, according to the 2024 global inequality report from the nonprofit Oxfam. Especially in San Francisco, where the AI boom is minting billionaires at a record pace, superyachts could be seen as the next item on a one-percenter’s checklist. (After, of course, buying a multimillion-dollar home in Russian Hill or Pacific Heights.)
Craig McGree, a former yacht captain who runs San Francisco SuperYacht Services, says he’s watched Bay Area clients’ wealth explode from millions to billions over the years, making a price tag of up to $100 million seem like a drop in the bucket.
“You’ve got all these guys that have got hundreds of billions — they can easily own a smaller superyacht,” McGree said.
But San Francisco isn’t exactly a destination for superyachters, who typically prefer more resort-laden locales. (There’s a reason Florida is the yacht capital of the U.S.) Boats stopping in SF are generally on their way to Alaska or Canada in the summer or South America in the winter. Because a superyacht can usually make it from Seattle to San Diego without refueling, local boating experts said, a stop in San Francisco usually means inclement weather or a personal connection to the city.
It’s possible that this year’s surge in sightings is due to an explosion in superyachting in general. The big boat industry boomed during Covid, when the uber-wealthy wanted workarounds to flight restrictions and hotel shutdowns. The trade publication YachtWay reports that sales of superyachts are rising again, from 87 in first-quarter 2024 to 125 in the first quarter of this year.
“The volume of superyachts is just increasing,” McGree said, “which means the quieter routes like us out here are just going to get busier.”
The representative from Baydelta Maritime, on the other hand, speculated that news of San Francisco’s economic resurgence could be convincing billionaires to dock here. In the years after Covid, he noted, “they were pretty afraid to come for a while; they literally were canceling all the time.” Now that the city seems to have broken its dreaded “doom loop,” the boats are flooding back.
Not everyone thinks the boats are back because San Francisco is healing. Bill Hughes, the harbormaster at Schoonmaker Point Marina in Sausalito, has a more mundane explanation for the increase in yachts: the weather.
Hughes, whose marina can hold boats up to 170 feet, said San Francisco “got lucky” this year: The weather up north was dicey during the spring, causing the superyachts headed to Alaska or Canada to camp out in the Bay. For a few weeks, he said, all six of his temporary tie-downs were filled with yachts seeking refuge — some of which even offered to go without power in order to secure a berth.
When the weather cleared, Hughes said, so did the boat traffic. Still, he isn’t concerned: “They’re all going to come down the coast again in the fall.”