I went to the Goodwood Festival of Speed expecting to be impressed by the cars. I came away thinking about superyachts.
That might sound an unlikely connection. One world revolves around Formula 1 cars, historic racing machinery, rare Ferraris and extraordinary road cars; the other around yachts, shipyards, designers, brokers, owners, captains and the lawyers who help bring complex projects and transactions together.
But spend a day at Goodwood and the parallels become difficult to ignore.
Both worlds involve exceptional engineering, design, heritage, considerable investment and highly knowledgeable clients. Both attract collectors and owners for whom the product itself is only part of the attraction. And both depend heavily on relationships, reputation and experience.
What struck me most, however, was not the similarity. It was one important difference.
Goodwood manages to make an extraordinary, expensive and highly exclusive world feel remarkably accessible. For anyone involved in the superyacht industry, I think there is something worth considering in that.
More Than 200,000 Visitors, Yet It Still Feels Personal.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed attracts more than 200,000 visitors over its four days. That is an extraordinary number for an event bringing together Formula 1 cars, prototypes, historic competition cars, supercars, luxury manufacturers, racing drivers and some of the most valuable collector cars in the world.
Yet the remarkable thing is that the event rarely feels remote. Visitors can get surprisingly close to the machinery.
Cars are not simply positioned on stands. They are started, driven and demonstrated. Engineers, designers, drivers, owners and enthusiasts mix within the same environment. There is noise, movement and theatre everywhere.
At one point I found myself sitting in a 1996 Williams Formula 1 car from the era in which Damon Hill won the Formula 1 World Championship and later meeting Damon himself.
For somebody whose professional world is usually measured in metres rather than lap times, it was quite a moment.
But it also made me think. The car was historically significant, technically extraordinary and enormously valuable. Yet the experience around it encouraged curiosity rather than creating distance.
That distinction matters.
Luxury Without the Velvet Rope
Goodwood is certainly not an egalitarian world in the conventional sense.
Among those attending are serious collectors whose garages contain cars worth millions of pounds, alongside owners and buyers of Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, McLaren, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and many of the world’s most important historic marques.
There is also an obvious crossover with the audience found at events such as Salon Privé: successful entrepreneurs, investors, collectors, family offices and individuals with the means and inclination to acquire exceptional objects.
Many would be entirely familiar faces within the superyacht world. Some already own yachts. Others may be precisely the sort of individuals who become future yacht owners.
That is why the contrast with the traditional yacht-show environment is particularly interesting. Goodwood unquestionably understands exclusivity.
There is excellent hospitality. There are private areas, manufacturer lounges and opportunities designed specifically for important clients.
But exclusivity does not dominate the entire experience. The event manages to create different levels of access without making the wider audience feel that the interesting part of the event is happening somewhere they cannot go.
That is a clever distinction. And it made me wonder whether the superyacht industry could sometimes do the same more effectively.
Do Yacht Shows Sometimes Keep People Too Far Away?
Anyone who regularly attends the major international yacht shows understands why access must be controlled.
A superyacht is not a motor show exhibit. It may be somebody’s private yacht. Security matters. Crew need to operate safely. Brokers have a responsibility to owners, and serious buyers understandably receive priority.
There are also practical and legal considerations that simply do not exist in the same form at a motoring event. So this is not an argument for throwing open every passerelle, but I do think there is a broader question worth asking:
Are we always as good as we could be at allowing people to become emotionally involved with the superyacht world?
At some yacht shows, particularly for newcomers, the industry can still feel slightly impenetrable. The yachts are magnificent, but access may require appointments and introductions.
The terminology is unfamiliar. There are unwritten rules and established relationships.
For an experienced owner or adviser, these things are perfectly normal. For somebody encountering the industry for the first time, they can reinforce the impression that yachting is a world one either already belongs to, or observes from outside.
Goodwood somehow avoids much of that feeling.
The Wealthy Collector Is Not Necessarily Looking to Buy Today
This point may be particularly relevant commercially.
At an event such as Goodwood, nobody assumes that every person examining a £2 million collector car intends to buy one that afternoon.
A collector might be there because of a lifelong interest in Formula 1. Another may own several historic Porsches but currently be looking for a Ferrari. Someone else may simply have reached a stage in life where a longstanding interest is turning into serious collecting.
Luxury purchasing rarely follows a neat sales funnel. The same is true in yachting.
The person walking through a yacht show today without a broker appointment may in five years’ time be commissioning a 50-metre yacht.
A successful technology entrepreneur may currently collect cars, but later discover sailing. A family may charter for several years before buying.
An owner of a 25-metre yacht may eventually build something substantially larger. Relationships often begin long before a transaction.
Goodwood appears particularly good at allowing those relationships with brands, products and people to begin naturally.
The superyacht industry has an opportunity to do the same.
Don’t Just Display the Product, Bring the World Around It to Life
There is another fundamental difference. At Goodwood, the cars move.
They make noise. They are driven by people whose stories visitors know.
Historic racing cars are not treated simply as museum pieces; they become part of a living story. That creates emotion.
Superyachts obviously cannot race past the Monaco Yacht Show every few minutes, but there are other ways to create the same sense of participation.
Imagine more opportunities for visitors to hear directly from captains, naval architects, designers, engineers and crew.
More discussion of how a yacht actually comes into existence.
More explanation of propulsion systems, sustainability, refit projects or the craftsmanship behind an interior.
More stories from owners and professionals about what life around yachts is actually like.
The fascinating part of our industry is not simply the finished yacht. It is the extraordinary network of people and expertise required to create, operate, buy, sell and maintain one.
Those stories deserve greater visibility.
Clarity Can Actually Make Luxury Feel More Accessible
Perhaps inevitably, my lawyer’s brain also noticed something else at Goodwood. There are boundaries everywhere.
Certain areas require credentials. Safety procedures are obvious. Visitors know where they can go, where they should stand and when something potentially fast and noisy is about to happen.
Yet those boundaries rarely make the event feel hostile. In fact, clarity often creates confidence.
There may be a lesson there for yachting too.
For somebody attending their first major superyacht show, even straightforward explanations can make an enormous difference.
How do yacht viewings work?
Who should make an appointment? What does a yacht broker actually do?
What is the difference between buying an existing yacht and commissioning a new build? When does a lawyer become involved?
What does chartering involve? What happens during a yacht sale?
To those of us who work within the sector these questions are elementary.
To somebody approaching the superyacht industry for the first time, they are not. Making the industry easier to understand does not diminish its exclusivity.
It makes it more approachable.
Supercar Collectors and Superyacht Owners Are Not Separate Worlds
Perhaps the biggest thing I took away from Goodwood was how artificial some of our industry boundaries can be.
We talk about the automotive world, the art world, private aviation and superyachts as though they involve entirely separate groups of people.
Increasingly, they do not.
A passionate car collector may also collect contemporary art. A yacht owner may have an aircraft. A family office may advise on all three.
An entrepreneur may spend one weekend at Goodwood, another at Monaco Yacht Show and another at Art Basel.
What connects these people is not simply wealth. It is an interest in craftsmanship, performance, design, technology and exceptional experiences.
That makes events such as Goodwood interesting to those of us working in superyachts. We are often speaking to the same people just in a different environment.
And perhaps there is something particularly valuable about meeting future clients when nobody is actively trying to sell them a yacht.
The Superyacht Industry Is Ultimately About People
Events inevitably focus on objects.
At Goodwood those objects happen to include some of the most important racing cars and collector cars ever built. At yacht shows they include some of the world’s most sophisticated private yachts.
But the real value often sits between the exhibits.
It is in conversations. Introductions. Shared interests. Unexpected meetings.
Relationships that may not result in anything commercially significant for several years, if ever.
As a superyacht lawyer, I see repeatedly how important trust and relationships are within this industry.
A yacht acquisition, sale, new-build contract or major refit is rarely just a transaction.
There are substantial financial and legal considerations, but there are also owners, families, captains, brokers, designers, shipyards and advisers who may work together for years.
Goodwood understands the value of creating an environment in which relationships develop naturally. That may be its most transferable lesson of all.
What Could Boat Shows Learn from Goodwood?
I did not leave Goodwood wanting to swap superyachts for Formula 1 cars.
Although sitting in a Williams F1 car and meeting Damon Hill certainly made a persuasive case for motorsport.
What I did leave with was a renewed appreciation for what happens when an event makes an extraordinary world feel accessible without making it ordinary.
Goodwood remains prestigious. The cars remain rare. The collectors remain serious. The hospitality remains exceptional.
But curiosity is encouraged rather than discouraged.
For the superyacht industry, perhaps that is the opportunity. Not to make yachting less exclusive.
But to make the route into our world a little more open, a little more understandable and a little more human.
Because the person fascinated by a yacht today may become a charter client tomorrow, an owner in five years’ time or the person commissioning an extraordinary new yacht a decade from now.
Sometimes the first step is simply being allowed close enough to become inspired
Hannah is a superyacht and marine lawyer, owner and founder of Yachting Lawyers, advising clients on all aspects of yacht ownership, operation, sale and purchase, new-build projects, registrations / flagging, and refit agreements within the global yachting industry. Contact Yachting Lawyers here.