Monaco is home to the world’s most excessive and influential yacht show. It isn’t the largest by visitor numbers or boats on display, but the yachts that moor in Port Hercule tend to be the finest in their class. Over 35 years it has become the place where builders, brokers and buyers come to see what the market has to offer next, which also makes it the best place to read where the industry is heading. Younger owners, longer stays and a new appetite for quiet. These are the yachts that set the trends for 2026.
Longer stays: the superyacht as home from home
Yachts are becoming somewhere to live rather than to visit. ‘The average number of days per year has increased to around 120,’ says Tommaso Vincenzi, Sanlorenzo’s chief executive, on board Sanlorenzo’s new flagship, Silver Fox. Just a few years ago it was half.’ Starlink lets owners run a business from the water, with larger offices being installed. ‘You cannot buy time,’ says Massimo Perotti, Sanlorenzo’s chairman. ‘So how you spend the time is very important.’
Silver Fox by Sanlorenzo
The first 74Steel is the largest yacht Sanlorenzo has built, with Zuccon International Project designing the exterior and structure, and Francesco Paszkowski and Marghjk ljjerita Casprini owning the interior design. The owner’s deck has a full-beam suite, a private terrace and its own large office. On the lower deck, more than 200 sqm of beach club and spa open to the water, alongside a children’s room complete with a Lego wall.
SanlorenzoYacht.com, @SanlorenzoYacht
Pangea by Amels
The first Amels 80 was delivered in October 2025, with an exterior by Espen Øino and interiors by Sinot. She was built for long-range cruising, with an owner’s deck that runs to 517 sq m. At the top, the yacht builder claims the 200 sqm sun deck as the largest in her class, complete with an oversized Jacuzzi pool.
Lower down, a 6.5m pool has a glass floor that lights the beach club beneath, where gym, hammam and sauna open to the sea on three sides. Sleeping up to fourteen guests sleep in seven suites, there’s also a helicopter landing area on the foredeck for speedy entrances and exits.
AmelsYachting.com, @AmelsYachting
Wellness on the water: the floating retreat
The onboard gym used to be squeezed in wherever the space was available. Owners now ‘design vessels around how they would like to stay, to recover, healthy at sea,’ says Sanlorenzo’s Vincenzi, pushing gyms and spas from secondary amenities to the centre of their onboard experience.
Nixie by Lürssen
Delivered by Lürssen in June and designed inside and out by RWD, Nixie is owned by billionaire Revolut co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky. Focused on wellness and recovery, Nixie has a six-metre glass pool sitting proud of the deck, with an adjustable water level. Beneath it sits a 270 sqm beach club, which holds a gym, a cryochamber and fold-down sea terraces.
The sun deck is dedicated to the spa, which features a sauna, steam room, massage room and beauty salon, while the helideck doubles as a sports court. Edmiston offers her for charter at €2.4 million a week, making her the fourth most expensive charter yacht in the world.
Sea Raider X by ISA Yachts
Despite its sharp, sporty lines and name, Italian yard ISA’s new flagship, Sea Raider X is built for comfort as much as it is for speed. The main deck is built around a 6.5m panoramic pool, while the beach club has a hammam, a gym and a bar, and connects directly to the garage. Vallicelli Design drew the exterior and Enrico Gobbi of Team for Design the interior, which sleeps 14 guests in seven cabins.
Quiet and calm: silent running at rest
Quiet was a word used regularly at the Monaco show. Taken literally, it pointed to the increasing use of batteries and electric drives that let a yacht sit at anchor without the hum of generators. ‘No noise at all, no vibration,’ is how Vincenzi sums up diesel-electric.
The other is a matter of taste. Sanlorenzo’s chief marketing & communications officer Renato Bisignani describes the continuing trend of ‘stealth wealth,’ ‘a more quiet, non-ostentatious way of living’, among buyers who would rather own something discreet than something that shouts as it enters into harbour.
Raijin by Nautor Swan
The second Swan 128 sailing yacht to be launched and named for the Japanese god of thunder. Nautor’s Dual Energy system, developed with Danfoss, generates power under sail and stores it in a 189 kWh battery bank, which is enough for up to eight hours of fully silent running at anchor.
Germán Frers drew the hull and Lucio Micheletti the streamlined deckhouse. Inside, Misa Poggi, Antonie Bertherat and Heini Gustafsson pair bring Japanese and Scandinavian influences, with oak, white ash and rattan.
NautorSwan.com, @NautorSwan_official
SHE by Sanlorenzo
SHE might be the smallest yacht on this list but the statement is significant. SHE is the first in Sanlorenzo’s Heritage line, which brings the golden age of 1960s yacht styling back, only it’s underpinned with modern engineering. Zuccon International Project penned the retro-inspired exterior, while Piero Lissoni took the lead on the interiors.
Underneath lies the Volvo Penta’s IPS hybrid drive, a hull laminated with bio-based resins and an electric carbon-fibre tender. Inside are a full-beam owner’s cabin and a saloon glazed floor to ceiling. Sanlorenzo calls the approach ‘Tomorrow’s Timeless.’
The first five units within the Heritage Line were sold before SHE was unveiled, including one to former Ferrari executive Luca di Montezemolo.
SanlorenzoYacht.com, @SanlorenzoYacht
Yachts with jobs: work as well as play
Two of the biggest yachts moored up in Port Hercule proved that superyachts can also serve a purpose beyond pleasure. As well as supporting scientific expeditions, the biggest yachts serve as mobile executive suites, a perfect spot for a roving board meeting.
Leviathan by Oceanco
Billionaire gaming baron Gabe Newell’s new Oceanco-built yacht Leviathan was delivered in 2025, with naval architecture shared with Lateral and interiors by Mark Berryman Design. Newell also bought Oceanco that same year, so almost 3,000 people who helped shape her have had their names engraved on a glass panel on the main staircase.
But it’s the working spaces that set Leviathan apart. The dive centre, laboratory, hospital and a 3D printing workshop will be put to work in supporting marine research and diving programmes of Inkfish, an ocean exploration organisation.
OceancoYacht.com, @OceancoYacht
Draak by Oceanco
The second yacht in Newell’s portfolio in Monaco, Draak began life in 2014 as Equanimity, before a spell as Tranquility. Oceanco rebuilt her as Leviathan’s companion vessel, with a tender deck, a dive centre with a decompression chamber and a crew mess with a chef’s lab.
A 12.6-tonne crane and heavy-duty davits sit on deck, and 18km of new cabling runs through her. Many of her previous creature comforts were stripped to make her more functional.