More docks, bigger lifts. The bottleneck has moved.

Refit yards expanded their facilities in 2025 and 2026. Sycs Co-founder Raul Gonzalo explains why space is no longer the main constraint, and what is

Every refit conversation this year starts the same way: there isn't enough space. The figures back that up. SuperYacht Times recorded more than 2,600 refit yard visits by yachts of 30 meters and up in 2025, against an average of about 1,500 a year in 2019–2021. Some of that increase reflects better tracking, but most of it comes from the fleet itself, which grew by 800 yachts over 30 meters between 2022 and 2025 and is still adding about 200 a year.

The industry's answer has been infrastructure, and some of 2025's investments were impressive. One Italian yard expanded so it can host three yachts over 100 meters at the same time. A new 143-meter floating dock was launched in Naples. Turkey got a 900-ton travel lift, and Valencia has plans for a new dry dock. That's the right answer to the shortage SuperYacht Times sees as most serious, which is in yachts over 60 meters.

The data doesn't measure what happens after the yacht is hauled out. A yard slot is only as productive as the work you can get done in it. In refit, a large share of that work depends on parts that don't exist yet. A composite exterior furniture, new hard-top or a tender garage door on a yacht built fifteen years ago usually can't be stocked, because it was made for that one yacht. Someone has to measure it, re-engineer it and build it while the clock is running on the yard's schedule.

That's where I think the next stage of the capacity debate is going. A new dock adds one slot. Faster turnaround on bespoke parts frees up every slot you already have.

Here in Spain this isn't an abstract question. Spanish yards handled 16% of all refit visits recorded worldwide in 2025, and 19% in the 60m+ segment, just behind France. The yachts that put the most pressure on capacity are the ones coming to Barcelona and Palma.

At SYCS we work on exactly that part of the refit schedule. We start from the yacht's naval architecture and design skills we have and build the composite part in-house, so the part arrives when the slot needs it. More docks are good news for the market. My point is that the industry should spend as much attention on what goes into those docks as on the docks themselves.

Source: SuperYacht Times, The State of Yachting 2026.