Only boats at least 120 feet long can hold a sub, which typically costs between $2 million to $7 million. Manufacturers of the deep-sea vessels say many of their clients are wealthy enthusiasts.Charles Kohnen, co-founder of the submersible manufacturer SEAmagine Hydrospace, estimates that there are 200 manned vessels worldwide. Some are used by scientific institutions, others for tourism. But a growing number belong to a select group of yacht owners.
While a ticket aboard a submersible tour, like the one that ended in tragedy this year en route to the Titanic shipwreck, is too pricey for most people, owning a submersible requires another level of wealth and boating infrastructure.
Only sufficiently large yachts — at least 120 feet — can hold a sub, which typically costs between $2 million to $7 million (not including the cost of a crane to lower the sub, the speedboat needed to board, and services like mapmaking and guides that can run about $15,000 per day).
“It’s not like a fancy car,” Kohnen said. “It’s more like a $5 million spacecraft.”
Just as having a helicopter and launchpad on a yacht was hot in the 1980s, Kohnen said, getting a personable submersible is increasingly a thing for the wealthy.owners, sees a similar trend. “You have a mega-yacht, a super yacht — a submersible has become the next thing to have,” he said.
Deep-sea explorations have a growing fan base among the elite. The filmmaker James Cameron and the billionaire investor Ray Dalio have both donated vessels to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and invested in the submersible manufacturer Triton Submarines. Dalio said it was about discovery. “The ocean is the greatest resource we have,” he said. “It’s twice the size of all continents combined — and underexplored.”
Some submersible owners lend out their vessels for documentaries and scientific research, while others are in search of never-before-seen species or want to explore shipwrecks. And there is a kind of mixed-use model that is versatile for everything from an underwater wedding to cocktails on the reef, dinner or a poker game, said Craig Barnett, Triton’s director of sales and marketing.
The personal submersibles industry has grown with the size of yachts. When SEAmagine started in 1995, mostly robots were used for deep-sea scientific work because lowering submersibles into the ocean with people inside was unwieldy, Kohnen said. The company built a model that could be boarded from the water, and this relaunched an era of manned submersibles for science and tourism. Around 2005, SEAmagine got its first yacht commission — and competition. Another submersible manufacturer, U-Boat Worx, started operations in the Netherlands, and Triton soon followed. Yachts were becoming bigger, but, Kohnen said, people were also starting to value experience-seeking over luxury.
Making “the moment.” Where to dive and how long an expedition lasts depends, but an adventure can take months of planning to scout, map and set up. SubMerge has coordinated five expeditions with three different private clients this year, Ketter said, and the company works with about six luxury travel firms, including submersible manufacturers.shined a harsh spotlight onThey realized that the start-up sector offered both new services for the disabled and viable business models that could scale because of developments like Medicaid reimbursements. McKelvy and Olanoff left the foundation last year to start their firm. Its backers include Brian Jacobs, a longtime investor who runs Moai Capital, who told DealBook that the founders’ connections “are definitely unique and valuable.”
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