Within the BOATPro app you will find the digital version of Boat International's renowned Global Order Book. In this article we will explain more about the process behind the Global Order Book, and why the digital version is different to the print editions you may have seen previously.
History of the print Global Order Book
The first Order Book was compiled in 1999 by Showboats magazine (now known as the Boat International US Edition), We have continued to produce the Global Order Book every year since, improving upon the process each year. Traditionally, we produced a full print report published in the January edition of the magazine. After the launch of BOATPro in September 2017, Boat International started printing a summary of the order book in print, with the full version made available only in BOATPro.
How we collect the data
We survey all known active shipyards building at least one superyacht (defined as a luxury yacht at least 24m in length overall) on a regular basis. We supplement this with information derived from press releases and our network of contacts within the industry.
We include only yachts that are under construction, or projects that are on hold but still have a projected delivery date. We do not include concepts or projects that have stalled completely.
In order to deliver the print edition in January, we compile an annual version of the order book data in the preceding September. This means that the printed order book contains some yachts that will already have been delivered by the time you read the print version.
Why the digital Global Order Book is different
The digital version has no time limitation - as soon as we find out that a yacht is delivered then it can be removed from the order book. And if we find out about a new yacht build after our print deadline then it goes into the database immediately, and will be counted right away.
This means that the projects you see in the online Global Order Book might differ to print, and the total yachts per yard will also change throughout the year as deliveries come through.
The digital Global Order Book explained
The digital Global Order Book is a ready-made BOATPro dashboard containing data tables, charts and scorecards with top-line information about global construction trends. The contents are as follows:
Global Order book data table - A table based on all yachts under construction or on hold with a known projected delivery date
Average Gross Tonnage scorecard - the average across all yachts in the order book
Average Beam scorecard - the average across all yachts in the order book
Largest LOA scorecard - The Length Overall of the current largest yacht in the order book
Average LOA scorecard - the average Length Overall across all yachts in the order book
Top 20 Largest Yachts chart - a bar chart showing the top 20 largest yachts by LOA descending
Most popular Engine manufacturers table - a table showing the engine manufacturers with the most engines on board yachts under construction, sorted in descending order by yacht unit volume
Semi-custom models under construction table - a table showing only semi-custom/production yacht models by unit volume descending
Top 20 Builders by units chart - The yards with with the most yachts currently under construction, sorted by unit volume descending
Motor Yacht vs. Sailing Yacht chart - A comparison bar chart of the main yacht categories within the order book based on unit volume
Top 10 Countries of Build chart - The countries with the most units under construction, sorted by unit volume descending
How can I build my own order book reports?
Sometimes you might want to explore the order book data yourself, in order to add data fields not provided in the standard report, to filter by certain criteria, or to use a different delivery date range. There are two options for you: customise an existing report or create a brand new report. Let's look at customisation first.
Customising the order book
If you click on the Order Book data table on the dashboard then you will see the full table for the Order Book, and it will look like this:
Clicking on the right-hand sidebar will open up the fields and filters menu:
You can learn how to add your own filters using our guide on how to filter data.
Building your own report
If you haven't already done so, we recommend familiarising yourself with the basic concepts of working with data within BOATPro:
Here's a quick guide to finding the construction data within BOATPro.
1. Add yacht name and other required fields to a data table
Here we have added Length Overall, Country of Build, Builders and Build Date to get us started.
2. Apply construction filters
The Global Order Book is based on yachts under construction or on hold with a projected delivery date. There are other yachts in the database with no projected delivery date, so the results need to be filtered to generate an accurate result. You can use the date filter option 'in the next n months' to include only yachts expected for delivery after the current day. This also has the advantage of being updated automatically, so you don't need to change the report every time you log in. Here's the filter configuration:
And of course you can add more filters on top of this. For example, if you want to filter by Expedition Yachts only then you can add:
For more guidance on filtering options, you can refer to our guide on how to filter data.