Think of a private members’ club. What comes to mind? Perhaps an image of a Georgian building in St James’s. Maybe a turn of the century tower block on the Upper East Side of New York, with an Ivy League crest emblazoned above the front door. But a superyacht? It’s certainly not the standard location for such an establishment.
This hasn’t dissuaded Mercedes, however. The German carmaker – and, more specifically, its upmarket Maybach division – has announced a collaboration with yachting business Splendid Sea to create the Maybach Ocean Club, a floating private members club aboard a 155m superyacht.
This would not be the first seaborne private members’ club, however. Launched in 2002, The World Residences at Sea is a superyacht consisting of 165 private apartments. The most expensive residences aboard the ship are worth up to $15 million and prospective residents are expected to have a net worth of at least $10 million, according to CNN. Most residents spend three to four months per year on board the ship, according to The World.
More recently, plans have been revealed for a similar but entirely new residential superyacht, Ulyssia, which was announced at the Palm Beach International Boat Show in 2024. The 320m vessel is slated for completion in 2030 and was scheduled to begin construction in 2025 – although this appears to have been delayed. At any rate, cabins won’t come cheap. Single-room residences start at around £7.7 million, meanwhile £70 million will buy a six-bedroom apartment. Residents will be able to design their share of the ship’s 122 private residences to their own tastes. At 320 metres long, it is the same length as most commercial cruise ships and it is slated for launch in 2030.
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The Maybach Ocean Club will differ from The World and Ulyssia in terms of what it provides its passengers. Instead of uninterrupted access to the yacht, members will each have four weeks to spend on board the ship per year. Set to launch in 2029, there will be up to 300 members, but space for only 60 guests aboard the ship, spread across 30 suites.
But it is very much not ‘a timeshare’ model, says private members club expert Jamie Caring, who advised on the membership and community-building element of the club.
‘The thing that makes it a club, and not a timeshare, is the huge cultural and social elements of being on the yacht,’ Caring tells Spear’s. ‘It is a travelling community. I have certainly not been involved in building a community for a project like Maybach Ocean Club before.’
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Caring emphasises the need for a carefully curated membership in order to build a strong community feeling at Maybach Ocean Club.
‘In a broad sense, we want people who are ambitious, confident, accomplished, and have achieved a degree of success to join the club,’ he says. ‘This will mean that they are comfortable in themselves and don’t have anything to prove. If the club were to become really competitive, the communal feeling where people hang out together would be lost.’
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The process of handpicking prospective members is already underway. Of the 300 members overall, Caring predicts that two thirds of them will be US-based, owing both to the amount of wealth in the country and Americans’ interest in yachting, especially on the east coast. The other third will primarily consist of those based in Europe, as well as the Middle East and Asia.
The club aims to cultivate an open-minded membership base, who are likely to get on with one another. ‘If you are sailing with people you can sit down and chat with, you get lost in a conversation, and before you know it it’s dark outside and you are still sitting in the same seat, they are great people to sail with,’ Caring says.
Furthermore, diversity is at the forefront of Caring’s mind when seeking out members for the club.
‘It is really important that we curate the community well so that there is a degree of diversity,’ he says. ‘For example, we are passionate about making sure a large proportion of the community are women. We don’t want all of the guests to be women, we want the members to be women too.’
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Members will certainly have at least one thing in common: they are expected to have a net worth ranging from $30 million to $500 million.
Maybach Ocean Club will operate under a shared ownership model, where each member is also an investor. The club would not provide an exact membership price, but said that the initial membership fee would be in the low seven figures. After this, an annual fee of around 5 per cent of the initial investment will cover operational costs such as port fees and fuel, crew and insurance.
The yacht is co-designed by the team from Mercedes-Maybach and the design motifs of the luxury car manufacturer can be seen throughout. Rose gold, which is a signature metal of Maybach, reflects light around the interior and exterior of the vessel, in a way that is reminiscent of a sunrise or sunset. The interior of the ship is furnished with the same beiges and creams which are used in the upholstery of their cars. The ship’s cream exterior, while aligning with the colour palette of the interior, was chosen for more practical reasons: a colourful veneer requires regular repainting.
One of the main appeals of Maybach Ocean Club is that guests get the experience of a superyacht, without the responsibility, says Captain Matthias Bosse of Splendid Sea.
‘The Maybach Ocean Club offers a sophisticated alternative to yacht ownership – essentially the superyacht lifestyle without the usual responsibilities,’ Bosse tells Spear’s. ‘With a generous staff-to-member ratio and private suites offering expansive sea views, the experience is designed to feel every bit as personal as owning a yacht, simply without the burden behind it.’
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In fact, the staff to member ratio is planned to be 1:3, with the crew being available to support a vast range of amenities. The yacht will have a fine-dining restaurant, spa and treatment rooms, a fitness centre and yoga studio with personal trainers, as well as a helicopter for private use and airport transfers.
A 70m shadow vessel – which is the size of a large superyacht in its own right – will accompany the main vessel, carrying technical equipment and some of the staff, freeing up space aboard the mothership. For example, it will be able to arrive at a private beach three hours before the main yacht, allowing staff to set up food, drinks and water toys – and then stay behind at the end of the day to clear everything up.
For the club to come to fruition, 200 members will need to invest in the project. The target is forecast to be met later this year. If and when this happens, one of the three northern European shipbuilders being considered by the founders will begin construction. The vessel is scheduled for completion as soon as 2029.
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