IMO Rules & the Future of Superyachts

Some superyacht owners, especially first-time buyers, assume the rulebook stops at one country’s border. That belief is exactly where expensive surprises begin, especially as operational and sustainability expectations collide with hard law.

We talk through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN body that sets global maritime standards through treaties that flag states adopt and enforce. We connect the dots to the frameworks that rarely get explained clearly: SOLAS for safety, STCW for crew training and watchkeeping, and MARPOL for pollution prevention. Once you see how these rules shape everything from certification to minimum manning, it becomes obvious why “I’ll sort compliance later” is not a viable project plan.

From there, we move into the emissions roadmap that is pushing owners, builders, and designers to think in advance of upcoming decades. We discuss the industry’s shift toward greenhouse gas reduction targets, the drive toward net zero by 2050, and the 2030 reality that zero-emission or near-zero-emission solutions are no longer theoretical. Fuel cells, hydrogen readiness, hybrid propulsion, solar support, hydrogeneration, wind-assist concepts, and even nuclear solutions are on the table. But, we also get honest about the constraints, especially global infrastructure and the risk of greenwashing. We also explain why the Superyacht Builders Association (SYBAss) having a seat at IMO meetings matters, because if yachting is not represented when shipping-first rules are written, yachts can end up paying for it.

Subscribe for more practical yacht-law and yacht-compliance breakdowns, share this with an owner or project team, and leave a review if it helped. What part of the IMO environmental rules do you want us to unpack next?

Have a yacht law question? Email it to info@megayachtnews.com or michael@moore-and-co.com for your chance to have it answered on our podcast. All requests for confidentiality and/or anonymity are respected.

Hiring a lawyer is a big decision. Visit Moore & Company for the legal team's qualifications and experience.  And, to learn the latest about superyacht launches, shipyards, designs, and destinations, visit Megayacht News.

Transcript

Four Years Of Yacht Law

Diane M. Byrne 0:41

Welcome, everybody. Michael, good to see you.

Michael Moore 0:44

Greetings. Good to be here. Thank you.

Diane M. Byrne 0:46

So it occurred to me just before we started chatting that here we are halfway through 2026 and halfway through our fourth year of the Yacht Law podcast.

Michael Moore 0:59

Wow.

Diane M. Byrne 0:59

I know. Isn't that insane?

Michael Moore 1:01

It is totally insane.

Diane M. Byrne 1:04

It's all good. It's insane in a good way. We've educated a lot of people. We got great feedback on the podcast. So uh here's to four more outstanding years.

Michael Moore 1:12

And it's amazing. You learn something new every day in our complicated, uh complicated little and wonderful industry. Maybe not so little, but it's always new people, new wealth, new ideas, how they see the world, what are they trying to achieve. They've created their wealth on certain levels. My colleague Casey Flitman just came in and was talking about one of our yacht buyers, and she had learned that he was the head of a restaurant chain. So he's made his wealth in the restaurant business. But now he's gonna, he's he Sunday, one day you wake up and realize, wow, maybe I should have a little meeting. And so he's buying a yacht, and it turns out it's not a small yacht. This is a 320 gross tons yacht. So it gets into that larger category of he's a U.S. national, so can you flag into the United States? It's this thing we talked about last podcast. But yeah, so today we are into a different and wonderful aspects of our industry as it really won't just be a follower, it will be a leader in the world. Because our industry can do whatever the principal player that we all in some way or form, one way or another, work or find what they want to do. Or I guess the proportion systems on oil energy or what that goes sensitive or carbon and free carbon footprint, all these ideas about what they want to do with their yachting experience.

Diane M. Byrne 2:57

With that experience and the increasing emphasis on carbon footprints, emissions, etc., um, when you and I had talked recently about this episode and the idea of talking about IMO regulations when it comes to the environmental footprint, it was it really was the perfect idea. When you look at what's been going on, really just the past several months in the industry, there have been multiple significant launches and deliveries of super yachts with true leading-edge technology, fuel cells,

Why Emissions Now Drive Design

Diane M. Byrne 3:36

perfect example. And thinking about a little bit deeper, these owners, the designers, the naval architects, the builders they've worked with, none of them woke up some random day and said, Yeah, what the heck? I'm just gonna put fuel cells in this boat, or I'm gonna put some leading edge technology, or I'm going to invent a technology out of thin air. This was all well thought out and well planned, years and years in advance, and truly in anticipation of what the regulatory environment was going to be, because as we'll get into the details, when you look at those IML rules for emissions and other environmental-oriented uh standards, there were rules that were put into effect that need to be effective, I should say, in 2030 and in some cases 2050. So they're they're looking way down the road. And that in turn gives us the opportunity to talk about what they're looking at, what these rules actually say. As much as we'd all like to think that every shipyard, every designer, and every owner, of course, is 100% benevolent and looking to be a pioneer. The reality is that they're doing some of what they're doing because they have to. You don't build a multi-million dollar yacht to use it for one year and then say, oh wait, now it's obsolete because of the technology. Oh, what the heck, I'll just buy another note, a yacht. No, they they want to use the yacht for a long, long time.

Michael Moore 5:07

Right. That's right. I think it's since there's the this is the yacht law podcast, and you might say the yacht industry podcast, in a sense, as it relates to the law and the laws that govern the industry. If I may suggest a three-part approach, I would start off with what you led with, which was what's been happening in the yacht world in terms of the what have been referred to as planetary boundaries, echo propulsion, sustainability. In the yachts that have been sort of, you know, you wake up one day and you see these yards all doing this. We could talk maybe a little bit about each one of the big yard yachts that have been c that are coming out of the yards. Can't help but notice they seem to be kind of like one per yard. And then roll into maybe a comment, a little bit of a comment on cybass, which I think is the way you pronounce it. I know I think that's the right way to pronounce it, because if you say sea bass, they used to be called the dogfish. They renamed it sea bass to make it more marketable. But anyway, go with cybass, sea bass, whatever it's called, but their role in the industry, representing the 20, some, maybe 23, 24 yacht builders, more in the large size, and then how they enter their principal contribution being the their relationship with the IMO. And then we'll talk about the IMO, which is the legal structure, that invisible legal structure to most of the world that actually governs everything that occurs in the yacht world in terms of construction, safety, and oil pollution, and the safety of life at sea issues, commonly known as SOLOS.

Diane M. Byrne 7:02

Actually, I think it might be helpful if you talk about IMO first and then keep the trajectory you're thinking. The reason I'm saying that is because I've talked to some individuals, some family offices, some owners' representatives, an owner's project manager, but say a private representative. And some of them are under the impression that they only need to comply with a specific country. And I said, Well, yes, but no. So if you could explain a little bit about actually what the IMO is and how countries relate to it, that I think would be good.

Michael Moore 7:39

And then Absolutely. Yeah, no, I think that's that's a very good way of going about it. The IMO is this massive organization that is the International Maritime Organization. It started out like a lot of these things do, as just it was all about shipping. It was the agency of the United Nations, which is to say, every nation on earth that's a member of the United Nations, which is still a significant, if not 100%, there's some relationship of all nations on earth to the United Nations. It sets standards.

What The IMO Really Is

Michael Moore 8:21

It's mostly about safety, security, environment and the environment. But it and it's but it was virtually initially, and it seemed to me forever, it was all about shipping. The core mission was to deal with shipping, what moves by by ship, whether it's fuel, like in the terms of tankers or the yachts that burn oil. It's all about what IMO regulates.

Diane M. Byrne 8:54

Yeah, that's good. That's good. Because they seem to be some confusion with some of the in the individuals that I was speaking with. And that's those questions really came from individuals who are coming into this market for the first time. I've actually spoken to a couple of shipyards about this too, that we've seen a really interesting development in the industry where there are some individuals who have never owned a boat of any kind and are suddenly buying super yachts. So there's a huge education gap there. So that's why I thought it would be really helpful to talk about the IMO.

Michael Moore 9:25

Absolutely. And I think that when you start off the all these treaties, this is the way the IMO creates change. Basically, whatever comes to through the system, it somehow become gets to the IMO level. At the end of the day, it has to end up in a treaty, which is a way of speaking of the signatories to the law. That's the those the combination of those signatories is a treaty. And then that treaty is brought ashore, so to speak, brought to the country, the individual country, not because they just ratified it or signed on to it, but it actually has to be, there has to be that country element as well that's been part of the overall process that ratifies and adopts the treaty as law in the country where it's implemented. So now obviously, if you're into yacht world or shipping world, you're talking about things that move around. But the principal subject areas and the things that I think people would know, they may not know where they come from, but they've heard of SOLOS, the Safety of Life at Sea Treaty. Every vessel that floats of any size whatsoever is subject to the SOLOS rules. To some extent. There are levels, a lot of the things that IMO passes start out at very high levels, say 5,000 gross tons. Now 5,000 gross tons is pretty big and it's a volumetric it's a volumetric measurement, of course. We think in terms of yachting as 300 gross tons is the break point for the larger yachts, but five thousand gross tons is the ships. Now, so every ship on Earth flies a flag. They don't they're not stateless, they have their flags, and there are there's a global regime that deals with that. That's how you get the names on the back of the boats, and it's the carving and marking of the transom of yachts and ships, I should say, all vessels, is part of the IMO regime. Every ship must be carved, it must be marked, and in certain ways, in certain places, interior and exterior, all vessels. At just one example of what the IMO is responsible for. So they get into uh the STCW, which is the standards for training for seafarers. It's seafarer training and watch keeping, is really what it's about. There are actually two courses that almost every soul who works on a yacht has those two certificates. They certainly have the one certificate, which is the initial certificate that actually you must have to be on board a yacht, to be an abled-bodied seaman. And then there's a second course that you take to get a second certification, which is watch keeping. So if you're in a position on a yacht where you actually are standing a watch on a 24-7 basis, of course, you have to have those two certificates, or you cannot fulfill your function on board. And then you have this MarPOL rules, which talk about a firestorm. It's beyond the scope of this broadcast, but Marpoll, this maritime pollution, technically the prevention of pollution from ships act. And you'll see in the this, particularly the SOAS rules being employed, for example, in all vessels that are classed. We hear this all the time in the art world, is it in class? And this is one of the regulatory agencies that checks for the safety of the vessel. Right. Those are the big ones. I think the ones that are coming up now that we're kind of started you and me talking a week or so ago was the regulations that have to do with reducing greenhouse emissions and the standards that IMO are has already set, and the goal is a net zero goal. But it starts out, as I said before, in the in the Arab world as an expression, that's how you end up sleeping with a camel. Because if

SOLAS STCW MARPOL In Plain Terms

Michael Moore 14:29

you don't, you'll end up sleeping with that camel. He'll work his way into the tent and you'll never be able to get him out because he's too big and it's too strong. So you have to whack it the first time on the nose, and camel will back out. So IMO starts as starting on the Zebroid Medicians with a 5,000 gross ton threshold. So it will only impact the biggest vessels out there. Right. But you can rest assured that it's gonna, in due course, it'll get all of them. It'll work its way all the way down through the vessels.

Diane M. Byrne 15:02

Yeah, because when looking at any regulation, really historically, not just the IMO's regulations, things start can tend to be on a a sliding scale or an increase in scale, I guess you could say. So you start off with a modest level for a lot of people, and then you start to raise that threshold up and up to continue to raise the bar. So yeah, and and that's really what it seems like these regulations are too, since the the full net zero, even though that is for the largest volume vessels.

unknown 15:34

Right.

Diane M. Byrne 15:34

And some superior actually do fall into that category. Some of the biggest of the the overwhelming majority are in the close to zero, or I think they call it near zero threshold, which is still frankly pretty pretty strict. I think it actually, I wrote it down because I want to make sure I get this correct. Um, by 2030, the greenhouse gas emissions should be to the point where five to ten percent of shipping energy, including yachting, will need to come from zero emission or near zero emission solutions. So we're talking about things like biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells, methane fuel cells. There's I know there's been chatter about possibly LNG, because LNG has been used in the commercial sector for some time. So that's that that's still a pretty high bar of yacht owners, yacht builders, designers.

Michael Moore 16:31

It's totally.

The Net Zero Path To 2050

Diane M. Byrne 16:33

But the interesting thing is that there are, like we were saying before, there are several yachts, and I think you wanted to talk about some of them too. There are several yachts that already have met that 2030 standard, that regulatory environment. So it is possible. It takes an owner willing to really push the envelope, put the money forward for it, the right yacht builders, the right designers, right naval architects.

Michael Moore 17:02

Exactly. I think that I can't begin to do it justice, but one of the foremost naval architects and designers, Espenwina, has been all

Fuel Cells Hybrid Solar And Nuclear

Michael Moore 17:12

over talking about nuclear. He has these small modular nuclear devices. It might be worth an entire episode just to understand what he's about. Obviously, he's a designer architect, so somebody with substantial resources has come along and said, okay, I'd like to put a nuclear and it's just that the numbers are amazing. You go five years without a refuel. It's like, oh it's just it's breathtaking. But they've gone to the probably what someone maybe see as the number one architect, designer, implement a vision to be ahead of the power curve. That's just an example. It's just one example that I'd let them actually know more about because it is it's not just anybody, it's a guy that's substantial and he has uh as a substantial client. I don't know the yacht that he's working for. Do you happen to know that the answer there? I have no idea.

Diane M. Byrne 18:12

Yeah, I I don't know the yacht name. It's one of those projects that I think is being kept confidential for a number of reasons. But yeah, yeah.

unknown 18:21

Yeah.

Diane M. Byrne 18:22

But when you were talking about the research that's going into that, that made me think about what Larson has been doing on the fuel cell side. They have been participating for several years now in a government-funded program that is purposely out there to develop better and more hydrogen fuel cells for a variety of different craft, not just yawning. And there was, I think we can safely say a little bit of disappointment when, and I hope I'm not going to butcher the name Nausica was delivered that she's not operating on them, but she has the space available for when the technology is where it it needs to be for the owner's comfort, for the awning industry's comfort. And I think part of the issue for that, it's not that the technology doesn't work, and it's not the IMO saying, no, we won't honor this, we don't believe that this is safe and effective. It's really infrastructure globally.

Michael Moore 19:29

Right.

Diane M. Byrne 19:29

That's the holdback.

Michael Moore 19:32

Yeah, I think I think that's right. I think when you start drilling down to the Nausekas, these large yachts. I'm not gonna I remember when it was Project Cosmos that was so mysterious. And here's this brand name builder can seem seemingly do anything. And to hear these reports, maybe it's got the place, the space, but maybe it's not quite there yet on the technology. And I think that we're we kind of conflate all of these concepts. I think a lot of the chatter is about fuel and it's about propulsion, and it's generally about hydrogen. I'm just saying. And then they have little some have little wrinkles, but it seems like hydrogen, there's this expression green hydrogen, which I have no idea exactly what it means. But then how much of this do you use to actually run the ship as opposed to the hotel services? Some of it is cryogenically stored to do short distance cruising, the milligrams, not just hotel load, but short distance cruising. But yeah, I think the things that it just seemed to me that uh all the yards seemed to have their one boat. Fed ship was breakthrough and Vitters was I think it's called Zero. Reef has its solar power. Black Pearl, which is the ocean coast, has again all harvesting in some manner energy. And I'm I think that is a large part of what we're talking about. I mean, that's that is the ballgame, I guess I'm reading and thinking about.

unknown 21:18

Yeah.

Michael Moore 21:19

You mentioned the other day, by the way, you had knowledge about Savannah. That was the original pioneer in hybrid technology, but you had something to say about Savannah, right?

Diane M. Byrne 21:29

Yeah, Savannah, um Savannah was certainly one of the first, the first motor yacht, I think you can safely say, to really start to push the technology. But Royal Houseman, and of course, right now I'm drawing a blanket I'm gonna be scolded by the people at Royal Houseman for forgetting the project.

Michael Moore 21:50

Oh my gosh.

Diane M. Byrne 21:53

I'll have to go back and put it into the show notes um from the Megat News archives. I'm terribly embarrassed. But Royal Houseman had a yacht that had the same system.

unknown 22:03

Okay.

Diane M. Byrne 22:06

A board. So Royal Houseman technically was the first shipyard to deliver a private yacht with this type of system.

Michael Moore 22:14

Oh, okay.

Diane M. Byrne 22:14

But to get to to get back to something else that you had said before, I I I feel so excited that I can actually be the educator as opposed to the educatee asking all the questions. So you said you actually weren't sure what green hydrogen means. I don't having having had to write about this, I actually know. So green hydrogen, there's also, I believe, what they call gray hydrogen. So green. Indicates that it is produced from a clean method. Or there are ways of producing hydrogen that are good for the environment, and there are ways that are not necessarily good for the environment. They are of higher emissions, they have a more detrimental impact. But just suffice it to say, that there's a higher detrimental impact. So green hydrogen is it's a production method whereby you're not inadvertently harming the environment in trying to

Green Hydrogen And Unintended Consequences

Diane M. Byrne 23:11

be nicer to the environment.

Michael Moore 23:13

Unintended consequences.

Diane M. Byrne 23:15

Exactly. Exactly. Because that is the wrinkle in so many things. The unintended consequences. And I think that's also part of the issue for the advancement of all these technologies. People look at a technology and say, oh, that's great. But then once you start diving into the details, you say, oh, it's not so great. Or maybe it's not right application for the particular situation. Like that one of the most common misunderstandings about hybrid propulsion, say diesel electric or something along those lines, is that, oh, it's automatically cleaner. It's not automatically cleaner. It depends upon how it's being used. So one of those little wrinkles that you learn about the more you dive into the subject.

Michael Moore 23:57

Well, that's very helpful because I think, and again, a couple of expressions we hear greenwash or blue wash. And I think what it means is people claiming that they're doing things that are great for the environment. When you dig into what you just mentioned, not necessarily. So we have to we have to trust people. Sometimes it is trust. I trust, for example, the Fedship people, I trust the Lursen people. Because I've dealt with them for years. I can't say that for everybody in our wonderful industry. And I'll just what's that old expression? If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, but or the corollary, if you can't say anything nice, sit next to me. But yeah, I think a lot of these groups that have gone up front, like Vitters, like Fitzhip, like Lursen, like Royal House, I think they're another wonderful brand. Now they're in the sailboat business, so that's almost an inherently wonderful, sustainable catch the wind. But they haven't left it there. They haven't just stayed with that. They've they're going beyond that and using their wind their technology and their the rotor sails, the Magnus effect, you know, the and the kite harnesses, all these very exciting things that cut fuel consumption by 10 to 30 percent. So that's a great way of changing the world. You don't just consume and clean, but cut it at the beginning. And I think the sailboat people are the ones that are really making the big technological breakthroughs in that regard.

Diane M. Byrne 25:42

Right. Speaking of Royal Houseman, I had to look it up because it was gonna bother me.

Michael Moore 25:48

Go for it.

Diane M. Byrne 25:49

So the the hybrid yacht that they delivered was Ethereal in 2009. So technically, yes, a sailing yacht, but nonetheless, she was the first super yacht in the more modern time with a more advanced hybrid system on board. So there you go. I feel better. Now they won't crucify me.

Michael Moore 26:09

Well done. Well done.

Diane M. Byrne 26:11

But all of this, all of this discussion about how builders and owners and designers are really exploring things that are way beyond the norm in our industry and how it all ties to regulation is pretty fascinating because it it's almost like a chicken and egg argument to some degree, I think, because yes, the regulation dictates the levels, but how you get to those levels is really the difference. There's no one method. So you need people to look and to push and say, what else can we do? Okay, hydrogen fuel cells, that's one option. What else can we do? Hey, is nuclear the way to go? Is is is solar the way to go? Is hydrogeneration the way to go? That's what one of the technologies that the sailing at zero is relying on is hydrogeneration. Well, that's been around for a really long time. So how do you assess each one individually and collectively and against each other and say what's the right path to go? That's where all the innovation ends up coming at the end of the day.

Michael Moore 27:19

I did want to give a shout out to a somewhat maligned organization in the yacht world, in my view, that may not be completely justified, and that is Cybass and how they fit into this entire global regime that we're now experiencing.

Diane M. Byrne 27:39

Absolutely. I think it's a good education for people to understand what it's all about.

Michael Moore 27:43

I think that's part of the I think the thing about Cybass um that it's not a it's not an old old organization. It was a spin-off, the International Super Yacht Society. It was

CYBAss As Yachting’s Voice At IMO

Michael Moore 28:00

the technical committee. And I think that fact alone has caused some misunderstanding because the parent group lost its technical committee. They got, and it may have been called the larger yacht committee or something, but anyway, it's actually been around in some form since about 2007, I believe. But 2013 was the the year that it earned its keep, so to speak, in the yacht world. There are a lot of super yacht builders out there, and only 24 or so are members of Cybass. It's a trade association. And so, right out of the box, if you weren't a super yacht builder, you're like, well, you know, it's nothing for me here. But I think in 2013, it changed, it's morphed into something when it decided to become a member of the IMO, the organization we talked about earlier. And that is that that status, nothing's free in this world, you to be in a consultative relationship with the IMO, it costs about 40 grand a year. But what do you get for that? Well, you get there to wield your influence. Now that's that whenever they start gathering to change the maritime regulations and they're focusing on cargo ships, you better be careful because the super yacht industry is indistinguishable in many ways to people that are changing the rules, and they don't really care. They look different, they have unique designs, different operational profiles, and just have an entirely different role in the world. So that's where Cybass actually does shine. It does attend these IMO committee meetings. I don't know who they send exactly. I've never really understood. There's only been a very small group of people associated with Cybass, but whoever whoever's in there at a given time has in fact been that voice of the yacht world. I think they kind of overstate their role a little bit in the sense of saying they don't really represent the yacht world writ large, but they do represent the builders of the major yachts. So if IMO starts to fiddle with that in some way that makes no sense for yachting, the Cybass is the front line of that change. So I wanted to mention, because all this stuff that you're hearing now that we've been talking about, you don't just get up and start building. You have to build according to the treaties, you have to build according to the regs, the Solos regs, the Marpole regs, and the um, and by the way, you've heard of minimum manning requirements. Every yacht that's built has a minimum manning requirement. That is how many people have to be on board that serve as crew. So technologies change. And now, speaking of which, for a future conversation, Diane, unmanned vessels is probably maybe the biggest power curve in the in the IMO world because they're dealing with it in shipping. You see it being used in warfare, you see it over into the Iranian war. So that's an IMO thing. Before you can just go out and start operating vessels with the latest technologies for remote usage, you're gonna have permission effectively. Because again, every flag state in the world, I'll try to link this out, every flag state in the world has a seat at the IMO table.

Diane M. Byrne 32:01

Cybass being at that table is crucial for not just the yacht builders who are the members, but the yachting industry overall, because ultimately what affects them affects everybody. And they it's like that old saying if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the table. Yep.

Michael Moore 32:17

Maybe they sliced and diced and sprinkled with minced onion.

Diane M. Byrne 32:22

You never know. Exactly. Exactly. And it's that world of unintended consequences, once again. So it's it impacts everybody. Well, I think that's a good note to leave off on as a another way to wrap up. We could say everybody, if you have a question about other aspects of the IMO regulatory world, other aspects of the manning requirements, even the environmental requirements that we were just discussing, let us know. Our contact information is in the show notes. Michael and I are here to answer your questions as always, and we thank you for listening. And Michael, again, as always, I will give you the last word.

Michael Moore 33:00

Thank you for that. Uh it's the shortest, fastest 40 minutes in yachting. And it's always a pleasure having these conversations with you, Diane. Thanks for all you do.

Diane M. Byrne 33:10

Thanks. I enjoyed too.

Questions From Listeners And Closing

Diane M. Byrne 33:11

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll talk to you next time.