Late last year, venture capitalist Tom Perkins decided it was time to put his megayacht, The Maltese Falcon, up for sale. He won’t say how much he paid for it—reports range from $150 million to $300 million—but now he’s asking $178,606,500 (give or take) for the slightly used yacht, which the builder delivered to Perkins in June 2006. Why is he letting it go after just a couple of years? The fun was in the planning, not the sailing.

“My pleasure comes from solving all the technical problems,” he says. “The Falcon was a huge challenge and is now a huge success.”

Among owners of megayachts (ships measuring 80 feet and longer), Perkins’ attitude is the norm, not the exception. “Guys who build boats like that are kind of peculiar to begin with,” says Bryan Murphy, a broker for Yacht Solutions, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “Many times they do a project like that for the experience, and after it’s done they want to move on to a new one.” In fact, that is exactly the case with Perkins. He’s moving on to a miniature submarine now under construction by famed ocean engineer and inventor Graham Hawkes; once the Falcon is sold, Perkins plans to commission another yacht to haul the sub around with.

That would seem to imply a glut of megayachts on the market and a dearth of buyers willing to take Perkins’ seconds. But industry insiders say the opposite is true, at least for the megayacht segment of the luxury-boat market.

According to Alayna Gossan of National Liquidators, the world’s largest boat-liquidation company, with the U.S. on the edge of a recession, repossessions are up compared with this time last year—for the smaller, cheaper, under-80-foot vessels. “A lot of people would like to sell their yachts but can’t,” says Bill Sanderson, a broker for Camper & Nicholsons U.S.A. in Palm Beach, Florida.

That’s not the case for megayachts. The global economic boom of the last several years has brought more buyers into the market from more parts of the world, resulting in overwhelming demand for new boats. “There are no empty slots in the shipyards,” says Alev Karagulle, director of marketing and communications for Burgess Yachts, which handles chartering, brokerage, and building for yachts measuring more than 130 feet. “They are all full, up to 2012.”

In fact, a relatively strong global economy is even helping the weakened U.S. building market, according to Jill Bobrow, editor in chief of Showboat International, the magazine of megayachts. Each year, Showboat estimates the length of the line of the global orders for yachts 80 feet or longer placed bow-to-stern. In 2004, the line measured 14.7 miles; in 2007, it reached 17.9 miles. This year, the line is expected to hit 21.5 miles. “Some from Europe are [building] in the States because the dollar is so low—and they have money, money, money, and lots of it,” Bobrow says.

Whenever you’re talking yachts, Russia inevitably pops up. Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich owns three, and nouveau riche Russians are eagerly snapping up yachts—impatiently. Once the builder has laid the keel of a yacht, it can take as long as four years to finish the boat. Some former Soviet-bloc buyers are purchasing positions in the order line; others in a greater hurry are simply buying used boats that are in good condition. “Now people will pay twice as much as they cost to build,” says Sanderson. “Especially Russians, because they’ve got a lot of money and they don’t want to wait.”

“A unique, top-of-the-line boat—you can sell it,” Sanderson says.

So how does one go about purchasing a preowned megayacht? First, a client meets with a broker to discuss his or her needs. Once the broker finds a yacht that piques the buyer’s interest, the next step is to make an offer. After the owner has accepted the price, the buyer usually puts up a 10 percent deposit to hold the yacht. The broker then brings in a team of nautical surveyors to inspect the boat from stem to stern and report back on their findings. If the vessel is deemed shipshape, the prospective buyer takes it out on a sea trial. If all goes well, he or she then writes a check.

“The process takes several weeks sometimes,” says Yacht Solutions’ Murphy. But for those who’d rather sail than oversee construction, that’s better than waiting several years. “A lot of people want something that’s turnkey,” he adds. “They can hire their captain and go anywhere they want to go, whereas someone commissioning a new yacht might be doing imaginary cruising for well over a year.”

And buying a used yacht doesn’t have the stigma of, say, buying a preowned Toyota.  

“The captains and the crews make the boats what they are,” Murphy says.