Can yachting go mainstream?

Sail Korea CEO Kim Dong-young speaks during an interview at the Alpari World Match Racing Tour Korea Match Cup Media Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. / Courtesy of PR ONE

By Jung Min-ho

Yachting has yet to catch on as a mainstream sport and leisure activity in Korea, but Kim Dong-young, CEO of Sail Korea, feels it’s only a matter of time.

After all, this is a country that inhabits a peninsula and is home to a world-class shipbuilding industry that is desperate to look for new markets to exploit.

After studying boatbuilding at Unitec and working in a yacht-building company for four years in New Zealand, Kim saw a tremendous business potential in the sport that most Koreans have long overlooked, if not misunderstood.

With Korea’s shipbuilding companies facing ferocious challenges from emerging Chinese counterparts, the 41-year-old, who is hosting the Alpari World Match Racing Tour Korea Match Cup in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, from May 29 to June 2, said yacht-building can be a new vision for Korea.

“Yachting has perhaps the greatest ripple effect from a business viewpoint,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times. “While football only takes a ball and shoes to play, for the water sport, people need a yacht that cost from 3 million won ($2,661) to many billions.”

Kim said the size of the marine leisure industry, which covers making yachts as well as related products, is close to that of shipbuilding which is worth 57 trillion won worldwide, according to the International Council of Marine Industry Associations’ data in 2009.

“When climbing became very popular here, such equipment producers grew rapidly as well. Many companies sold from clothes to alpenstocks. If you look at yacht gear, however, it costs at least three times more than climbing clothes.” Kim said. “For example, cleats, a device for securing ropes, for yachts are almost 10 times more expensive than for ships. They are pretty much the same with just different finishes. Do you see the potential now?”

Kim refused to consider buying yachts for the Korea Match Cup and, for this year’s competition, all the yachts were made in Korea.

Jung sees himself more as a yacht racer than a businessman. His decision to host the contest here since 2008 has changed his life.

“We planned to participate in the 34th America’s Cup, which will be held this summer, last year, but we had to give it up after failing to find a sponsor,” Kim said. “I felt we needed a step-by-step approach to reaching the goal. That is what motivated me to host the event here.”

His plan faced opposition as public perceptions about yachting was it is a “luxury” and “patrician” sport that the government should not spend “ordinary” taxpayers’ money on.

“I’m glad Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-soo took my idea as a vision for a new business rather than a sporting event,” Kim said. “Besides, although it is an international event, it costs much less than other things such as the Formula One (F1). The budget for the Korea Match Cup is just about 2 billion won.”

A dearth of public knowledge about yachting is still his biggest challenge.

“People as well as even reporters barely know what it is,” Kim said. “But they will.”

With the world’s best shipbuilding technologies and its rising national image, Korea can reach the level of strong yacht-building nations such as the United States and New Zealand, he added.

About worries his dream to turn Hwaseong into a hub of marine sports may end up like the F1, which has lost more than 100 billion won over the past three years, Kim said the result will be different because the sport will grow with the industry.

In fact, next to Jeongok Marina, the event venue, a marine leisure industry is already under construction. Sweeping aside the initial concerns that people would be interested in the new leisure activity, newcomers these days have to wait to get a mooring for their boats or yachts there.

“Ultimately, my goal is to win the America’s Cup. And that will totally make a difference,” Kim said.