Join Chief Marketing Officer at YATCO, Onno Ebbens Palm Beach International Boat Show 2025, as he sits down with two veteran voices in the superyacht industry: Thom Conboy of Heesen Yachts and Toby Maclaurin, Chief Commercial Officer at Ocean Independence. Filmed at the exclusive YATCO SkyLounge, this conversation dives into decades of experience, lessons from the deck to the boardroom, the importance of crew and client relationships, and the evolving role of tech and AI in yacht brokerage.
Featured Image Credit: Hill Robinson
Table of contents
- Video Transcription:
- Opening Remarks and Guest Introductions
- Thom Conboy’s Background in Yachting
- Toby Maclaurin’s Journey into the Industry
- From Boatbuilding to Brokerage
- Working on Boats in the Early Days
- The Evolution of Crew Professionalism
- The Importance of Crew in Yacht Transactions
- Emotional Drivers Behind Yacht Ownership
- The Impact of First Impressions and Industry Professionals
- Closing Transition: Leading Into More Insights
Video Transcription:
Opening Remarks and Guest Introductions
Onno Ebbens:
“Good morning, good afternoon, good evening—wherever you are in the world when you’re watching this episode. We’re at the YATCO SkyLounge. It’s day two of the Palm Beach International Boat Show, and I am here with two very interesting gentlemen who are going to share their life stories. This is all about life stories. But before we do that, I’m going to ask them to introduce themselves very quickly. So, I’m going to hand you this microphone—Thom, go ahead.”
Thom Conboy’s Background in Yachting
Thom Conboy:
“I’m Thom Conboy from Heesen Yachts. I’ve been in the industry since 1979, so I guess that’s like 45, 46 years now, and a variety of roles. You know, I started out like a lot of people—running boats, sailing background—running boats for probably about eight, nine years. And then I transitioned into the building end of it at shipyards. Derecktor in Mamaroneck was my first kind of intro into that—project manager on the floor.
“From there, I was a partner in a yard called Windship Trident in Tampa, Florida, and from there Intermarine in Savannah, Georgia for a dozen years—a yard that I owned with a money backer. And from there it’s been Heesen, as far as a representation of Heesen in this hemisphere. I also do a lot of new build with clients over the years and brokerage I do with Ocean Independence.”
Toby Maclaurin’s Journey into the Industry
Onno Ebbens:
“And we’re going to go a little bit deeper in a second on that. On my other side, I’ve got Toby, and Toby basically said that Thom invented the industry. That’s what you said in our pre-chat.”
Toby Maclaurin:
“Well, I think so. I think Thom did invent the industry—because I mean, I’m still like 17 years behind you somehow. I mean, I’m 30 years in the business. I just kind of figured out…I don’t think either of us look that old. But it certainly shows that there’s a lifetime of career to be had in this business, which hopefully attracts a lot of young blood to come into the industry as well.
“I mean, we’ll dive into it shortly. Yes, I’m Chief Commercial Officer at Ocean Independence—been with Ocean Independence now for 16 years. So, I mean, a good chunk of my time has now been in the superyacht business. But it didn’t start that way. I’m a failed boat builder.
“When I look back at how I…fell out of school and didn’t know what to do and just wanted to sort of, you know, muck around with boats.”
From Boatbuilding to Brokerage
Onno Ebbens:
“So you actually built boats at the shipyard, and you failed at it—is that what you’re trying to tell me?
“I mean—I don’t want to put you on the spot—you’ve got a lot of talents!”
Toby Maclaurin:
“But like…[Thom’s] a good boat builder! I left school, I had no clue what I really wanted to do. And I got a job in a local boatyard that specialized in restoring old wooden yachts. I sort of quickly learned that I was quite good at taking stuff apart. But putting it back together again was…a bit of a challenge.
“The guys there—the craftsmanship was amazing—but I was never going to achieve that. And it was very cold in the winter.
“One of the yachts we were working on, the owner ran into some tough times financially. They put the yacht up for sale. I met my first yacht broker, and I thought, ‘Hey, you know, this is cool—I don’t have to work with my hands, but I still can do what I can do.’
“So, I said, “Well, you know, can I come and work for you at weekends? I’ll carry the ladders, I’ll make the tea, the coffee for the clients, and if you sort of teach me about your brokerage, I’d really appreciate it.
“I mean, kind of a leaf out of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, really.”
Working on Boats in the Early Days
Onno Ebbens:
“Fantastic. Well, that’s a good story. But you started on vessels, if I got that correct? So just walk me through—1979, if I remember well—how was it working on boats?”
Thom Conboy:
“Wow. Different than it is today, that’s for sure. I was in school on the west coast in California. Dropped out of school, went on a sailboat to Hawaii. I decided this was kind of my passion.
“Came back—the first real job I had—I worked on a Baltic trader called THE RAGLAN, which was owned by the musician Neil Young. I worked on that for about 3 years.
“Transitioned into more motorboats. I mean, I worked on a 106-foot Feadship called LE BELI VET. I was on BLACK KNIGHT, a quite famous boat. Did the America’s Cup.
“Ran into this guy, Steve Nichols, who was building a boat at Direcktor’s called OBSESSION and started working with Bob and Paul and Tommy Direcktor in Mamaroneck, New York. We were building a lot of the racing sailboats—1987 with STARS AND STRIPES that won the America’s Cup, BOOMERANG, OBSESSION, MITSAR, ENCORE—some pretty famous racing sailboats.
“And I kind of stayed in the shipyard end of it. And now, many years later, I’m more involved—over the last 20 years—with crew.”
The Evolution of Crew Professionalism
Onno Ebbens:
“Let’s talk about the good.”
Thom Conboy:
“The good thing is that there’s a high level of professionalism. People that have chosen this as their career—they’re serious about it.
“If you take, say, an 86-meter boat that has 28 positions, with rotation, that’s 44 crew members. You do a two-on, two-off with the upper 14, and three-on, one-off with the lower 14. The lower 14—we call them, not badly, but they’re like backpackers—they’re trying to figure out where they’re going in life because they’re in their 20s. Some of them will make this their career, some will move on to the next thing.
“It’s a great way for people—from South Africa, England, Australia, Eastern Europe—engineers…a great way to travel, make money, meet people, and maybe find your direction.
“If it’s boating, it’s boating. That upper tier—they’ve already made it their choice. Those people are more professional than they were back in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s—because of the schooling and the requirements now.”
The Importance of Crew in Yacht Transactions
Onno Ebbens:
“That makes total sense. And I mean, I’m talking to two school dropouts—pretty much.
“So, I guess I’ll move to Toby quickly. Obviously, you’re selling vessels, but just mentioning crew for a second—how important is it? What happens more often: do you sell a vessel, and they look at the crew, or do they just buy the plain vessel and look for another set of crew themselves?”
Toby Maclaurin:
“If it’s a first-time buyer, they’ll look very closely at the crew.
“There’ll be lots of questions: will the crew transition across? Would they be available? Is the seller going to go on and have another yacht? Or could they at least help us feel comfortable on this yachting journey that we’re about to start on?
“Of course, if the seller is immediately moving on to something else, then yeah, we might need to support a lot with finding crew.
“I think sometimes we forget how much we all depend on each other in this business. We need to really support each other in delivering an ownership experience that keeps owners in the business and brings more owners into the industry.
“I cry a bit when I hear that an owner is exiting the industry because of frictions with brokers, or crew, or shipyards, or management companies.
“It’s mostly down to poor communication. A lot of it can be just down to the fact that we’ve not supported each other or worked together.
“This is what we should be aiming for. Overall, we deliver an experience like no other—but there’s always room for improvement.”
Emotional Drivers Behind Yacht Ownership
Onno Ebbens:
“Let me ask you a quick thing—and then I’m going to ask you the same question. With your experience—because buying a yacht is completely different from buying real estate or a house—there’s a completely different emotion behind it, right?
“That’s what I’m told, and I’m not a sales broker. How would you describe the emotion behind buying a yacht?”
Toby Maclaurin:
“It’s an emotionally driven thing.
“It’s part of a lifestyle decision. It’s part of deciding what is important for you, your family, and your time off—what is going to work for you.
“It’s incredible—you might have walked on board 20, 30 different yachts in different locations with a potential buyer—and then you make that final connection. You see the eyes light up.
“And it’s our job to facilitate the purchase, the use, and the management of the yacht, and just really make it as easy and seamless as possible.”
The Impact of First Impressions and Industry Professionals
Onno Ebbens:
“Okay, do you want to add something to that?”
Thom Conboy:
“Well, I think if you’re introduced to the experience of yachting, that’s the starting point. You’ve been on a friend’s boat, maybe read about it—however you’ve gotten to that destination of buying a boat. It starts probably sometimes with chartering a boat or being on a friend’s boat.
“It can go really, really well and you stay in a long time. Or it can go really, really bad and you get out right away. That really depends on the people that you meet in the initial stages of getting in.
“Whereas we just talked about the crew and their professionalism—I would say there’s a real lack of professionalism in the sales and charter brokers. There are some really, really good ones, and a great deal of really bad ones.
“The bad ones are bad because they don’t have the knowledge. You can’t be 25 or 30 years old and represent something you don’t have enough knowledge of.”
Closing Transition: Leading Into More Insights
Onno Ebbens:
“Thank you for building that little bridge, because that was what I was moving towards. I’m here with two gentlemen who have a ton of experience, and we were speaking before—this is probably one of the few industries in the world where experience actually counts.
“But on the other hand, we have a lot of young people that are either on vessels at the moment, want to move ashore, or are starting their career in brokerage—or might be watching this thinking like, ‘Wow, that’s a nice little industry, the superyacht industry. Maybe I want to become a sales broker.’
“I got a really good way to do it, and I’m going to ask you.”
Thom Conboy:
“So yeah, I got a real method that you should do. And if you don’t do it, you probably won’t be very successful.”
Onno Ebbens:
“Well, go for it.”
Thom Conboy:
“The first thing you should do is go work on a boat. You should go work on a boat for quite a few years and learn about this product that you’re attempting to sell. Otherwise, you’re just like a lot of these people that think they know what they’re doing. And the crew—keep in mind when you’re selling a boat, that crew that you’re interacting with, they know the boat. They know the boat better than you know the boat. So, you better have knowledge and experience that brings you up to that level.
“And that’s where it really falls apart. If you talk to most yacht crew, they have no respect for yacht brokers. There’s a reason for that. They watch them. They watch them, and they watch what they don’t know. So, they see it firsthand.”
Onno Ebbens:
“And would you say that’s for charter brokers and sales brokers?”
Thom Conboy:
“Well, charter is a little different, because I think the charter brokers—you kind of must be… there’s a lot more of a concierge-type service there. You know, with the preference sheets and the whims and likes and dislikes of the owner—I mean, the charterer. And you know, there’s a charter manager and there’s a retail charter broker.
“So, I think if you get to be a charter manager, you’ve already had some schooling or you’ve worked under a charter broker. And I’m not trying to bash sales brokers, but we do see an awful lot of them that don’t have a clue.”
Onno Ebbens:
“Okay, well I don’t have an opinion, guys, I’m just interviewing—so don’t shoot the messenger. But what I like is that they’ve got strong opinions, because that will at least lead to conversation.
“Toby, you want to add something to that?”
Toby Maclaurin:
“I do. I mean, I do agree with Thom on a lot of that. And certainly, to sort of try and see it as a career path—not necessarily to go, ‘Okay, I’m going to come in at the top.’
“Yeah, I mean, try selling smaller boats first. You know, try working for a boat dealer, doing some new boat deals—which was, in fact, my path initially. I mean, selling 20–30-foot sailing yachts on the UK South Coast. And you do a great volume of deals in that way, and you’re learning your craft.
“Yes, the bigger yachts are more complex, and the contracts are more complex. But the principle is still the same in trying to be a matchmaker between the right yacht and the right buyer and communicating through that process to make it all work.
“My concern now is it all revolves around a digital world that we live in now, which I think, in a way, almost makes a potential buyer’s life really quite complicated. I mean, there’s so much content out there. How do you know what’s true, what’s not true? How do you know what has been genuinely posted or what has just been created just to try and put you on a hook?
“And, you know, the influencers—yes, but how are they influencing you, and where are they influencing you to? We like to think that we are an advisory company. We sell information.”
Onno Ebbens:
“Yeah, you sell information. Because like, I’m—okay, we’re going to end with something. Let’s look to the future, right? And because we have a reputation for a people-driven industry.”
Thom Conboy & Toby Maclaurin:
“Agreed.”
Onno Ebbens:
“Good. But now we’ve got social media coming in, we’ve got AI coming in. What does that mean to the brokers? Are you going to adopt it? Are you going to use it? Is it going to change the way you do things? I’m going to give you a microphone, you a microphone, and just tell me: how do you see that? And then I’ll end with my personal opinion.”
Thom Conboy:
“I definitely think that AI and social media—they’re already here. So, we already see what that’s doing. And that’s—you have your own opinion one way or the other on that.
“AI, I think, is a game changer. Because again, we just said: selling information. What is 40 years of experience? It’s knowledge, and all of that. If you can obtain that knowledge in a much more condensed time frame, then you are going to get to a different level—it’s logical. Quicker. Period.”
Toby Maclaurin:
“No, I think all the technology—you should use it to be able to more clearly communicate and, as you say, get that knowledge across to buyers and sellers and charterers and new people coming into the business.
“But in the same breath, we’ve got to get more personal as an industry and hide less behind WhatsApp messages and DMs and millions of emails.
“And the art of picking up the telephone, or just saying, ‘Guess what? If you’re interested, I’ll come and meet you. Let’s have a coffee.’ I mean, that—we seem to be losing that slightly. And this business is so personal, because this is how people spend their valuable family time.
“So yeah, in everything that we do, we mustn’t forget to keep it personal. Keep it personal.”
Onno Ebbens:
“I think that’s a beautiful thing you said. I mean, let’s face it—social media is here to stay. AI is going to be a really good source. It’s a learning tool that is going to be an amazing source of intelligence, as you said. But again—we’re a people business, aren’t we?”
Thom Conboy:
“Oh, I mean, absolutely. Without doubt.”
Toby Maclaurin:
“Yeah. Would you agree with that—we’re a people business?”
Thom Conboy:
“Oh yeah. Relationship business.”
Toby Maclaurin:
“100%.”
Thom Conboy:
“100%—especially the bigger the boats get. It’s a relationship business.”
Onno Ebbens:
“Good. Okay. What I took from this—because I could talk with these guys for hours. I’m not going to do so because I know that we have a boat show to go. So, I took from this: there’s a lot of experience. They’ve got great stories. Find them. Ask them about their stories—they seem very willing to share their stories.
“There’s a future in sales brokerage. They have their opinion on how to get there. You can have your own. But I think what’s nice is—just like, I really enjoyed this. I love the stories.
“So, thank you so much, guys, for doing this with me.”
Toby Maclaurin & Thom Conboy:
“Thank you.”
Onno Ebbens:
“Cheers. Thank you, Toby. Thank you, Thom. Have a great day. Have a great boat show.”
