But he believes China's new rich are at the vanguard of helping China rediscover the sea after 500 years.

Some foreign yacht companies believe China's new rich are at the vanguard of helping the country rediscover the sea. Provided to China Daily

Following the famous voyages of Zheng He in the 15th Century, later Ming emperors burnt boats in the harbor and followed a strategy of looking inward.

"China has an extraordinarily beautiful coastline but no boating and this will take one or two generations to bring it back," he says.

China's own boat manufacturers were in evidence at the show. If money mattered to some of those attending, domestically manufactured boats benefit from a lower duty of 27 percent, compared to 40.5 percent for foreign boats.

Jin Changdong, sales manager of Sease Yachting Company, based in Sanya itself, was selling new yachts from just 4.5 million yuan.

"With labor costs here lower too, we can produce a yacht half the price of the major European brands. The major cost of owning a yacht here is the mooring fees which can cost at least 13,000 yuan a month," he says.

Part of this year's exhibition was at the airport, where business jets were lined up at a very arid and blustery Sanya Phoenix Airport.

Steve Taylor, president of Boeing Business Jets, whose top aircraft sells for $295 million (204 million euros), had difficulty coping with the interest.

Models unveil luxury liquor at the Hainan Rendez-Vous show. Yin Enbiao / for China Daily

"I had three potential buyers on board at one time. The challenge for me was giving appropriate attention to each of them," he says.

"We have sold eight airplanes in China and in the past year Asia has been our strongest region, representing three quarters of our sales last year."

David Dixon, regional vice-president of sales for Canadian business jet maker Bombardier, had to conduct our interview from the cockpit, since the plane itself was full of potential buyers.

The company has recently had to increase its 10-year forecast for the number of all business jets in China by the end of the decade from 200 to 600. The target market is business owners.

"The people who own these aircraft usually employ lots of people. Chinese companies are increasingly going overseas to make investments and this is a useful business tool. One of our customers reckons he gets an extra month of productive time in the office as a result of having his own plane," he says.

Over in the harbor, Crump from Edminston is still looking for China's new rich. He says the international yachting industry is still heavily dominated by the North American and European markets and hasn't caught up with the China wealth phenomenon yet.

"Our market really needs educating. A Chinese businessman does not want to pay $250,000 to charter a yacht in the south of France for a week and find himself eating hamburgers but the yacht business is not set up yet to provide Chinese chefs," he says.

"When the yacht industry does fully embrace the Chinese, however, I think the market could go ballistic."

Liu Xiaoli contributed to this story.