The two-day meeting was attended by a broad cross section of the megayacht industry, with designers, builders, operators, classification societies and regulators all having an input.

The MCA says it will use comments from the meeting to produce a second draft, which will be circulated for further industry comments.

The MCA hopes to publish the revised code in April 2003.

In a move to boost UK superyacht designers, builders and equipment suppliers, the British Marine Federation (BMF) is to step up its support.

"We have many members that service the superyacht sector, " said BMF chief executive, John Clarke. "We want to build a UK superyacht brand."