Yacht management & owner representation — FAQ

Operational responsibility for the yacht. Crew are recruited and coordinated, technical condition is monitored and maintenance planned, the budget is prepared and managed, flag state and class obligations are kept current, and berthing, suppliers and logistics are handled — wherever the vessel is. The owner gets one point of contact rather than a dozen relationships to hold together.

As much or as little as you want. Scope is agreed at the start. For a privately used yacht that might be a monthly check, maintenance scheduling and a seasonal report. For a vessel in active use with permanent crew it means full operational management and regular reporting. The point is that nothing falls between the gaps either way.

Yes — all of it. Sourcing and recruitment, employment through employer-of-record structures, seafarer employment agreements reviewed against MLC 2006 and corrected where they fall short, STCW certification and revalidation tracking, ENG1 or equivalent medicals, rotation planning, hours of rest records, payroll oversight, leave accrual tracking, and probation and termination run compliantly under the agreement.

Yes. That means registry liaison — Red Ensign Group, Malta, the Marshall Islands or wherever the vessel is flagged — and liaison with the classification society, whether Lloyd's Register, DNV, Bureau Veritas, RINA or ABS. Class and statutory survey windows, certification and renewals are tracked, along with ISM and ISPS administration where the yacht is commercially registered, and Port State Control readiness. An expired certificate discovered the week before a passage is an avoidable and expensive problem.

An annual budget is prepared and agreed with the owner, and the vessel is then managed against it. That includes full account administration — banking access, payment execution and card programme oversight — with variances explained rather than quietly absorbed.

The incident is managed end to end: arranging care, handling hospital invoicing, and pursuing recovery of medical costs and wage exposure through the insurer or the Club. Left unmanaged these become slow and expensive, and the owner usually finds out when the invoice arrives.

Yes, end to end — assembling the evidence, presenting the claim, and challenging a Club or underwriter position that does not hold. Hull, P&I and crew medical policies are managed through brokers and Club correspondents.

Annual berth sourcing and negotiation across competing marinas, assessed on full comparative economics including any sublet income rather than on headline rate. Also transient berthing, defending bookings that come into dispute, and agent coordination for cruising seasons and deliveries.

Yes. Operational support is provided wherever the vessel is — agents, suppliers, berthing and logistics are coordinated remotely, with attendance in person where a situation warrants it.

Yes. Usage calendars are operated with week allocation and peak and shoulder balancing, budgets and capital calls are coordinated across owners, and the interface between day-to-day operations and the legal entity that owns the vessel is managed so decisions are documented rather than remembered differently.

Yes, including mid-season and including from a manager that has failed. That has been done: records reconstructed from a fragmented handover, then banking, crew employment, insurance, berthing and supplier relationships re-established in sequence. It is not the normal starting point, but the position is recoverable.

Independent. No referral fees or commissions are taken from yards, brokers, contractors or suppliers. It is the same principle the survey work rests on: if the manager is paid by the people they are meant to be scrutinising, the owner is not represented.

Quoted case by case, scoped to the vessel, the ownership structure and the level of involvement required. Get in touch with the details and a proposal follows.