A refit is the point at which an owner has least control and most exposure. A new build is the same exposure stretched across many months, with the added difficulty that there is no boat to inspect until a great deal of money has already been committed. In both cases the yard is busy. Several trades are working to their own schedules. Decisions get taken on the shop floor because somebody needed an answer that morning. And unless there is someone present who knows what they are looking at, the first the owner hears of any of it is the invoice.

Oversight is not about distrust. Most yards do good work. It is about the owner having their own technically competent eyes on the project — so that questions get asked while they are still cheap to answer.

What tends to go wrong

These are the recurring ones, and none of them require anybody to be acting in bad faith:

Sequencing — work done in the wrong order, so something finished has to be opened up again
Scope drift — extras agreed verbally on site, priced later, and queried only when the final account arrives
Substitution — a different material or component fitted because the specified one had a lead time, without the owner being asked
Hidden work — the standard of what is behind a panel or under a sole board, closed up before anyone independent has seen it
Sign-off pressure — final payment requested against a list nobody has verified against the boat
Specification drift — on a new build, a boat delivered to a standard that is not quite the one ordered, noticed at handover when the leverage has gone

Before the work starts

On a new build this is the contract and the specification: what is actually included, how each milestone is defined, what happens to the delivery date if it slips, and whether the payment schedule matches the build sequence rather than the yard's cash flow. On a refit, the scope of works is reviewed against the vessel and against the quotation: whether what has been priced is realistic, whether anything obvious has been missed, whether the sequence of trades makes sense, and whether the specification is precise enough to hold a contractor to. Most disputes later on trace back to a scope that was vague at the start.

While it runs

Site attendance at agreed intervals, scaled to the size and pace of the project
Observation of workmanship and verification of the materials actually used
Photographic record of work before it is closed up
Progress tracked against programme, with slippage flagged early rather than explained late
Written reporting to the owner, in plain language
Contractor coordination on the owner's behalf, where that is wanted

At the end

A final review before sign-off and before the last payment is released: every quoted item verified as completed, the standard assessed, outstanding items listed, and anything still owed under warranty recorded while there is still leverage to have it put right.

New build, stage by stage

A new build is oversight with a longer horizon and more leverage. Payment is staged against milestones, and each milestone is a point at which the yard needs something from the owner — which is when questions get answered.

Stage inspections at the points where work disappears — hull lamination or welding, structural bonding, tank testing, machinery and systems installation, and cable and pipe runs before the panels go on
Yard visits timed to milestones rather than to the calendar, with a written report against the specification each time
Pre-delivery inspection and snagging, before acceptance and before the final payment is released
Sea trials attended, with performance and systems checked against what was contracted rather than against what is presented on the day
The warranty period — defects that appear in the first season documented and pursued while the yard is still obliged to put them right

Post-works inspection

Oversight throughout is the better option, but it is not the only one. Where work is already finished — by a yard you did not choose, under a previous owner, or while you were not there — a post-works inspection establishes independently what was actually carried out, and to what standard.

It earns its cost before a final payment is released, before a warranty period expires, or when buying a vessel whose recent refit forms a large part of the asking price. A refit invoice is a claim about a boat. It is not evidence.

If you are not there

Most owners cannot sit in a yard for three months, and the ones who can usually have better things to do. Remote owners are the normal case, not the exception: regular written updates, photographs of the work as it happens, and a direct line for the decisions that cannot wait. You stay across the project without being on site for it.

How involvement is agreed

Every project is different, so the level of involvement is set at the outset against scope, duration and complexity. A short yard period with a single contractor might mean two or three visits and a written summary. A multi-month refit across several trades means regular attendance, progress reporting and active coordination between the parties.

Refit & new build — FAQ

Refit & new build oversight