Yacht management

As yacht manager, Westmar takes on the running of the vessel. Crew are coordinated, technical condition is monitored, maintenance and repairs are planned, the budget is managed, and the yacht is kept ready for operation. The owner has one point of contact and one point of accountability instead of a dozen relationships to hold together.

Scope is agreed to the vessel and to how involved the owner wants to be — from a privately used yacht needing a monthly check and a seasonal report, to full operational management with crew, compliance and multi-party administration.

Core scope

• Crew recruitment and coordination — sourcing, MLC 2006 compliant employment, seafarer employment agreements, STCW certification and revalidation tracking, rotation planning, hours of rest records and payroll
• Technical supervision and maintenance planning — condition monitoring, planned maintenance, works coordination and defect tracking
• Budget planning and control — annual budget, management against it, and account administration
• Flag state and class management — liaison with the registry and the classification society, statutory and class survey windows, ISM and ISPS administration where the vessel is in commercial use, Port State Control readiness, and certification kept current
• Operational support worldwide — berthing, agents, suppliers, logistics and connectivity, wherever the yacht is
• Scheduling and itineraries — seasonal programme, itinerary planning, and owner usage calendars where the yacht is shared between owners
• Owner reporting — regular condition and status reporting, in English, Spanish, French or German

That list is the shape of the service, not its limit. In practice the role absorbs whatever sits between the owner and a yacht that works.

Financial management

• Annual budget preparation, and management against an owner-approved budget
• Full account administration — banking platform access, payment execution and corporate card programme oversight
• Cost tracking against budget, with variances explained rather than absorbed
• Accounting handover and liaison for statutory and final accounts
• Where records are incomplete, forensic reconstruction of historical accounts into an audit-grade ledger from bank statements, card data and invoices

Crew management

Crew are the largest recurring cost on most vessels and the largest source of liability. The administration behind them is handled properly rather than improvised.

• Recruitment, probation and termination, run compliantly under the seafarer employment agreement
• Employment via employer-of-record structures, with SEAs reviewed against MLC 2006 and corrected where they fall short
• STCW certification and revalidation tracked, along with ENG1 or equivalent medical certificates and any flag-specific endorsements
• Rotation planning, hours of rest records and payroll oversight
• Leave accrual tracking and resolution of accrued liability — routinely the item that surfaces unpleasantly at the end of a season
• Repatriation and wage security obligations under MLC understood and provided for
• Crew medical incident management, including hospital invoicing and recovery through the P&I Club or medical insurer

Compliance, insurance & claims

• Flag state administration and registry liaison, whether the vessel is on a Red Ensign Group register, Malta, the Marshall Islands or elsewhere
• Classification society liaison — Lloyd's Register, DNV, Bureau Veritas, RINA or ABS — with class and statutory survey windows tracked so nothing lapses
• ISM and ISPS administration where the vessel is commercially registered, and Port State Control readiness
• Compliance with the applicable yacht code — REG Yacht Code or its predecessors — kept in view when works are specified
• Hull, P&I and crew medical policy management through brokers and Club correspondents
• Claims handled end to end — assembling evidence, presenting the claim, and challenging a Club or underwriter position that does not hold

Berthing, suppliers & logistics

• Annual berth sourcing and negotiation across competing marinas, assessed on full comparative economics rather than headline rate
• Transient berthing, and defending bookings that come into dispute
• Agent coordination for cruising seasons and deliveries
• Supplier and contract portfolio management
• Communications and connectivity contracts, including VSAT and Starlink

Technical & maintenance

• Planned maintenance scheduling and yard period coordination
• Engine manufacturer service-agreement administration — extended coverage contracts, assignments, renewals and projected-hours reporting
• Defect tracking and warranty follow-up with OEM service networks
• Coordination of works, surveys and condition reporting

Shared and multi-owner vessels

Where a yacht is owned by more than one party, the administration is the part that usually causes trouble. 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 that decisions are documented rather than remembered differently.

Taking over an existing arrangement

Management can be taken on mid-season, including from a predecessor that has failed. That work has been done: records reconstructed from a fragmented handover, then banking, crew employment, insurance, berthing and supplier relationships re-established in sequence — crew and insurance first, since they carry the immediate exposure, then banking and suppliers, then the historical record.

It is not the normal starting point, and it is not the normal job. It is here because it shows what the service can absorb when a situation is not routine.

Yacht Management — FAQ→